I can’t believe I am halfway done with Whole30– these two weeks went by fast! Last week, I characterized my Whole30 experience as a little boring. This week was hard.
It was hard to eat so many eggs, It was hard to eat different types of protein. It was hard to eat so many vegetables. It was hard not to eat birthday cake. I thought about cheating or giving up completely more than once, but thankfully I stuck it out.
Food has become strictly nourishment and not enjoyable. I’m not sure what’s happening because I’m eating good food, it just isn’t pleasurable anymore. I’m sick of being in the kitchen and doing dishes all day and having to eat what I cook is almost like punishment. After gagging and throwing up a little on Day 9, I decided I needed to find some foods that tasted good to me and I could get excited about. Enter fried okra and white potatoes which you’ll see several times this week. Those two foods made a world of difference.
Despite the challenges, this week helped me realize that I am a constant snacker during the day. Now that I’m eating three very solid meals a day, I am not hungry at all between meals. Snacks are not anywhere on my radar and don’t cross my mind at all, even though I’m throwing snacks at my little people all day long. Before, I would snack every time my kids ate. Sometimes I was hungry, but mostly it was habit. I am really excited to break my snacking habit for good.
I cheated and weighed myself again at the end of this week, and I’m down another three pounds for a total of eight. I’m ok with that, but I think I might try not to weight again until the 30 days is up because I don’t want to be disappointed as the weight loss slows down.
Now, onto what was on my plate this week.
Day 8 started with a veggie scramble using up some leftovers from the fridge. I don’t love squash and zucchini unless they’re fried so this was a little hard to eat. Lunch was egg salad with homemade mayonnaise (recipe on page 179 of the Whole30 book) and some delicious watermelon. Dinner was a frozen grass-fed hamburger patty from Trader Joe’s with sautéed greens. We had two of our favorite easy sides- carrot coins and crispy broccoli– both from Weelicious.
Day 9 was the day I threw up because my food completely grossed me out. Notice that I tried to cover up the barely tolerable veggie scramble from yesterday with some salsa. It didn’t work. After breakfast, I decided I had to make something to get excited about.
I was shopping at Target hopelessly checkout out the deli section and miraculously came across Whole30 compliant lunch meat. There was one variety of one brand that had no sugar or carrageenan in it. There was only one package left and I ate it all before I could write down the brand so I have no idea what it was. It made an amazing lunch, and I savored every bite of my salad. Dinner included fried okra (recipe coming soon to the blog!) so it was a big win. We tried out some frozen roasted sweet potatoes from Costco and nobody liked them because of the odd seasoning.
Day 10 started out amazing with leftover okra. A hard boiled egg was a nice change and the fruit put me over the top. Lunch was another delicious salad with lunch meat and included homemade Ranch dressing. I didn’t have the ingredients to make the Ranch from the Whole30 book so I threw some spices into my homemade mayo and thinned it out with a little flax milk and it turned out perfectly.
Dinner was good, but I decided I’m going to leave steaks to the pros. This was my first time ever cooking a steak and it was definitely edible, just not amazing. The ratatouille (recipe on page 288 of the Whole30 book) was delicious.
Day 11 started with leftovers and was followed up by not one, but two birthday parties. The first party included pizza and those little two-bite brownies that are so small and cute you end up eating 10 of them. Thank goodness my husband was there to talk me down because I almost fell off the deep end right there.
I came home from the party to make myself a delicious lunch that would make me forget everything I couldn’t have that I wanted so bad. This loaded baked potato was perfect! Birthday party number 2 was after lunch and it was a little easier to resist the sweets because I was so full. But I still needed a feel good dinner to pick me up and this salmon and hash browns did the trick.
Day 12 started with a yummy spinach frittata (recipe on page 206 of the Whole 30 book). Lunch felt overly indulgent, but I needed it. The sweet and spicy sesame chicken drumsticks (from the Healthy Foodie) used date paste as a sweetener, which felt a little bit like cheating, but it was so good to taste something saucy and sweet. Dinner was beef chili (from page 342 of the Whole30 book) with leftover ratatouille mixed in. I was skeptical that chili without beans was possible, but it actually worked.
Day 13 started with a Mexican scramble to use up my leftover steak. Anything with cilantro and guacamole is bound to be good. Lunch was more leftovers and dinner was a Freebirds taco salad bowl. I was busy working on unpacking our homeschool and craft closet all day and dinner snuck up on me. We decided to go out and went to Freebirds.
I Googled for about 30 seconds before I decided that I would just do the best I could but not freak out about any minor infractions. If you’re dong Whole30, don’t take my word for it that Freebirds is compliant, but it sure was good. I wasn’t even tempted by my husband’s nacho cheese or my son’s fluffy flour tortilla, which really surprised me. The meal was good, but my body was a mess just a few hours later. My stomach was in knots, and I had the worst gas (sorry, TMI!) so I don’t think we’ll be eating there again.
I celebrated making it two weeks into Whole30 with leftover spinach frittata, a yummy chicken salad and one of my favorite dinners. I roasted a spaghetti squash and mixed it with cooked ground beef and a jar of spaghetti sauce and served it with crispy eggplant (coat eggplant with equal parts almond flour, coconut flour and tapioca starch and fry until crisp). I could have eaten twice this much because I love eggplant, but I wanted to save some to eat as leftovers.
If you missed it, check out my roundup of meals from Week 1. Now that I’m more than halfway through Whole30, I’m feeling hopeful and excited about some lasting changes I can see happening in my life. Let’s see how this next week goes- stay tuned for details!
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