Whole30 Week 4

Well, I'm through with my challenge. (Thanks to all my readers who have stuck through it with me!)

I'm so glad I did this challenge again. I definitely needed it. Going back and reading my first couple posts yesterday allowed me to really be able to tell that I've changed my relationship with food drastically in the past 30 days.

So, here's a little of what I did that last few days of the challenge.

Day 25 I spent the morning hours on Galveston Island with family, so by the time we got home it was well past lunch time.. I was starving, but had to still cook a little something to eat at 3 p.m.

(This is where it's much more convenient to be able to eat out at restaurants, or pick up fast food. But, convenience can also be taken advantage of, where it becomes a normal thing. And let's face it, Taco Bell tacos are NOT healthy.)

I cooked up some potato, broccoli and an all natural, no fillers, all beef hot dog. It was the quickest way to stuff food down the hatch after spending half the day in the car/looking at the ocean.

Day 26 I threw together a buffalo wings marinade but used drumsticks instead, and baked them in the oven, serving them with baked fries. (I have started to realize potatoes are a big go-to while I'm eating healthy. I guess because I still crave starchy things?)

Day 27 I was sort of lazy for supper. The kids begged for easy meals. They wanted raman noodles... So I just sauteed myself another hotdog and paired it with veggies. Easy-peesy, lemon-squeezy.

Day 28 I caught a cold, and was not feeling well at all by the time I got home from work. So, the kids had sandwiches and I cooked up a small chicken breast with veggies. Then I went to bed.

Getting sick towards the end of the challenge brought back a lot of cravings. I wanted comfort food since I didn't feel well. It was a trigger for my brain to beg me to finish before the 30 days. 28 days is close enough, right?

Day 29 I threw some chicken in the crockpot so dinner would be ready when we got home. It was shredded cilantro lime chicken. The kids put it on tostada shells with veggies and cheese, but I used cauliflower rice as my base and of course, skipped the cheese. It was yummy!

Day 30 I ate those leftovers. And.... done. Que the celebration music. And grab the chocolate.

Let's go over the results I have noticed over the last 30 days real quick. This is why it was worth it from a physical health standpoint.

*more energy
*better sleep
*less carpal tunnel pain (Though it isn't gone completely like it was last time.. sigh.. Oh well.)
*weight loss
*inches lost

These are the emotional benefits I have noticed.

*less cravings, especially sugar
*more focus at work
*less stressed feeling
*more motivation to do the daily things... like cook, clean, be a mom... etc..
*less angry mom syndrome
*I am losing my train of thought less... I think my brain is working better... :)

And lastly, let's talk about what I have learned spiritually.

I learned that self control in any area - even an area like food - can help exercise our ability to resist temptation to sin.

Self control is really just another way to look at denying what self wants for what self really needs. In the same way I denied my brain the sugar it craved because we all know sugar is an addictive poison and I fed it fruit instead, I can better realize and understand that the pleasures of sin are addictive as well.. and you are ALWAYS better off choosing God's way.

In this age of instant gratification, the learned trait of self control is often overlooked, or viewed as not important. But oh how that's wrong!

A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. -Prov. 25:28

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control: against such there is no law. -Gal. 5:22-23

We must concentrate on denying our flesh in order to wholeheartedly serve God.

Maybe our food choices aren't directly a sin issue... but applying self restraint in this way hopefully helped my willpower the next time I'm tempted to sin. If I can go 30 days without chocolate, I can also choose God's way instead of _________. (Whatever it might be that Satan tempts us with.)

Don't overlook the spiritual benefits to learning the trait of self control. This is something I will continue to work on, because I'm far from where God wants me to be.

The goal is always... less of me, more of Him.
-Mel

Whole30 Week 3

This week flew by! With school starting and our routine changing, I hardly noticed I was restricting my diet.

I fell into a great rhythm and it became like second nature to eat this way. The only thing I am really craving at this point... I mean, craving instead of just thinking, "hey, that sounds good" and moving on with life... COFFEE CREAMER!!

I had no idea I would miss it so much, but I definitely do.

I found the energy this week! It wasn't a lightbulb moment, but more of a gradual change. Day 18 I woke up energized to exercise and did! Seriously, you guys have no idea how huge that is for me with the way I have been the last couple years. But I actually have real desire to get back into yoga and walking again.

Another thing to note, I have always been a morning person. Up until the last year or so, I have never snoozed an alarm in my life. Generally when I wake, my brain is fresh and already running a mile a minute.

But this past year or so I've been snoozing my alarm.. a lot.. and living in a constant state of rushing in the mornings while I drag myself around needing coffee to wake me up. I'm just always so tired.

This week I have not snoozed my alarm. I am feeling refreshed when I wake up each morning! I'm even waking a few minutes before my alarm. #winning

Let's go over some food choices for week 3.

My breakfasts have pretty consistantly been boiled eggs and fruit. That was my normal routine anyway. My work lunches this week mostly consisted of Turkey burger patties with lettuce and tomato.

Day 17 I made spaghetti with zucchini again and ate on it most of the weekend, aside from day 18 where I had an avacado burger patty with veggies and fruit.

Day 20 I made a classic favorite of ours even when I'm not doing a whole30. Lemon chicken. I simply cut up chicken into small pieces and marinaded it in lemon juice with olive oil, garlic, bell pepper and mustard. Then, I sauteed it all up until the chicken and veggies were crispy. I served it with sweet potato fries and steamed broccoli.

Day 21 I let the crockpot do the work and made another classic.. Roast, potatoes and carrots. You can't go wrong there, right?

Day 22 and 23 I ate on those leftovers.

I am feeling great, but a little anxious to be able to relax a bit once this is over. Now starts the time to think about the "what, now?" phase after I'm through.

Although certain foods sound good to me, I am also feeling somewhat apprehensive that just one bite of something "off plan" will take back all the progress I've made in non scale victories. Of course this is faulty thinking, but I am definitely going to try to take what I'm learning and have better self control when it comes to food that is generally unhealthy.

Mostly I just want to have and maintain a good perspective of asking myself if what I'm about to eat is going to nourish me or not.. and then decide if it is worth the consequence or not. Sometimes that will mean pizza night with the kids, and sometimes it will mean passing up dessert at church potluck. That's what balance is all about, and more importantly, food freedom!

Whole30 Week 2

Wow, this week was SO much harder than the first. The newness wore off, I actually had MORE pain in my wrists (shooting up to my shoulder) and starting week 2 I was still so, so tired.

This week I had to stretch myself to try new recipes in order to keep my food choices fresh and interesting.

Day 7-9 I ate a lot of leftovers from week one- spaghetti and zucchini, chili, and pulled pork.

Those days I had cravings for all kinds of sweet and salty things. I wanted a vanilla cream Dr. Pepper from sonic thanks to a friend who casually mentioned vanilla Dr P. I saw goldfish crackers at work and like a small child, I wanted them. (And I don't even really like them that much!) I didn't give in, but my brain was throwing a full on toddler fit trying to get me to cave.

Day 9 for dinner I kept things simple since I was home alone. It was delicious though. I sauteed potato in coconut oil and paired it with steamed broccoli and bacon.

It was on this day that it really occurred to me how often I have a tendency to treat my kid free time as special "treat yo self" time. With the kids gone for 3 nights visiting their cousins, I had to endure much more intense cravings. Maybe it's all part of the process of whole30 anyway.. but, I distinctly remember thinking that I was missing out on something. Its like my brain thinks that when the kids are gone it's time to eat all the unhealthy things!

Definitely going to pay more attention to this in the future, and make sure treats really are treats and not habits. #lessonlearned

Day 10 was worse, y'all. Imagine with me for a minute. You haven't had any sugar, grains or dairy in 9 days. You walk into your work place to clock in and right at the door is a box of donuts. You ignore them, clock yourself in so you can get paid for this torture, and then you head over to the break room to get your morning coffee. You pour it in your cup and out of habit go to the refrigerator to grab the hazelnut creamer, only to remember you can't have it. You close the refrigerator and what do you see? A box of some sort of pastry.. drizzled with sugar. It looks fruity and sweet, but you can't have it so you turn back and make your way to your desk.

A few minutes later along comes a coworker who has brought a crock pot filled with barbecue pulled pork, Hawaiian rolls, and baked beans for lunch to share with the office. You then remembered it was "crock pot" day and it was her turn to bring the food. But you can't have it. Because the barbecue that is covering the pork has sugar in it, the rolls of course are grains, and the beans are legumes. You go throughout your work day smelling it and watching your coworkers eat it. You silently throw a little pity party and wonder why you are even doing this to yourself. You should be able to have a little bit, right? A little bit won't hurt...

This is where pure determination and maybe a little pride stepped up to keep me going. I can't fail at this.. not after I have told the general world I'm doing it for 30 days. Nope, I had to see it through. But the cravings were pretty strong. I also seemed to be starving that day.. which was weird because, I ate a ton of food. I'm not starving myself at all on this "diet." I'm not counting calories. I'm just making healthy choices when I eat. Once again, it was probably in my head that I was so hungry because of all I the times I told myself no.

I tried a new recipe for dinner on day 11. It called for fresh tomato, garlic, onion, jalapeno pepper, lime juice and olive oil blended into a marinade for chicken. The problem is, I pulled out my blender and realized the actual blades were missing. I searched and searched but couldn't find them anywhere... rendering the blender useless. So, I improvised and chopped everything up, put the chicken in a gallon sized bag with the spices for a couple hours in the fridge and then cooked them all together. I sauteed some squash and made up some cauliflower rice, and I have to say, it turned out pretty tasty. The chicken was definitely flavorful, but once I get a new blender I will have to try it again.

By day 13 I had a crazy thought. I actually WANTED to get some exercise in. I didn't have any crazy boost of energy, I just had the desire to move. That is huge for me! I haven't felt a motivation to exercise in probably a year. Now, I still didn't... After work we had back to school events so, I didn't get any more exercise than usual. Strike that. I did lug a bunch a school supplies down the street and into two schools. That counts as something, right?

But I made a delicious dinner. Taco fries! Taco salad on a bed of sweet and russet potato fries.

After running errands most of the day, I finished out strong on day 14 with another new recipe. And it was also delicious. Both kids actually liked it. Coconut lime chicken.

It was similar to the other chicken recipe in that I put it over cauliflower rice, but the coconut and lime flavor of the sauce was really yummy.

All in all, I feel like it's getting a little easier to make good choices. The dishes and cooking is wearing on me though.. its exhausting to use so many dishes that you take them out of the dishwasher and dirty them back up an hour after they finished cleaning.

Oh well, I guess we'll see if week three brings on that energy I've been waiting for. I could use it right about now.

*P.S. Does anyone really want to know what I'm eating? No? Oh well, too late. This is to prove eating healthy is more than just baked chicken and raw veggies. (Not that there is anything wrong with either one!) 😉

Whole30 Week 1

So, trying to go 30 days without sugar, grains, dairy and most legumes probably seems very crazy to most people.

Maybe I am crazy, but I know it can work, because I have done it before. I know that it's a good, healthy reset for my body. And if nothing else, it's a great test and strengthening of self control which is never a bad thing, right?

But still, here's the why.

The past couple years I've noticed a few changes in me. A lack of energy and motivation, mood swings, weight gain, more carpal tunnel pain, etc just to name a few. At first I blamed most of these things on turning 30. People do say eventually your metabolism catches up with you, right?  Eventually your body ages to a point that it just doesn't quite feel the same, right? Is it just that I've finally reached that point of adulthood?

Well, here's the thing. Besides entering my 30's, in the last couple years I have also gone from part time to full time employment, stopped almost all of my exercise (refer back to working full time and you'll get why I can't seem to "find" the time anymore) went through schooling and obtained a certification, moved twice, (yes, I'm throwing that one in because moving is it's own kind of stress) and then the big one... cough... finalized my divorce. When I think back on it, I guess a lot has happened in the last few years. So, perhaps it's not about aging past 30. Maybe it's actually just life in general.

Regardless of the cause, I am too young, and too "relatively" healthy to get winded walking down the street to the mailbox and back... you know what I mean? I used to be very active. I want to get back to that.

Whole30 for me is just a stepping stone to get me back on track. Back to eating healthy. Back to more energy. Back to feeling motivated to excerise. It's not about restricting my diet for the rest of my life and never having cake again. It's not about shaming myself or anyone else for choosing to eat bread. It's about getting control over my addiction to sugar. It's about being able to play outside with my kids and somewhat keep up with them. It's about teaching them healthy eating habits that they will hopefully take with them someday when they are grown. And I know it has to start with me.

So, how has week 1 gone?

Let's go over the basic rules of Whole30 real quick.. These are the rules I have committed to following for the month of August.

No Grains. No added sugar, not even from natural sources. No beans. No legumes, (with the exception of green beans, sugar snap peas, and snow peas.) No dairy.

Reading labels of canned goods and pantry items is the hardest part. Sugar, as well as soy and corn are big ones that are in a lot of products you might not think about.

I will eat meats, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. 

The night before I started, I ate all the things.. really, kind of a bad idea. I even knew it was a bad idea, but I still did it. I was meal prepping, so raman noodles were on the menu with my Milo's sweet tea. (LOVE that tea brand!) I also had to eat a couple of brigadeiros that my kids had made since I was giving up chocolate for a month. But... besides eating random, unhealthy things, I chopped veggies.

Don't they look delicious?

Day 1 was a success as far as staying compliant... with a couple minor exceptions. Go ahead, Whole30 police, come and get me.

 When I do a Whole30, I stay as compliant as I possibly can, but also stay within my food budget and convenience. What I mean by that is.... I'm a huge fan of Walmart's online grocery pickup service. Instead of having to spend half of my Saturday to grocery shop, I typically pick up my online order on my way home from work on Fridays and I'm good to go. That being said, if I can't find it conveniently at Walmart, I don't have the will power or time to shop around out of my way at other stores like whole foods, or Aldi, nor do I have the budget to order specialty foods from these big, fancy farms.

So.. back to staying Whole30 compliant. The only exceptions I will make in these 30 days is my bacon and breakfast sausage. I get the all natural sausage, and the uncured natural bacon. The sausage has listed in the ingredients "less than 2% sugar" along with the other spices, and the bacon has just a little turbinado sugar, a.k.a "raw sugar." But, I will not consume them every day.. and it's still a much better choice for me to make than a donut.. Mostly because I do not crave them the way I crave a dessert, or pastry. :)

I felt empowered on day 1, and excited about the next month. I totally had an obnoxious "can do" attitude. I ate boiled eggs and avocado for breakfast, baked potato and sausage for lunch with raw cucumber and carrots, and cantaloupe.. and dinner was baked chicken and veggies. All the veggies I spent time the night before chopping!

Here's a funny one for you.. I chickened out of completely getting rid of coffee.. coffee is fine for Whole30, but the normal creamers out there on the market aren't and.. I don't drink my coffee for the coffee taste, if you know what I'm saying. I knew not drinking any at all would result in a headache later, so.. I put unsweetened coconut milk in my coffee to see if it was edible. Let's just say, it looked like I was drinking grease after cooking a bunch of fatty ground beef.. here's proof. Go ahead, you can laugh..

But overall, day 1 = success and a feeling of accomplishment.

Day 2 I woke up with a pounding headache... bring on the detoxing... I almost left work 30 minutes after I got there, convinced I would puke at my desk and never be able to show my face there again. I got up from my desk three different times, as the nausea came over me strong enough that I thought I might lose it. It was bad, y'all.

After some black coffee and ibuprofen, I managed to stay at work, but the headache continued on through the day until late evening.

Day 3 I had a slight headache, but overall I felt okay. By the evening after work I was tired, but finished the day with steak, sweet potato fries and broccoli for dinner and a movie night with the kids.

The funny part about this night was that I dreamt of food.... when I woke on day 4, I couldn't remember details of my dream, only that it involved eating at a restaurant, and no... I was not eating on plan.. 🤣

But, for day 4 I stayed compliant in the daytime hours-the hours that count. For dinner I threw together this homemade Whole30 approved chili. It was so yummy!

I was pretty tired that day, and ready for this phase of the detox to be over. 🙂

Days 5 and 6 I felt great. I have not hit any sort of spike in energy yet, in fact, I'm still feeling sort of sluggish.. but, I'm still determined to see this thing through. I'm on day 7 and am ready for what it will bring. I feel like Kuzco in The Emperor's New Groove. "Bring it on!"

I have a few friends and family members doing this thing with me, and that makes it all the more fun that we are experiencing it together. I hope we all have good results in the end!

The biggest take away I have had in the first week is really just a reinforcement of what I already knew. We must (to the best of our ability) take care of our body. Otherwise, we suffer for it. That's not to say of course that there aren't some health problems that come that we can't prevent. But there are several ailments that we can bring on ourself by not eating right. The detox headache was much worse than it was the first time I did this challenge. It was worse because I've not been nourishing myself with the right foods. On day 2 I thought to myself, "I'm never eating sugar again!" We all know that is impossible, but, my irrational (or maybe rational?) thought process was that I never wanted to feel so yuck again. If going one day without some of these foods creates such a withdrawal, shouldn't we be at least a little more leery to consume them?

After this month, I will try very hard to strike a balance. I love that word. It works in so many areas of life. Perhaps some future thoughts are coming on what I am learning about having balance in life. In this case, balancing healthy choices with the occasional treat. #goals

So, there you have it. My crazy ramblings. I'll get back to my regular posts soon. As soon as I can have chocolate again! ;)