Day 2: Feeling like a pack mule

[Maureen Boyle]

I started yesterday, and I'm already seeing what's been keeping me from eating this way in the past. It's so inconvenient. I brought a big salad with me to campus to eat at lunch and I feel like a bag lady on the train. It's even worse when I have a gym bag. (I'm 5'2" with very narrow shoulders, so an amount of baggage that might not seem significant to an average sized person becomes a hassle pretty quickly.) Do most of the people who succeed on this program drive everywhere? Is this something I just need to get used to or are there tricks to maintaining some sort of commuter dignity?

On a related note, how much time to you typically spend on shopping and cooking? I'm a student in a pretty intense animation program and any time I spend cooking is time I'm not spending working on my projects. I'm holding out hope that in the medium/long term the time investment will pay back in increased energy and efficiency but, in the short term, I really feel like the responsible thing to do would be to order takeout and get back to work.

I know these may seem like whiny, insignificant problems... and that's why I'm putting them out there on a niche internet forum and not bothering the general public with them.

[Tom Denham]

The transition is the hardest part. After you have been doing this for a while, you can accomplish everything faster and more efficiently. Whether you want to take the hit now or wait until you are older and sicker to work on your health is a decision no one can make for you. The one thing I can say is that I spend less time shopping and cooking now than I did 3 years ago when I did my first Whole30. A lot less time, and I eat very good.

I don't have anything on the topic of packing your lunch as I am out of practice, but hopefully some others will have some thoughts.

[kb0426]

Commuter dignity - that may be my favorite new phrase!

While I only have to walk from parking to my office (still about a mile), I understand this concern. However, I am 5'8" with broad shoulders!

I know many people like the "bento" style boxes where you have a flat lunch box with differents sections.

Cooking and shopping during my second whole30 has been SO much quicker than the first time around. On my first whole30 everything was new and I was unsure what foods I would love or not love. Now, I am in and out of the store in 30 minutes (unless I stop to putz in the gadget aisle!) and I probably spend 30 minutes a day TOTAL on my meals for this whole30. Mind you, my kitchen looks like a hurricane went through it when done.

And we expect a little whining. Wait until you get to Kill.All.the.Things day .

[notacommittee]

Man, I feel you - I work from home now but I used to bike commute and sometimes would need a separate bag just for my lunch! And I'm 5'3" so also a small person. On top of that, I was working crazy hours (sometimes 9-7 or 9-8) and would leave home at 6:30 to get to the gym before work so I'd be hauling around breakfast too. So here are some tips from my experience that might help you:

• For lunches, emphasize cooked veggies that "boil down to nothing" like spinach and kale. This allows you to pack more veg in a smaller space. Avoid big fluffy ones like lettuce until you get home for dinner. Veggies that can be packed in separate baggies (carrot/celery sticks, etc.) are easy to squeeze in wherever you have a little room in your bag.
  
• A slow cooker will save you from SO MUCH meal prep time. You have no idea until you've tried it. I think I would have starved if I didn't have one. You can chuck anything in there with salt/pepper/basil in the morning (a whole chicken, any random cut of beef or pork, etc.) and come home to a dinner that's hot and ready for you, if not totally gourmet. Or cook it overnight and wake up in the morning to just throw it in the fridge before leaving for work. If you're running errands for just a few hours, throw in a huge load of veggies (slightly harder ones like beets, carrots, squash, etc. work best) and you have veg for the week. It's not going to win you any cooking prizes but they cost like $20 and you cannot beat them for convenience!
  
• Cook in huge batches and freeze the leftovers in individual tupperwares: instant Paleo freezer meals to reheat whenever you want them.
  
• Stock up on frozen veggies when there's a sale; they're super easy to just microwave and eat.
  
• Keep an emergency stash of tins of sardines or other fish in case you forget to cook or just get lazy.
  

This worked really well for me because I'm always eating while doing 5 other things and barely notice my food; YMMV if you enjoy paying attention to your meals. I really don't care if I eat the same thing 3 or 4 lunches in a row. But I hope it helps!

[Maureen Boyle]

I hope Kill-all-the-things day is Day 7, because I was ready to fillet one of my classmates. (I wouldn't have eaten him though, knowing how much junk food he eats.)

On a more serious note, thanks for all the advice. I'm still a slow, messy cook but I bought some proper equipment, so that should help. That, and practice.

[JJB]

It does get faster with practice, but it will never be as quick and easy as take-out/fast food. You could try just committing one day a week to cooking everything up, and then the rest of the week all you have to do is reheat. I spend probably 3-4 hours on Friday afternoons cooking up my meals for the week. Another day I bake a bunch of sweet potatoes, hard boil a dozen eggs, and chop up a TON of veggies (I never seem to get any quicker at that). It never takes more than 5-10 min to heat up/prepare any meal for the rest of the week (I just steam my vegetables in the microwave, then heat up my 'entree' and sweet potato).

For really quick meals/snacks when you don't want to lose your productivity, you've always got canned tuna or salmon (or sardines I guess...eck!), HB eggs, and there are several varieties of W30 compliant sausage/hot dogs.