Showing posts with label Bloating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bloating. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

June 2, 2014 – Day 2



What did I eat?

Meal 1
Leftover ground pork patty
2 boiled eggs
Banana
Apple

Meal 2
Urban Fare Roast Chicken Breast
Mixed steamed veggies
Coconut Crème Larabar

Meal 3
2 Lamburger Patties
Brussels Sprouts from frozen, steamed then sautéed in Ghee


The Day

I woke up and looked in the fridge, instantly regretting that I hadn’t shopped. Luckily, despite all my bad eating in the last few weeks, when I did cook at home, I stuck to Whole30 foods! I grabbed a leftover ground pork patty that I had made on the weekend, and some boiled eggs that I made last night, then headed to work.

Work went by fast; a typical summer Monday. I head to Urban Fare for my old standby, chicken and mixed veggies for lunch and buy a coconut crème Larabar. This one is decidedly my favourite.

When I got home, Sean (aka my ride) was having some tummy pain (to do with his impending surgery) and asked if there was any chance we could grocery shop tomorrow. I looked in the fridge and decided I could get by with what we had. I steamed some veggies and made seasoned patties from ground lamb to throw on the grill.

I wanted to go swimming but there were a lot of people in the pool this evening and I didn’t want to go down alone. This will be a mental hurdle that I will have to overcome if I want to move my body like I said. I was disappointed in myself but not discouraged.  

Today wasn’t very exciting, just a typical day. With sunshine.

I will make tomorrow better.

How I am Feeling

My energy is good and consistent. I am feeling less bloated. I have had a bit of hunger between meals but will adjust accordingly. I’ve had to pee a lot as I up my water intake but I know this will balance out. I am still really pumped and excited to be doing this. I am enjoying the flavours of W30 food more this round and looking forward to meals.

June 1, 2014 - Day 1


What did I Eat?

Meal 1
2 Eggs Scrambled, no milk or butter
Wilted Spinach, approx. 2 cups raw
Mandarin Orange
Black Coffee

Meal 2
Spaghetti Squash, riced & blanched

Meal 3
3 oz. Steak, seasoned & grilled
Green Beans, steamed
1 Nectarine


The Day

I woke up at my sister’s house today. She lives a significant distance from me considering I do not drive, and I had committed to her product party before committing to Whole30, then she also committed to Whole30 for June 1 and we thought it would be a fun idea if I slept over and we could shop for her first week together and start on June 1 together. It only costs $8 one way to greyhound as they are two towns over. Sean and I normally drive, and it takes just over an hour, but he was not coming for this visit. I find Greyhound relaxing anyway and I was able to get further in It Starts With Food so it was a good trip.

My sister and I had some coolers last night and stayed up late chatting only to be woken up by my 18 month old nephew crying for mommy around 5:30 am. My sister did not want him to wake me so early, so she ran to grab him right away and took him to her room. He was pretty awake and wanting to play so she asked my brother-in-law (BIL) to take him to play in in the living room and invited me to come sleep in their bed a little longer with her.

I felt spoiled when I woke up again a couple hours later. I woke up in a big king sized bed, with my sister bringing me my first Whole30 meal of this round. Plus her and her husband aren’t coffee drinkers so BIL went out to get me a black coffee from Starbucks specifically. On top of feeling spoiled, I was overcome with excitement and pride for her too. After revealing there were 2 eggs in the breakfast meal, I assured her she can add more next time. I had just read about general portions in ISWF on my way to their place. If eggs are your only protein, you can use as many whole eggs as will fit in your hand without dropping any.

My sister revealed that they were opting to give me the dehydrator and meat slicer that I wanted to buy from them previously as part of my birthday and Christmas presents this year. I was not able to buy them due to finances at the time, so it is more than generous that they were willing to give them to me as gifts. I can’t wait to make some compliant jerky and dry some of my herbs that are now growing like weeds in their planter box.

I played with my nephew and then I made lunch for all of us. It was an adventure. I made a compliant meat tomato sauce of my own recipe and we gutted a spaghetti squash for all of us. It was my first attempt at subbing squash for pasta and I had no clue what to do. BIL says he has baked it, then scraped it out with a fork but this takes about an hour total. I had heard that you can scrape it, then blanche the noodled flesh and it seemed faster. 

I started scraping and the squash did not make nice long noodles whatsoever! It was short and coarse like long grains of rice instead. I went with it, and we blanched it, strained it, then poured the meat sauce over top. It turned out to be not so bad but perhaps next time I will try the baking method. Overall the taste and texture was good and the meal itself was quite satiating. Though there was not enough for everyone (disaster #2 of this meal) and BIL had to make regular pasta for him. (He is not doing a Whole30, but is supporting my sis)

We had the product party which was lots of fun. It was a quick demo of the product and ordering, so no food was served and once everyone left we made dinner, and then my sister and I had sweet moments with my nephew while he drank his bottle before bedtime. We sat on a loveseat with his feet on her lap and his head in mine and I savoured that moment. He is really just the cutest.

Once he was in bed, my sister drove me home with my new gadgets and we said goodbye. Overall, it was a great weekend of bonding with my sister and I cannot say enough how happy I am that my family is doing this with me this time.


How do I feel today?


I started the day feeling off from the coolers last night and the aforementioned junk food eating in the last few weeks. I was tired and foggy for the first half of the day, from lack of sleep. By the end of Day One, I was feeling more alert, but I went to bed early since it is a work night. I am regretful that on day one, I have not exercised. Hopefully I can get out to the pool tomorrow.  

Monday, June 2, 2014

Intro to My Second Whole30

It’s been a crazy few weeks and I am very excited to start Whole30 again for the month of June. It could not be more perfect in that June started on a Sunday and has exactly 30 days to it, right?

I am even more excited that some of the most important and most influential women in my life are doing it by my side. This includes my mom for her second round, as well as both of my sisters, and My Dad’s fiancé for each of their first rounds. In my opinion, Good Health is the best and most important thing you can wish on your friends and family. With good health, your chances for a long, happy, healthy life dramatically increase, and of course we want our loved ones around as long as possible, but we also want them to have a good quality of life in that time and good health is the cornerstone to a good life.

Starting Photo - 06/01/2014

This time I have taken starting photos! I love my curves, but I would love to lose this gut by reducing my bloating. Here are my starting measurements:

Height5' 7 "
Weight207 lbs
Chest42"
Arms14"
Waist35"
Hips48"
Thighs29"
Calves18"




To be honest, I knew my birthday weekend was going to be rough but I did not realize it would be so easy to fall into my old habits of grabbing fast food for lunch often and mindless snacking, after a long weekend of partying and I do not feel good about it. I am craving good whole foods and very excited to get back into the Whole30 life after the last two weeks. On the upside, I will be able to feel a difference once again in the way my body feels.

On top of trashing my body for 4 days over my birthday long weekend, and slipping into old habits, I had another weekend wherein a completely gorged myself on fatty, high calorie, high carb foods in prep for a round of HcG. I will leave it to you to research HcG if you are interested. I have done it 3 times before with great results, under the care of a naturopath.

The HcG Gist: The first two days, you are required to eat as much as you can to fill your fat stores and this leaves you less hungry when you start, while the HcG builds in your system. Once the hormone builds, you no longer feel hungry and do not need to eat much, you then begin eating a very low calorie diet from a very short list of allowed foods. Then your body begins burning fat as fuel and of course, you lose weight that is mostly pure fat.

I feel this can be a good kick-starter only, for those interested in losing weight really fast and then switching to a healthy lifestyle for good. My naturopath will not allow people to use it for a crutch which is why I like doing it through her.

So, I did the first two gorge days, and started in on the low calories on the third day and then we got The Call. Unfortunately, Sean will be having a major surgery Mid-June. After careful deliberation, it was clear that adhering to the very strict protocol of the HcG diet would prove too challenging for this time and I decided it was not the right time.

Sean will be in the hospital for 4-5 days post op, and I will be back and forth to the hospital, and work, and home. I may need to eat on the go and there may be emergency situations, but hopefully not. Then there will be aftercare. Life will be spontaneous, busy, and challenging for up to a couple weeks it seems. I am up for the challenge with Whole30, but not HcG.

While I stopped the HcG, it doesn’t change the fact that I gorged for an entire weekend. I was bloated, gassy, and had a major breakout on my face. Despite feeling gross, I found myself wanting more and more fast/junk food and giving in more and more also. When I realized that June was the perfect month to do a Whole30, it was an easy decision and I made my commitment. I felt good about the decision when I realized I would rather feel healthy on the inside like with Whole30, than simply lose weight quickly, like with HcG. I feel this is a healthy thought process.

This new round of W30 will present some challenges, but like I said, I am up for them. I found eating on the go, or out, to be fairly easy with W30. I will be blogging along the way as before but with a few changes:

  • My blog posts will be more structured (i.e. sections for “What I Ate” “How I Feel” “What I Did”)
  • I intend to include more pictures and links
  • I want to come up with and add more recipes
  • Recipes are now on a separate tab so as not to make my blog posts soooo looong

And finally, on top of committing to 30 days of eating Whole Foods, I am also committing to 30 minutes per day, of moving my body, for the next 30 days. My building complex’s outdoor pool is now open and last year we were in it almost every day so I feel like this should be easy. I am sure there will be challenges here too, but I feel really good about the challenges both mentally and physically.


Thank you for following along in my journey and congratulations if you are doing Whole30 too! 

Here we go again!!! 

Monday, April 28, 2014

Day 10 - One Third of the Way


Today I am One third of the way through Whole30!



Another weekday, got up, got ready, grabbed the egg muffins I made last night and went to work. I re-heated the egg cups when I got there, poured a black coffee, and filled my 1L water bottle. I sat down and started up my computer while I bit into and egg muffin and I quickly learned an important lesson: Side of Pork… Is. Not. Bacon.



Most humans love bacon. The reason we love bacon is for its salty, smoky flavour. That salty, smoky flavour is derived by how it is cured and unfortunately this makes it near impossible to find commercially sold bacon that is W30 appropriate due to the nitrates bacon contains from the curing process. I thought I had found some. Side pork looks just like the thick cut bacon we often get outside of W30.



This was the day that I felt bloated. I was consciously aware of my muffin top all day and after every meal, I felt more and more like a stuffed sausage. Luckily I read the timeline and was half expecting this might happen so I tried not to focus on it too much and carry on with my day.



I brought a salad for lunch not thinking that I had lunch plans out with a friend. This friend is currently studying nutrition and is very passionate about health so it was nice to be able to talk about Whole30 and not get funny looks. I decided to suggest the salad bar at Urban Fare so that I could build my own lunch and leave the one I made in the work fridge for tomorrow. I had mainly romaine with a few mixed greens, beets, walnuts, boiled egg, red onion, grape tomatoes, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Simple yet refreshing and tasty! We chatted about food and health stuff for the hour and then I headed back to work.



OK! Now let's all be honest! How many of you have noticed that since starting the Whole30, you have to change your garbage more often? All that produce scrap goes in there and starts to smell within a day or two. I can’t wait until all major cities start having organic waste pickup. In the meantime, in an apartment, it has nowhere to go but in the trash, which now goes out often before it’s full because, PEEEE-YYYOOUU!



We had leftovers for dinner, same as yesterday.