June 3, 2014 – Day 3

What did I Eat?

Meal 1

3 Boiled Eggs

Small Veggie Platter

(Carrots, Celery, Cherry Tomatoes, Broccoli, Cauliflower)

Chunks of Apple

1 tbsp Sunbutter

Meal 2

Leftover Lamburger

Leftover Brussels sprouts

Meal 3

2 Spolumbo’s Spicy Italian Sausages

A heap of Green Giant Frozen Asian Veggies, Steamed

The Day

Still having not shopped, I grabbed leftovers out of the fridge for lunch and went off for work. I also slept in and in my rush out the door forgot my iPhone at home. Due to this, I do not have any photos of my meals except dinner. I stopped at the café in my office building lobby for breakfast. I suddenly remembered that they have veggie platters and asked myself, why not have this for breakfast? I had just been reading about how you are actually better off calling your meals “Meal 1, 2, and 3” instead of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then you won’t feel limited to just typical “breakfast food” in the morning etc. You may have noticed that I started doing this on day 2 or 3, I think it helped open my mind. Previously I struggled to get veggies in at breakfast so this feels like a good breakthrough.

The day flew by and I had lunch which was just left overs. Then head home and remind Sean we need to go grocery shopping. On a strict budget this week, we picked up some basics. I look at meat, veggies, and spices as ingredients with many possibilities. But I was super excited to see these compliant sausages they’ve had before at Save-on-Foods, but then we hadn’t seen them since. They are simply pork, water, salt, and spices – and literally the best sausages I have ever had. As soon as I got home, I turned on the BBQ and tossed them on. It was late so I put some frozen veggies over the steamer. It wasn’t gourmet but it was goooood…

How do I feel today?

I had a small, faint headache when I woke up. It went away before I even got to work though and I forgot about it until just now. For the rest of the day I had a great sense of clarity, little to no hunger between meals, and just good!

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

Hearty Meat Sauce

Spaghetti Squash, riced & blanched

Meal 3

3 oz. Steak, seasoned & grilled

Green Beans, steamed

Yashbrowns

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.  

Round One Wrap Up

Before beginning to blog about my second attempt at Whole30, I wanted to close the circle on the first round.

I can happily say I made conscious decisions to eat Whole30 approved foods for 30 days. But I cannot truly say it was perfect. Along the way, I was inadvertently served meat that was pre-soaked in salt water and preservatives. I won’t say what, when, or by whom as it does not matter and I know this person feels bad enough. Plus it was an eye-opener to them as well and they are now doing a Whole30! So in my opinion, this mistake was meant to be.

It was really early into my Whole30 and I didn’t find out until halfway through. After much thought, I decided to continue on with eating as I was. I did not want it to become an excuse to give up and return to old habits and I had gone longer doing Whole30 after it happened, than I had before it happened, so I continued doing what I had been doing.

I will never know what, if any effect that small amount of preservatives had on my body so I choose not to sweat it. I still felt amazing through the program. By the end, I was telling people I had a whole new body.

As a bonus I lost 15 pounds in a month! As good as this feels, the way my body feels inside is far more exciting. I really felt new and clean on the inside. I did not take before photos for my first Whole30 and this is one of my biggest regrets. But my hands and feet do not swell any more. My face is not as puffy. I do not ever feel bloated or gassy. I did not have any stomach pains in the time I was on Whole30. My skin started to clear, but did not fully, but that just tells me, I need to keep going. And that I have not fully cleared my body of what is causing this ongoing breakout. There is so much more too but I think it will only get better!

For this reason, I am really excited to do this next round in June. 

Day 11 - Good Morning World

This morning I woke up before my alarm feeling well rested and refreshed.

I was in a good mood all day, despite being crazy busy at work. I found I had great ability to focus on my tasks and was not easily distracted. I am looking forward to spending the rest of my life feeling like this!

This morning I claimed the last of the eggs cups. To be clear, they were not horrible. They just weren’t bacon-y like I wanted. I reheated them at work and added some Frank’s hot sauce to give them a kick.

Also, just to be clear, I am not selfish! I only claimed the egg muffins over Sean because, they were the only W30 compliant breakfast food in the house and in case you didn’t know or did not find me on Facebook before here, Sean is not still doing the Whole30 as dedicatedly as I am. He basically will eat what I make so he is still eating healthy, but he has not read the book and isn’t always the most attentive when I am sharing what I have learned. He fell prey to an unopened container of cottage cheese that he couldn’t bear see go to waste. It would have expired well before our W30 was done. Sean is supportive and encouraging of my Whole30 though and that is really all I need from him through this.

For lunch I had my homemade Simple Salad that I was supposed to have yesterday. This is one of my favourite salads, and with only a few ingredients, it packs a lot of flavour. It just romaine, grape tomatoes, halved, previously cooked chicken, avocado, shallots, olive oil, S&P. The shallots really give it something.  

For dinner we had LAMB BURGERS!! I WILL be making these again. I do not know what possessed me to buy the ground lamb in the first place. I wanted to try something new I guess. Then Sean suggested that we also get fresh Mint. It was a good call because they turned out fantastic. I subbed almond flour in place of bread crumbs and then grilled them. We had them on a bed of lettuce with grainymustard, tomato and avocado. Yam fries seemed an appropriate side dish.

I really hope to have more days like today.