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Whole 30 starting 5/26


befabdaily

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I'm back from all my travels and starting my Whole 30 today. I've been practicing eating this way for a couple of weeks, and my house is clear of temptations.

Starting status: female, 43, a little overweight, plagued by minor digestive disturbances and constantly stuffy nose. Family history of weird digestive issues. Regular exerciser -- Zumba, belly dance, Convict Conditioning bodyweight exercises, and daily long walks. For the last year or so I've been inexplicably fatiguey. My doctor recently ruled out thyroid issues and unnoticed internal bleeding, which put me in "solve it yourself" territory. This spring I added the bodyweight exercises to my routine and cut back on the cardio, and looking for info got me looking at paleo as well.

I started the day with a big cup of coffee with 3 tbsp of organic coconut milk, and a breakfast of 2 eggs, 1/2 avocado, and 1/2 sweet potato.

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Now I'm off to the farmer's market to see what I can lay my hands on to eat this week.

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I don't know if anyone else on here is from Charlotte, but in case you're looking for local resources, here's where I went shopping today.

  1. The Kings Drive Farmer's market. This is a low-priced open air conventional produce market run by Simpson's Produce. They have a good selection and good prices. Locally grown stuff where available plus non-local to round it out. I always get my conventional produce here in the summer. Plus, they have Salem Hills Farm vending grassfed beef (yum) and free range chicken.
  2. The Atherton Mills Farmer's market. This is the chi chi Farmer's Market where everything is totally local. You can get things here like naturally fermented pickles and a wide variety of good quality meat. I got some pastel colored eggs with dense golden yolks for not too much more than my usual eggs at Trader Joe's, and a whole black bass.
  3. Super G Mart. Yes you have to go to Independence Blvd for this but -- it is a great source of things like Aroy-D brand sulfite-free coconut milk for $1.49 a can, and weird beef parts for bone broth. I also got a giant tub of Nanak brand ghee.

Foodwise, I finished out the day with:

lunch: a tasty chicken breast a la Well Fed, freshly acquired red pepper and kohlrabi cut into strips and eaten as is, and a locally grown peach, with a blob of coconut cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon

dinner: pan-seared sea scallops (about 8), a cup of tomato salad with balsamic, and a 2-egg plum omelet (which was fantastic)

Now there's oxtail based bone broth in the crockpot and sweet potatoes in the oven to keep me going for a while.

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Ugh, so today was a weird day for eating.

Got up this morning and really wasn't hungry. Had my 6 a.m. coffee with coconut milk, went out for a 2 mile walk, did some short sets of bodyweight squats. Still wasn't hungry. Had some bone broth and went to Trader Joe's. There is a whole lot of Trader Joe's that you don't need to buy when on Whole30, but I still needed some avocados and cat food.

Still not hungry.

I made a small plum fritatta because that was so good last night I figured I'd be able to eat it. Yum yum.

A couple of hours later, made some scallop/avocado/mango salad and just could. not. choke it down. And then my stomach and I had a moment. Several times. I ate a sweet potato in mid-afternoon because I could. I'm sort of body-hungry but stomach-irritated.

Days like this are part of why I went on the Whole 30 in the first place. Normally at the end of a day like this I would eat a bowl of plain rice with yogurt and lime juice and salt, which is a trick for restoring gut harmony that I learned in India. It works, but obviously it won't do right now. What's the Whole30 equivalent I wonder?

I am retreating into another kind of comfort food for dinner. I have a big pot of meat sauce on the stove, with grassfed burger and the ox tailmeats from the bone broth pot mixed in. Tomatoes are my ultimate go-to desert island food. I almost feel guilty about how many I eat because I love them so much. When in doubt, spaghetti, but for me it's all about the sauce, not the pasta, so tonight I'm just going to put it over some zucchini or spinach or something. Or maybe eat it plain.

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I made sure to eat some of my naturally fermented pickles from the pickle guy, today. I woke up feeling much better, though, and totally hungry and able to eat.

  • Breakfast: 2 eggs, 1 small avocado, about a cup of cherry tomatoes, about 1/2 cup blueberries with coconut cream, coffee with coconut cream.
  • Snack: a closed handful of pistachios
  • Lunch: crab cakes (4 small), about 2 cups of baby greens with pumpkin seed dressing, peach with coconut cream
  • Snack2: a closed handful of pistachios, 3 cherry tomatoes, 4 pickle spears
  • Snack3: coffee with coconut cream, mini LaraBar
  • Dinner: 1/2 of a large roasted black bass, more greens

Exercise today included walking 2.5 miles, 105 incline pushups and 75 fingertip wall push ups.

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Today's been a good day. Not too hungry, not too cravey, nose not stuffy. I always exercise in the morning after coffee (with coconut milk) but before breakfast.

Today's exercise: 3 mile walk, 3x50 short bridges, 4x30 standing calf raises

  • Breakfast: 2 eggs, 1 small avocado, 1 small Ataulfo mango, 1/2 sweet potato
  • Lunch: About 1.5 c. cooked asparagus, 1 c. meaty tomato sauce, 3/4 c. blueberries with a few tbsp. of coconut milk
  • Snack: Tea with coconut milk, closed handful of pistachios
  • Dinner (is going to be): Green curry chicken breast with red pepper and zucchini, oven roasted giant mushroom "fries" a la Nom Nom Paleo.

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Day 5 went smoothly. Livin' is easy because work is closed and I just get to write from my home office. I'm a little less hungry today despite more cardio than usual...does that mean I'm starting to actually burn some fat?

Today's exercise: 3 mile walk, 1 hour Zumba

  • Breakfast: plum frittata, coffee with coconut milk
  • Lunch: 1.5 c. green curry chicken with veggies, artichoke, 5 small radishes, 3/4 c. blackberries with coconut cream
  • Snack: big handful of olives, avocado and tomato salad
  • Snack: post-Zumba mini Lara Bar (damn, these things actually taste good -- I have always hated energy bars, but it's good to know that there is emergency food out there that I won't have to choke on).
  • Dinner: pulled pork, 1/2 sweet potato, salsa

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Day 6: This was a low activity day, only had time for a short (1.5 mile) walk.

  • Breakfast: Apricot frittata, pulled pork
  • Lunch: Larabar (some Ph.D. student scheduled her proposal defense over lunchtime)
  • Early dinner: pulled pork, sliced tomato, sliced radishes
  • Late snack: blackberries with coconut cream, closed handful of pistachios

Limited exercise + eating the pork for breakfast along with my eggs made me feel super-full all day.

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Day 7: Today's the first day I had any carb cravings. It's not like I really wanted some specific thing, either, although visions of caramel corn popped transiently into my head. It's just that by evening I really feel like eating something carby, and my body rebelliously does not want to have any more meat right now.

  • Exercise: 3 mile walk, 75 one-armed vertical pulls each side (morning), 1 hr Zumba class (evening)
  • Breakfast: 2 eggs, avocado, spinach and cherry tomatoes sauteed in ghee

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  • Morning snack: fresh strawberries with coconut cream (it is really hard to resist fresh from the market berries...)
  • Lunch: pulled pork, sliced tomatoes, sliced radishes
  • Afternoon snack: closed handful of pistachios
  • Post-zumba snack: Larabar
  • Dinner: small sweet potato -- going to see how this sits and maybe make an egg or something later on.

Am I totally off the reservation here? Is it because of the extra evening cardio?

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One of the things that I secretly hope comes out of this Whole30 is that I maybe no longer need to be on daily steroids for asthma. I am prescribed Flovent, though I always try to be a noncompliant patient and use less of it than prescribed, and I have an albuterol rescue inhaler. I think I am feeling less need for them (along with my sinuses gradually feeling a bit clearer) but I haven't really been tracking. For the rest of this thread I'm going to keep track of when I feel the need to use the albuterol, flovent and also claritin.

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Today was a double Zumba day, lots of cardio just because dancing builds a little birdhouse in my soul. Plus I like to sweat.

  • Breakfast: coffee with coconut milk, 2 eggs, avocado, 1/2 sweet potato
  • Pre-ZumbaI snack: about 1.5 cups of bone broth with lemon and salt
  • Pre-ZumbaII snack: Larabar, more bone broth, about 1/2 c. strawberries with a couple of spoons of coconut cream
  • Lunch: pulled pork, oven roasted green beans, fresh sliced tomato
  • Dinner: about 3/4 c. strawberries, 2 eggs

I'm an inveterate food logger, so I did plug this into my Fitbit food tracker and I kind of wonder if I'm eating enough food. I feel fine, but if I were eating this many calories of normal diet I'd probably be ragingly hungry right now. Fitbit thinks I've eaten about 1800 calories, with 86 grams of carbs.

No drugs at all needed today.

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Today I walked four miles, did 150 bodyweight jackknife squats, and played around on my StreetStrider for a while.

  • Breakfast: coffee with coconut milk, a couple of slices of chicken breast, avocado, 1/2 c. strawberries, 1/2 c. cantaloupe
  • Lunch: large Primal Pac, sugar snap peas, coffee with coconut milk
  • Snack: green olives, a little meat from the bone broth pot
  • Dinner: oven-roasted eggplant, meaty Bolognese sauce, about 1/2 c. cantaloupe

I took one precautionary weaning puff of Flovent today, and a Claritin.

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Last night I had to go to bed at 9:15, and I slept pretty much like a rock all night. I have this weird thing where I can feel muscle soreness in my sleep, but then when I actually stand up and get out of bed I am not nearly as sore as I thought. It doesn't happen all the time. I take nights like that to mean that I have, perhaps, exercised a little TOO much and I need to chill. So this morning I just went for a slow 2 mile walk.

Breakfast: 2 eggs scrambled with green olives, sliced tomato, small avocado, coffee with coconut milk

Lunch: roasted chicken thigh, oven roasted green beans

Snack: Crio Bru with coconut milk, 1/2 cup green olives

Dinner: oven-roasted eggplant with meaty bolognese, 2 small raw kohlrabis

I did need a puff of emergency inhaler at 4 a.m., and tonight I'll take a precautionary puff of Flovent because of that. Spring allergy season is the worst especially since the crepe myrtles just started flowering. My sinuses are a lot clearer though and a gloopy feeling that I had developed in my ears lately is all gone.

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Well, in my case, it's basically a flat omelet with fruit baked in. I chop up a couple of small fruits, sprinkle with cinnamon, sizzle them in ghee over medium high heat until they soften, and then pour a mix of 2 eggs and a few tbsp. coconut milk over. Then turn down the heat, put a lid on the pan and let the eggs cook.

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I think this was not a great day foodwise, not sure why, I'm having a hard time remembering what I ate. It was rainy this morning and I didn't go for my usual walk, just did a bunch of push-ups. Taught a belly dance class after work tonight.

Breakfast: coffee with coconut milk, bone broth, scrambled eggs with spinach and green olives, avocado, 2 small golden kiwis

Lunch: 1/2 sweet potato, roasted chicken leg

Snack: Lara bar (I didn't take quite enough lunch to work and it was all I had)

Dinner: Crio Bru with coconut milk, green curry chicken and vegetables, blackberries

Post belly dance snack: bone broth

I'm pretty sure that was everything. I took a Claritin this morning because my eyes were sticky.

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I think I'm going to have to go ghee-free, my friends...I have cooked some of my foods in ghee rather than coconut or olive oil for the last couple of days, and my nose started to stuff up again. After the last few weeks, I'm pretty convinced that that problem, at least, originates with dairy.

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Today I had my first social eating challenge and prevailed!

Breakfast: coffee with coconut milk, 2 eggs scrambled with spinach and olives, small avocado, bone broth

Lunch: roasted eggplant with meaty bolognese, sliced fresh tomatoes

Snack: 1/2 Larabar (carrot cake version -- yum)

Dinner: Ted's Montana Grill with people from work. Bison steak, grilled asparagus, sweet potato. I just asked them to leave the "finishing" butter off the steak and leave butter off everything else, and it was no problemo. Paleo approved!

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Today was the second part of a social eating challenge (on a business trip with the boss).

Early morning: Primal Pac and 1/2 Larabar (I came prepared)

Breakfast at event: Pineapple and watermelon slices, fresh tomatoes, a couple of bites of scrambled eggs that tasted milk-ish so I stopped eating them (this is why I came prepared)

Lunch: Larabar (my boss had gotten sick so we didn't stop for lunch on the way home)

Late, late lunch: 2 eggs scrambled with green olives, small avocado

Dinner: sliced red pepper strips, huge cup of bone broth, 1/2 sweet potato with coconut milk and a few walnuts

I haven't needed any asthma meds, but have been taking Claritin

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Today was a pretty normal day:

Exercise: walked 4 miles total, worked on pull-up progression (one-armed verticals, and horizontals)

Breakfast: 2 eggs, small avocado, sweet potato with coconut milk and a few walnuts, coffee with coconut milk

Lunch: 2 small apricots, roasted chicken, snap peas

Snack: tea with coconut milk

Dinner: ground beef patty, sauteed zucchini with olives and marinara sauce

I'm not sure why I'm still hungry after eating all this. I've noticed hunger returning and the appetite suppressant effect of paleo wearing off a bit.

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This was DAY 15! Exercise was a 4 hr. belly dance workshop and a 1.5 mile walk.

Breakfast: 2 eggs scrambled with green olives, sm. avocado, sliced fresh tomato, sliced fresh peach with coconut milk, coffee with more coconut milk

Lunch: can of sardines, handful of macadamia nuts, quite a few strawberries. Like a lot.

Post-dance snack: tea with coconut milk, a few macadamias (like 5), a few olives

Dinner: ground beef patty, roasted eggplant slices, zucchini "noodles", marinara sauce

In the interest of information and having a "starting" point of reference, I weighed myself today. 177.5. When I started this thing my scale had been out of batteries for months and I was just not bothering to fix it. I think I remember weighing in at 187 with all my clothes and shoes on last time I went to the doctor in January.

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Loving reading your log. Thanks for sharing--I'm getting a lot of food ideas from you.

Question about Lara bars--an specific flavor recommendations? I haven't tried them and after reading about them in your log went to look them up. Am impressed by how their ingredients do seem Whole30ish.

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