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.

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:

Height	5' 7 "
Weight	207 lbs
Chest	42"
Arms	14"
Waist	35"
Hips	48"
Thighs	29"
Calves	18"

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!!! 

Day 15 – Halfway!!

I am halfway done my first Whole30 today.

I feel great. My energy is up, my focus and concentration is better, I am developing good habits, and I am genuinely enjoying it all.

I am starting to wonder when my skin will clear up though. It was starting to and the bam! Breakout! The messed up part is I never got acne until I was about 24. Now I get it when I eat poorly, and hormonally, like that time of the month, which is starting now. It takes more than 2 weeks to fix your hormones though, which is why this is the Whole30, not the Whole15.

Between being away overnight and then having company, I did not get a chance to make pre-made breakfasts for the week. I chopped some lettuce, tomatoes, shallots, and chicken breast from the last of the three chickens, for Sean’s salad, then I ate a banana as I threw leftovers from the salmon dish and some leftover yams in my lunch bag, then went to work. I stopped in that little café in our lobby for a black coffee and boiled eggs and headed up to the office. The morning went by fast and before I knew it, it was lunch time. I actually stepped away from my desk o eat lunch in our lunchroom. I heated my leftovers and enjoyed the salmon dish, round 2. All in all, the day was uneventful, and my meals weren’t all that exciting.

Even dinner wasn’t amazing, or worth bogging about. We finished off the last of the three roast chickens, which a seasoned with an Herbs de Provence blend from Whole Foods (it has no additives). I made a sided of brussel sprouts for me, and a side of broccoli for Sean since he hates brussel sprouts. We ate dinner and I caught up on my blog. This might have been the most uneventful day since starting W30.

There is a part on the timeline called “Days 12-15: Boundless energy! Now give me a damn Twinkie” that talks about cravings being the most intense around the middle and let me tell you, I have that going on. I ate almonds and could almost taste the Hershey chocolate that I wished they were coated in. I wanted marshmallows yesterday and something like a Mars bar today. I have craved toast, Kraft Smooth Peanut Butter, Justin’s Nut Butters, and cake! I can’t remember all my cravings but I remember thinking they are random or funny – and so realistic, like I can smell it, or almost taste it. Can I please just have one bowl of gluten-free puffin cereal?

A highlight today was being asked if I have lost weight - but not because of anything to do with my weight, because I could confidently say “I have no idea… but thank you!” and genuinely not care. I realize that the Whole30 is genuinely not about losing weight, numbers, scales, inches, unrealistic beauty standards, or anything superficial. This is about getting healthy and being healthy and about how I feel. And I feel damn good!

I have known for a long time that if I was ever going to be successful in losing weight, I would need to adopt an outlook about being healthy, not skinny. But no matter how much I preached it, wrote it, said it, or thought I believed it, I didn’t. I fantasized about being able to slip into item of clothing and have it drape off me and look good like on a model. And when I “came to terms” with the likelihood that I may never be that thin, I ate whatever I wanted and pretended to be proud of my curvy body. But this was just a disguise to acknowledge that my waistline was increasing while at the same time, hide my contempt for it. This Whole30 and ISWF has changed all of that mentality. I just want to nourish my body, because I love my body – it’s the only one I have. How it looks will be reflective of how I feel and if I keep eating this way, I can only feel better and better.

I can’t believe we are halfway to the “end”. I feel like there is still so much to learn. I still have over half the book to read, but at the same time, I already have learned a lot and I am really enjoying the program. I have already decided there will be more Whole30’s in my future. Once I have read the whole book and understand fully the whys and whats, it can only get better.

Day 4 - Office Potluck

Today there was a potluck at the office. 

I am actually the one who suggested it. I suggested it about a month ago, heard about Whole30 three weeks ago, committed to a W30 start date two weeks ago, and remembered about the potluck last week. I couldn't put off starting any later than I did though, in order to be done before my birthday. My birthday is kicking off the May long weekend this year, it's the last birthday of my twenties, and I want to enjoy it. 

Plus it's one thing to put off starting like I did last weekend, but now that I have started, I am not going to stop for anything.

I initially felt silly that I had planned a potluck that I likely wouldn't be able to participate in, but I wasn't going, postpone it, cancel it, or make special requests for my own benefit. I soon realized that all I could do was bring a W30 approved dish and hope something else might comply. I remembered that I could always ask what is in things and hope that someone would bring something with basic ingredients. 

So I brought a huge bowl of veggies from Whole Foods and some dips. I wanted to cook something Whole30 compliant, yet tasty, but I am still new at this and I didn't want to spread myself too thin. Last night I made dinner, breakfast for today, plus Sean's lunch, so by the time I was done all that, it was already late and I was very thankful for my earlier decision to buy the veggies. 

When I got to work, I looked at the list and summed up really quickly that I wouldn't be able to eat anything on it. Though it wasn't for a lack of trying; one of my co-worked brought butter chicken. I had a brief fantasy that it was made with coconut milk, but I asked (yes I did) and he passed me a link to the recipe - sure enough, it had milk, butter, and sugar in it, so it was out. Next I saw deviled eggs. "Deviled eggs are just boiled eggs," I thought to myself. "With Mayo!" the angel on shoulder piped up. "She could have made her own mayo with compliant foods" the shoulder devil chimes in. (See what I did there? Deviled eggs…) I perked up optimistically, then sighed... Nah! I am not going to even bother asking about that one. How many people make their own mayo if they don't have to? 

Soon enough the whole boardroom table was a buffet of amazing creations. Everything from spring rolls to sushi, chocolate covered strawberries to cassava cake, butter chicken to bacon popcorn and it looked great! Co-workers started coming in one by one to fill their plates. There was chatting and laughter, discussions of the food, work, and weekend plans. And then it hit me; I was truly enjoying this potluck. 

This isn't even all of it...

It doesn't hurt that I work with a fantastic group of individuals. We are all around the same age, which helps. Many of us share the same sense of humour. There is often laughter in the office every day. Bringing everyone together was my drive to do this in the first place. It worked and everyone had a good time, enjoyed the food, and got to step away from their desks, stretch, and socialize. I am satisfied with that. 

I eventually had to step out to get food that I could eat. Same as yesterday, chicken and steamed veggies from Urban Fare. When I got back to the office, I had an array of emails to say thank you, and what a successful event it was. This put me over the top with happiness. Those who know me, will know that when others are happy from my actions, I am happy. So, I am happy. 

(And if I am being honest, it didn't hurt that many of them also said we should do this more often, so I can always make sure that I don't miss out next time!)

What did I learn? How truly dedicated I can be to my body. How strong my willpower really is! (It was a close call with the deviled eggs). How gatherings are about more than just the food, even when they are about food (like a potluck). It was hard not to give into temptation, but it was worth it because I am writing today on day 4 and not day 0. 

Most of all, I learned that there will always be things in life that I will want to do, that I will consider postponing for, that I do not want to miss out on, but that if I post put off doing this for everything I want, then I will never follow through. I am reminded that I am doing this for me, and me alone.

Sean and I had a big dinner to celebrate. I made pan-seared steaks, with sautéed onions and mushrooms, and I sautéed slices of zucchini in the steak juice while the steaks rested. DELISH!!

What is the biggest temptation you have had to face so far? How did it turn out? What did you learn?