Sigh . . . Whole30

As you can see by the title, I'm trying a month of Whole30. Or do I say I'm trying "a Whole30"? Still working on the lingo.

My understanding of Whole30 is that it is a temporary program where one stops eating certain foods that can cause irritation/inflammation, and at the end of 30 days one can add those things back in slowly to see how they make you feel after this cleansing period. Things like dairy, sugar, grains, legumes, happiness, and shelter.

I'm mostly concerned about sauces. I love creamy dressing and BBQ sauce and honey mustard, and I think I'm going to end up making a lot of sauces. I can get behind that, but I will need to plan my Sundays better. I also think this is going to be an expensive month with more trips to the grocery store than normal.

Day 1/2
I officially started August 1, but on July 31 I did almost everything except I ate my daughter's birthday cake. She only turns 11 once, and Publix marble cake is really outstanding. Now 3/4 of it is just sitting in the fridge, taunting me, but I can be strong. I also polished off some Dove dark chocolate I had in my desk. I foresee this being an issue - I like a small piece of dark chocolate after lunch and dinner, and don't come at me with your carob. I don't really need to eat a whole Snickers or ten mini Twix bars, just one little Dove square. Sigh.

Day 1
Coffee.
Black coffee sucks. I enjoy coffee in the morning with organic sugar and half and half. I tried coconut cream, and it just made my coffee kind of greasy. I tried coconut milk today, and bleh. I guess my next step down will be almond milk, but really? It's like four almonds and a gallon of water. I had an epiphany that Starbucks has almond milk! But after much furious online research, I discovered their almond milk also has added sugar, so screw you Starbucks.

Anyway, for breakfast I sauteed some zoodles (hate that stupid word) in ghee (which is mostly butter - how is it allowed?), and then scrambled two eggs in the pan with them. Dee-lish. Lunch was some tuna I made with mayo, chopped onions and yellow peppers, salt and pepper, and a ton of spinach and arugula with homemade vinaigrette. I also have an apple and some almonds and pomegranate seeds for snacks.

Dinner was a salad at MOD Pizza - they have lots of toppings, and the nutritional info on their website is really great. I had so many toppings, and they had olive oil and vinegar as an option. I didn't ask if the vinegar was sulfite-free, because shut up. It was delicious. I can see I will get tired of salads sooner than later, but my kids love to go to MOD, so it's a good option for me.

My kids and I went to a boxing class at the gym, and I was starving afterward, but I just didn't have any convenience food. I ate some almonds and a bit of sunflower seed butter (meh), but I really wanted to get a little bowl of some kind of finger food and chow down. I need to do more prep of some kind. Before Whole30 I would have had a cheese stick or chocolate milk after a workout, so I'll have to do some research.

Day 2
Coffee.
Today I felt a little hung over when I woke up - just kind of foggy and tired. Last night's boxing class sort of kicks my butt, so that may be it. I also didn't eat as many calories as I could have, so I don't know.

Breakfast and lunch were the same as yesterday. I think I can handle these being the same, at least the same for a week at a time. I'll make some egg muffins this weekend and figure out a different lunch thing for next week. My office had a lunch and learn today catered by Moe's, and I was really hoping to swipe some guacamole, but there wasn't any. Just as well, because those chips are my kryptonite. For dinner we had boiled shrimp, cabbage, roasted potatoes, grape tomatoes, and maybe something else. I made this BBQ sauce recipe because I NEED CONDIMENTS, and it was pretty good. We just dipped our shrimp in it like ketchup.

Day 3
Coffee wasn't as bad - I had some black coffee at home (awful stuff) and I had a little more at work with coconut milk, which is just OK. Still not working for me - I might have to try almond milk creamer, which is a sentence I never thought I'd say. The coconut milk is just kind of greasy.

For breakfast I made the same scrambled eggs and zucchini I've had all week, but this time Drew ate it with me, and that helped somehow. For lunch I went to a restaurant for the first time on Whole30, and it wasn't so bad. I was worried about being THAT customer who asks a million questions and makes the server crazy, but I just asked for a few things left out of my salad, just grill my salmon with salt and pepper and please bring oil and vinegar. And it was spectacular! I'm concerned about missing all kinds of foods, but I hadn't given much thought to getting tired of making every single thing I have to eat. It was nice to go out with friends and just enjoy lunch. Plus one of the other diners is doing some other kind of weird diet for a month, so we had a lot to talk about. Food weirdos unite!

UPDATE:
I quit, obviously. I made it 14 days. Two weeks. 42 boring, crappy meals. I just never really felt like I had the hang of it. I would prep what felt like a ton of food on Sunday, and then Sunday night at dinner I would still feel like I had nothing to eat. I really wanted to eat with my family.

I did have a rally on day 13 where I posted a photo of my meal prep on Instagram and FB and felt really good about life in general and my ability to maintain a version of Whole30 (I added beans back in over that weekend because I just got so sick of eating meat). Then when I woke up on Day 15, I wanted avocado toast. And we had good french bread and a perfectly ripe avocado. And with that, Whole30 was done.

I learned so much about what kind of food I want to eat during that two weeks that it was worth it, but I'll never try it again. I really did hate it, but I needed to accept meal prep as a part of the Whole30 lifestyle and be done with it. It really isn't made for vegetarians, which they tell you in the books and website. I thought I could eat some eggs, seafood and a bit of chicken here and there and be OK, but I got sick of everything so quickly. If I don't eat chicken or cauliflower or freaking coconut aminos for six months I'll be fine.

SECOND UPDATE:
Six months later I'm giving this a second thought. Never say never, right? I'm starting to think I can do it, and it bugs me that I didn't finish. I've never gone back to my previous level of cheese consumption, so giving up that isn't an issue. I also didn't have as hard a time cutting bread/carbs as I thought, and I'd love to eat less sugar. Maybe I'll just modify it to something I can more easily follow and go from there. I will say I was never hungry and I ate a TON of food on Whole30. I lost a bunch of weight last year and now I'm trying to figure out how to maintain, so I keep coming back to this. I just have to figure out coffee.