On day 11!

[AmandaFawn]

Hi everyone! My name is Amanda and my husband Justin and I started Whole30 on Oct 15th. 

Yesterday was HARD! Up until yesterday I'd been picking on him for having such a hard time because he had more vices than I did: living on Diet Coke, eating dessert EVERY night, etc. Then I stumbled into yesterday, my breakfast wasn't doing it for me, lunch wasn't enough food, dinner was unsatisfying and I was bartending at my second job last night... damn did those beers look good. I FINALLY understood his cravings. I was yearning for those tater tots my customers were eating. I forgot my compliant mayo at home and was so angry that I couldn't use the "perfectly good" 5 gallon bucket of mayo that was in the fridge at work, like I was so mad at that mayo. But I stayed strong, not a tot entered past my lips, I ate my protein dry and dealt with it. 

When I got home and told my husband I'd had a tough one he, being just as supportive as I, said now you know how it feels. lol, oh what nice people we are! Then he proceeds to say he has learned an appreciation for eating well and not living on chicken wings, pizza, and ice cream and that we should stop doing the diet and just pay more attention to what we are eating. I told him absolutely not, we can do it! We are so close!

And then this morning came around. My eggs have left me starving and I was so exhausted I slept in and didn't have time to prepare anything else this morning.... so here I am. Drinking my coffee pretending I'm writing an important email (hope my boss isn't on here!) and looking for support. Thank god I found it. Also thank god I told everyone and their brother that Justin and I were doing the Whole30 so now the thought of the shame I would feel when someone says "Wait, I thought you were doing the Whole30?" as I eat tater tots smothered in that 5 gallon bucket of mayonnaise, would be even worse than the feeling in my stomach after I was done eating them.

 

So, thank you all for being here, today and tomorrow are going to be tough, but I'm tougher!

[MichelleCA]

You can do it, @AmandaFawn!  And you have much to be proud of, the way you navigated last night's challenges.  I was LOL about the mayo!  

I'd suggest having some compliant go-tos available (hard boiled eggs, carrot/jicama sticks in baggies, Wild Zora bars, Justin's Almond Butter squeeze packs, ghee squeeze packs (the latter 3 all available at Thrive market)) so you have them handy and at your side in case of these late mornings or forgotten condiments.

Also, now is the time to spoil yourself with a REALLY good meal with lots of leftovers.  The game-changer for me was feeling down/despondent, then making a riff on my grandma's meatloaf and mashed potatoes (all compliant, of course, and with mashed root veggies mixed in with just 2 potatoes).  As soon as I sat down with it, I sighed with bliss, and those leftovers carried me through, telling me I could do this!  Now I make it a priority to check in with my cravings and cook what sounds GOOD (rather than what is a recipe someone posted), and it has not failed me.  I finished my 30d last week, went out of town a few days without meal-planning/etc, then right back on Round 2, started this past Monday.  I won't say I regret having eaten some junk over the weekend, despite the fact that now - 5 days into R2 - my digestion and energy are finally feeling better; rather, those few days of eating "by the fly", unprepared, and indulging in some sugar, all showed me that nothing tasted as good as I remembered/longed for, and my first breakfast back on w30 was far more satisfying than anything I picked up on the road.

[MichelleCA]

1 hour ago, AmandaFawn said:

 

And then this morning came around. My eggs have left me starving and I was so exhausted I slept in and didn't have time to prepare anything else this morning.... so here I am. Drinking my coffee pretending I'm writing an important email (hope my boss isn't on here!)

PS - make sure those eggs (3 maybe?) come with a big serving of greens and some starchy veggies and an avocado?   My breakfasts are huge and filling and satisfying for a good 4-5 hours.  This morning, I had a little bit of leftover pork roast, chopped up with 1/2 a steamed sweet potato; sauteed both in ghee till crispy, then stirred in several hand fulls of spinach till wilted, then topped with an over easy egg and 2 slices of leftover bacon on the side (fat).    I usually have some sort of similar "hash" like this , and an avocado.  You can even skip the egg if you're over it, making sure you have ground beef or homemade sausage or something similar + lots of veggies and that important fat serving!  Give yourself a fighting chance, and nothing will tempt you.

[AmandaFawn]

@MichelleCA 

I'm definitely not getting enough food at breakfast. This weekend I'm going to make some sausage patties and start doing a "breakfast salad" with roasted veg of some sort, carrots, brussels, broccoli, and zucchini are all ones that come to mind, and top it all with a couple eggs. I will defiantly be upping my breakfast game this week! Thanks for the advice on where to head with it.

I've made some great food for my lunches, last week I did a spicy chicken soup with coconut milk and this week we did sheppard's pie. Even my picky husband has been enjoying lunch. 

I bartend two nights a week, after my day job, and those have been the hardest because they are back to back and I don't have time to really put something together for my Thursday nights. But we are getting there and as long as I can remember to grab my food on the way out the door we are in a good place. 

Now tomorrow will be interesting... I'm bartending a wedding out in the middle of nowhere. Leave the house at 10am not home till 1 or 2 am... I have jerky that's compliant and I'll bring something perishable for lunch. I'll have to find some nut butter or something to bring with me for the rest of the night. Not ideal but better than eating the pizza or cheese plate or chicken and waffles we are doing for the catering.

Congrats on going right back into a second 30 days. That's some commitment there! 

[ShannonM816]

38 minutes ago, AmandaFawn said:

Now tomorrow will be interesting... I'm bartending a wedding out in the middle of nowhere. Leave the house at 10am not home till 1 or 2 am... I have jerky that's compliant and I'll bring something perishable for lunch. I'll have to find some nut butter or something to bring with me for the rest of the night. Not ideal but better than eating the pizza or cheese plate or chicken and waffles we are doing for the catering.

Do you have a small cooler you can take? That would give you more options. Even without a cooler, carrot sticks, sliced bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, celery would probably be fine all the way to dinner. My grocery store carries small packs of olives (Oloves is one brand, I think there's a couple others) that would be good to take with you. Something like Wholly Guacamole's little 100 calorie packs would probably last pretty well too as long as they're sealed. Do you have a thermos? You could take a soup to have for supper. If you put really hot water in the thermos (I think boiling is okay in most of them, but double check your brand) and let it sit warming up while you heat up your soup a little hotter than you could actually eat it, then dump the water and pour the soup directly in, the thermos will keep it at least warm until supper time. If it's a blended soup you could even mostly drink it if you don't have time to sit and eat it.

[AmandaFawn]

Holy smokes! One week left! This time next week I'll be waiting to get out of work and go have a Poke Bowl between jobs! And a drink after work. 

Things have been going really smooth for me, though, I will continue making my breakfast and lunch, at least 4 days out of the work week. I have also discovered I don't NEED a carb or starch with every meal. Pasta and rice were among my "I could never give up" items, I miss rice more incase you were wondering. Cheese is another thing I thought I would miss and crave so much more than I do! We even went to a wedding this past Saturday and there was plenty for us to eat as the couple lives a whole30 friendly lifestyle, but I was shocked at how easy is was to pass on the meats and cheeses and booze. The sushi was the hardest to pass on if I'm honest. 

I have still been getting a little of an upset stomach at times, but I think I've narrowed it down to Avocado or too much fiber. That's my goal to figure out in this final week. Fingers crossed it is too much fiber. I'm going to test this by eating a whole avocado with dinner Friday and no other salad or veg. I know a whole avocado in my salad at lunch leads to extra time in the bathroom at work. 

My husband has also been doing well, though not a true whole30. He is a smoker and that takes a personal decision to quit. Also, he is a chef and mussel memory to taste food while cooking is a very hard one to break. (I've had to have other people try the cocktails I've made at work and caught myself about to try them a few times too.) I don't hold those tastes against him though because the major thing is he hasn't had a diverticulitis flair up so I know he hasn't been intentionally cheating.

It is beer week in Portland this week and that has been hard to ignore. All these tasty draft only limited releases I can't have. But there is always next time.

 

One week left! I've got to say it has become habit, and I hope most of the habits stick around.

[ShannonM816]

1 hour ago, AmandaFawn said:

Holy smokes! One week left! This time next week I'll be waiting to get out of work and go have a Poke Bowl between jobs! And a drink after work. 

Don't forget about reintroductions. I'm not sure what you'd get in your poke bowl, but if it had, say, rice and soy sauce, and you ended up with a stomach ache or were more tired after, you wouldn't know which of those items were the issue. And then the drink after work could throw another complication in there. Read up on what to do when you've finished your Whole30 here:  https://whole30.com/finished/ .