Halfway Through the Whole30

It's day 15.  Things are going fine.  Meals go well if I've planned ahead.  The thing that I just haven't gotten over is feeling kinda crummy and tired overall.  Supposedly, a person supposed to get a big burst of energy after all of the "toxins" from their prior diet are out of her body.  I think that the thing is, I usually eat pretty healthily.  My body didn't really go into shock when I switched over.

A friend said today, "I don't think I could do it.  I really like food."  I really like food, too, and I really like the things that I have been eating, which is helpful.

What do I eat?  Well, a typical day starts with a baked sweet potato.  I have been cooking up several at a time in the crockpot and keeping them in the fridge, reaheating them in the microwave in the morning.  Sometimes I put meat in it, or sauteed spinach, or bacon/onion/mushrooms.  They're quite good, and they stick with me during the morning.  Sometimes I make an omelet.

For lunch and snacks, I take a couple of handfuls of almonds to work, as well as some carrots or other vegetables.  Sometimes I have a salad with tuna on it.

Dinner is some kind of meat and some vegetables.  I've had ground bacon/beef hamburgers, buffalo, turkey, a porkchop, and salmon.  I've done a lot of grilling.  My favorite thing now is grilled asparagus, and I've also eaten a lot of avocados. 

My clothes do fit better, but the place I've lost the most weight appears to be my wrists.  My watches keep sliding down onto my hand.  Now if only I had the energy to really work out!

Random iPhone Pictures From the Trip

Lillehammer in the summer.  Can you handle it?  No, your eyes are bleeding from the extreme beauteousness of it.

I don't read Hebrew, but I suspect this says, "Rowdy likes it!"

Which of My Pins Has Gotten the Most Repins?

It would be this image of Miranda Kerr.  I picked it because of the dress, so floaty and lovely, but she is very pretty, too.  So are her man and her baby, which probably goes without saying.  It is pinned by other women into their "I wish I had this dress"-type boards.

Seven Days In

I am doing fine on this diet different food choices plan. Difficult situations like lunch meetings at work, a work conference, Mutual and being offered a brownie at church today were easily handled. It's not like I don't want Diet Coke, but I'm doing fine without it. I do allow myself to take the Sacrament, because that's more important to me than staying completely true to the program, plus I really doubt that it would make a difference. But man, after not eating any grains at all for a week, that bread tasted weird. It wasn't super-sweet--it was just very strange in texture and flavor.

When I fantasize about food, I think about what I have at home to eat, or what I'm going to go to the store to buy the ingredients for, not cookies or rolls or even Diet Coke. So I'm pretty happy about that. At the store, I'm able to walk past things that I'm not eating right now just like I walk past the alcohol section. It just isn't what I'm putting in my body. I thought that it would be harder to do that, but so far, I'm good.

The bummer is that I haven't quite gotten to the point of feeling all of the energy that they say people feel when they drop grains and simple sugars from their diet. I haven't felt like going for a run or a swim or ride or anything. I did, however, paddleboard for an hour the other day. That was tons of fun.

Two positive things are that I have lost about 5 pounds and I don't have itchy ear canals like I have for years and years. There must be something that I used to eat that I was allergic to and made my ears itch inside.

Rowdy is now back from his mountain biking trip, so we have to merge out dietary needs. There's not much overlap in that Venn diagram. He has done some research, and he has found that the best diet for someone with an intact colon but little small intestine is predominantly complex carbohydrates. He can have vegetables and fruit and a little meat. He can't have simple sugars, and soda in particular is a big "no". I roasted a turkey breast and some vegetables with some squash for dinner today. I ate just that, and he added rice and gravy to his plate.

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce on Spaghetti Squash

Paleoghetti

Dinner tonight was homemade spaghetti sauce with ground turkey over spaghetti squash. As soon as my computer power cord arrives, I will add a picture. I thought it was quite tasty. I think that I'm over the Diet Coke withdrawal symptoms. Things should just get better from here.

Cavegirl

My hairdresser and I were talking last week about books. She told me that she had just read It Starts With Food, and she felt like it had changed her life. The book is basically a guide to changing your diet to a "paleolithic" one--vegetables,fruit, meat, nuts. No grains, dairy, refined sugars or even artificial sweeteners. Apparently, cavemen ate bacon, because that is an approved food.

The plan is called Whole30. You eat according to the food plan for 30 days, then you can add foods in after that. This is supposed to give the body the opportunity to heal if there are any underlying allergies or inflammation. As food groups are added back in, you can see if there is something that just doesn't work for you. Lately, I have felt a little crummy, bloated, and randomly itchy. It seemed like a worthwhile experiment to refine my diet for 30 days. If I discover that I feel better, then great. If not, it's really no big deal and still gives me information.

I'm not doing it primarily to lose weight (though I'm sure that I will), because 1) I don't want to be disappointed if I don't lose all the weight I'd like to and 2) it is easier to be consistent if I treat this as a medical experiment, rather than a "diet".

Rowdy is on a hiking trip, so it seems like a good week to start and get through the most uncomfortable phase of the 30 days. I've eaten well today--sweet potatoes, salad, chicken, peas, fruit and hamburger that contains ground bacon. Yup! That was delicious.

It will be interesting to see how 30 days without Diet Coke goes! The Whole30 blog has a timeline of what to expect during the 30 days here.

UPDATE: I am on day 2. I feel just a little headachy and tired, but that's pretty much how I've been feeling and one of the reasons why I wanted to try this experiment. I've been happy with what I've been eating so far, which is in part thanks to good planning. This morning, I had a sweet potato and some leftover chicken. It was very satisfying and delicious. Lunch was a big salad from the cafeteria salad bar. Almonds and a nectarine were my snack. Tonight will be buffalo taco lettuce wraps. You're not supposed to weigh yourself during the 30 days, but I did this morning. I have lost 2 lbs of water weight. This is not a surprise, as I have been drinking lots of water and peeing every hour.