Whole 30 – done and dusted!

I really failed at the whole posting every day thing, oops!

Butl I did it, and I’m very very pleased with the results.

I’d been eating Paleo prior to this (probably around 80-90% clean) but I was definitely slipping back into old habits in terms of sugar consumption – my main aim with my Whole 30 was to beat the sugar addiction, and I really feel like I’ve succeeded. I know now that if I do have a treat that I will do so because I really want it and know it will taste delicious, not because I am hungry/stressed/upset/hormonal/insert excuse here.

Also, a very positive change for me is using words like ‘treat’ and retiring words like ‘naughty’ ‘good’ ‘cheat’ ‘deserve’ etc.

I feel like I finally, FINALLY have a healthy relationship with food, after battling with my weight my entire life.

So onto the other stuff (the numbers!):

Weight lost: 3.1 kgs (6.8 lbs), not as much as I thought I would lose given I was going from eating fairly clean to completely clean. However, I’m about halfway through my weightloss journey and the scales are not necessarily a good indicator when you’re like me and plateauing every 10 kgs or so.

Measurements:
3 cms (1.1 inches) from my waist
4 cms (1.5 inches) from my hips
2 cms (0.75 inches) from my stomach
1.5 cms (0.55 inches) from my thigh

And yesterday I went shopping because my clothes are all too big. That’s probably the most exciting part!

Looking forward to experimenting with reintroduction, not because I want to eat bread or pasta, but I’m particularly interested in seeing exactly what foods affect me detrimentally. My partner and I are travelling to the US in November, and I definitely want to know if I have a serious gluten/dairy intolerance  🙂

Whole 30: Day 12

I have been so slack with the blogging this week, but work is CRAZY again and I have had appallingly bad PMS the last couple of days.

Not logging the last few days food, but I am proud to say I made it through 2 days of PMS without eating sugar.  Considering I usually want to consume my body weight in chocolate when I have my period –  I’m really really thrilled.  Instead of chocolate, I had some lovely fresh fruit, I didn’t overindulge and I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt completely satisfied. I consider this a huge achievement.

Can’t believe I’m almost halfway through my Whole 30 already!

Whole 30 – Day 9

Slept fairly well last night, a little restless on account of how sore my shoulders and pecs are from my massage yesterday – seems I have hideous knots EVERYWHERE – but I slept in a little, which was nice.

Yesterday I had:

• Breakfast – 3 egg omelette with mushroom, onion, leek and fennel, greek coffee (new favourite thing) with coconut milk
• Lunch – Pork Scotch Fillet with eggplant and carrots, with lemon juice.  This was really good, the lemon juice on the carrots was absolutely delicious.
• Afternoon snack – 8 almonds, 2 dates and a teaspoon of cashew butter.  I was very hungry and drained after my 60 minute sports massage, so this was really satisfying and pumped up my energy levels quite a bit.
• Dinner – Chicken Marbella again.  Wasn’t as good as Frances and I were watching something and completely forgot about the basting

My stomach has been a bit upset the last couple of days, but I have also upped my nighttime magnesium to two spoonfuls, so I am wondering whether this might be the cause.

Whole 30 – Day 8

Aaaand now into week 2! Feeling pretty good today, aside from a niggly shoulder, but I have a massage planned this afternoon which will be just what I need after this week.

Yesterday I had:

• Breakfast: 3 eggs scrambled with ghee, leeks and fennel.
• Lunch: Left-over “butter” chicken and coconut cauliflower rice
• Dinner: Osso Bucco done with carrots, onion and tomato, with a garlic cauliflower puree

I snacked on some cashew butter (2 tsps) and a couple of strawberries, as dinner took ages and I was pretty hungry.  My big achievement yesterday was going to an afternoon tea full of lemon squares, devils food cake, chips etc etc and not even being the minutest bit tempted.  It’s so wonderful to feel in control of my body, and not be a slave to unhealthy food choices!

Whole 30 – Day 7

Missed blogging yesterday due to the insane workweek I’ve been having.  It’s been incredibly stressful, yet I haven’t resorted to any of my usual coping mechanisms: no de-stressing with food and alcohol and I really feel like I am kicking the unhealthy food choices to the kerb/  I’ve kinda been 70/30 Paleo before this I guess, (some weeks maybe even less tight than that) but knowing that I can adhere completely if I choose to? I have no words for how in-control of my own life I feel right now.

Wednesday I had:

• Breakfast – Hash made with leftover Pork Carnitas, sweet potato, capsicum and onion with an egg on top.  Damn, it wasso good. Should have probably had two eggs as I was hungry by 11-ish, though I had some coffee with coconut milk and that saw me through till lunchtime.
• Lunch – Leftover Chicken Marbella with cauliflower puree.  There are no words for how much yummy this was the next day.  So having that again.
• Dinner – Grass-fed Steak and fennel/onions. Beautiful.

Wednesday night I had a terrible sleep.  I don’t know what was going on (I am assuming Cortisol) but I was awake on and off all night – couldn’t sleep for long, couldn’t get comfortable. And I knew I had ahuge day at work, so a crappy night’s sleep was the last thing I needed. Ugh.

Thursday:

• Breakfast – 3 eggs with fennel and onions and spinach along with coffee/coconut milk. This was a lot of food for me but given how insanely busy I knew I was going to be yesterday, I figured a big breakfast would set me up nicely for the day.  I was right, I had a lot of energy for at least a few hours.
• Lunch – Frittata made with the last of the pork and lots of veges.  Really light and fluffy and yummy.
• Dinner – Krystle’s amaaaaaaazing Not So Buttery Butter Chicken. This was so tasty, and didn’t leave me feeling all bloated and bleh like normal butter chicken does.  We had it with a TON of coconut-cauliflower rice, and after my horrible day? This was comfort food at its best.

I can’t believe tomorrow will make it a week since I started my Whole 30.  It’s going so damn fast.  I have never felt better. Loving it. LOVING. IT.

Whole 30 – Day 5

Can’t believe I’m on Day 5 already!

Slept much better last night, and feeling pretty good. Poor Frances is really sick though, cold and sore throat etc. so I am just praying that I manage to escape unscathed!

Yesterday I had:

• Breakfast – 4 scrambled eggs and loads of leeks and fennel.  Originally was only going to have 3 eggs, but Frances wasn’t hungry, so she gave her leftover egg to me in case I felt I wanted it.  I did, and this breakfast saw me through till about 2.30 in the afternoon
• Lunch – Still wasn’t really hungry, but I was feeling a bit light-headed, so figured I should probably eat something. Had 1/2 a serving of the leftover slow cooker beef from the night before.
• Dinner – Erin’s Chicken Marbella.  OMG this was amaaaaazing.  Salty and sweet and umami and just WOW.  Had a drumstick and 1 and 1/2 thighs along with cauliflower mash (made with coconut milk, ghee and garlic).  I worked a 9 and 1/2 hour day without taking a decent break, so I was STARVING by the time I got home.  This hit the spot so beautifully.

I had a really horrible day yesterday, a friend and I parted ways and it was really emotionally draining.  And not ONCE did I consider chocolate or wine or any of my normal unhealthy coping mechanisms.  I feel really proud of that.

Whole 30 – Day 4

Had a very restless sleep last night.  I’m thinking it might be due to the increased carbs, or it could just be a bad night. Woke with a horrendous headache, but with the help of some paracetamol (I believe this is okay, as it isn’t a NSAID – but maybe someone can correct me if that isn’t the case) it seems to be okay now.

Yesterday I had:

• Breakfast – 3 eggs scrambled with ghee and leeks/mushrooms done in coconut oil
• Lunch – Leftover Carnitas with lettuce wraps, salsa and guacamole
• Dinner – Slow-cooked grassfed beef, adapted from this recipe: http://robbwolf.com/2011/12/15/paleo-beef-stew-in-slow-cooker/ (i.e. no sesame oil)

Am finding it really freeing to not be weighing myself. Once my Whole 30 is done, I will definitely not be obsessively weighing myself every day.

Whole 30: Day 3

Feeling very blocked up in the sinuses today.  There could be several reasons for this: a) my body getting over being inflamed from a couple of not-so-healthy food choices last week, b) lingering sinus infection (had flu last week also), c) my CPAP machine for my sleep apnea screwing up my nose – I cannot WAIT till I can throw that thing out and never use it again. Or d) some other food-related reason I’m unaware of – though not having eaten anything inflammatory, if it’s food-related I am guessing it’s my system reacting to the previous choices I made.

Took me ages to get out of bed today, feeling a bit sluggish, though again, the flu I had last week kicked me around a fair bit so I’m not too worried about it.

Yesterday I had:

Breakfast: 2 eggs, veges, 1/8 of a sweet potato, mixed with carrot and made into a hash cake.  I thought maybe I should have had 3 eggs, but I was pretty damn full.  Coffee with 3 tbsp coconut milk.

Lunch: Chicken, Leeks, 1/4 of a sweet potato sliced on the mandolin and fried in coconut oil, with lime salt.  I wouldn’t normally eat a lot of sweet potato (tend to stay in the 40-50 grams of carbs camp), but I’m really enjoying them at the moment.

Snack: 1 tsp of cashew butter. We made a bit of an error with dinner, and started it pretty late, which meant we were pretty hungry, I find just a small amount of the butter staves off hunger pangs and I’m never tempted to have more, so I view this as a safe choice if I have to snack.  Obviously it would be referable not to, but I’m sure I’ll be sticking to meals only as a general rule after these first few days. I used to graze a lot, so I’m happy with my progress!

Dinner: Melissa Joulwan’s Stovetop Pork Carnitas in lettuce wraps with homemade salsa and guacamole. YUM.

Roll on Day 4!

Whole 30: Day 2

Getting up in the morning and not weighing is an odd, but actually very freeing, thing!

So yesterday I had:

Breakfast: Grain-free porridge made with a mixture of nuts, water, apple and berries and coffee with 3 tbsp of coconut milk and cinnamon

Lunch: Leftover beef green curry and cauliflower rice, made with Whole 30-compliant curry paste, coconut milk, grass-fed beef, egglant and capsicum

Afternoon Snack: 1 tsp of cashew butter (was peckish and this saw me through till dinnertime)

Dinner: Large T-bone (and I do mean large), mushrooms, sweet potato with ghee and cinnamon and zucchini. Steak was cooked in ghee and veges in coconut oil.

Breakfast probably wasn’t as filling as a good protein source and veges would have been, so have rectified that error today.

It’s so completely freeing to eat a delicious, satisfying meal and to not think about food for HOURS. I am a grazer, and to only have one small snack (which is probably due to the breakfast not being satisfying enough) is HUGE for me.  As is not thinking about food constantly.

I slept fairly well last night, woke a little before 6 but I did get to bed a little later than I had hoped. However, I feel pretty damn awesome for someone who only slept 7 hours!

Looking forward to going for a walk today 🙂

Whole 30 Day 1

To preface this, I want to talk a little about It Starts With Food.

I just finished this book last week, and it was a complete revelation for me. I’ve been eating Paleo since March, having started with low-carb Atkins style, and it has changed my life in so many ways as you will see from previous posts.

But what makes ISWF so incredible is that it completely nails not only the science of overeating, but the PSYCHOLOGY.  What is at the root of those cravings and how food can be viewed as “good” “bad” or reward.  This success/failure roller-coaster of eating is something that I have been on my entire life, and the book made it all make so much sense to me.

Food can make you more or less healthy. That’s it. Simple.  There’s no bad or good or cheating or reward connotations in that statement, no value judgements and having accepted that, I feel completely free.

So today, I start Dallas and Melissa’s Whole 30 program, along with my beautiful wife, Frances, and I am going to attempt to blog about my journey every day.

For 30 days, I will not step on a scale or touch a measuring tape in 30 days (Given I currently weigh daily, I think this is going to be the hardest thing!) and there will be no sugar, grains, legumes, alcohol or dairy.

I have a lot of weight left to lose, but I am not even thinking about that for the next 30 days, and to their credit, that is EXACTLY what the no-weigh rule is all about, God Bless Them!

What I will be focusing on is my health. Eliminating all these potentially-problematic foods for 30 days and then reintroducing them to see where my body sits with them all. I feel that is the part of the book that is so wonderful.  I’ve read many Paleo and Primal articles and books, but I have always felt that what was missing is HOW to reintroduce and experiment with what works for you and what doesn’t. ISWF completely hammers this home and it’s so exciting to know that at the end of the 30 days, I will know EXACTLY what foods do my body harm and which don’t.

The other thing I am really going to focus on is a healthy relationship with food.  I know that at some stage in the future I will have sugar. And alcohol too, I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t have a glass of wine ever again.  But what I want to happen is this: if I have a piece of cake, or a glass of wine, I want to be making a CONSCIOUS DECISION, and not one born out of stress or depression or for the love of god, because I have PMS.  I want to take my life back completely and utterly and for me to control my food, not for it to control me.

And I cannot wait.