Phase 1 - Mini whole30

Last time I tried to do whole30, I failed miserably. I did a solid four days and then missed milk too much. But a friend and I have decided to give it a shot together. The kicker is she doesn't think she can do it cold turkey, so for the time being we are phasing things out. 

whole30

NO dairy

NO legumes

NO grains

NO alcohol

NO added sugar

NO peanuts

NO msg, carageenan, sulfites

I think those few things should be easy enough to cut out for a week.... right? Basically all I have left is grains and alcohol. I'll probably try and do all of it from the start though. I went to the supermarket yesterday and bought almond milk for my coffee. Day #1 off to a good start. I did have a bit of bread with my eggs this morning, though. Erroneous for this week. 

Let's see how the rest of the week (read: day) goes. 

xoxo

Day 2: Clearly, I love fruit.

I started my day off with another cup of coffee, this time adding in some almond milk that I had put in my Nespresso Aeroccino (which I love by the way). I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. I'll put it down as a maybe for now. 

I ate a banana and a couple slices of jamón serrano for breakfast. For lunch, I ate the garlic chicken and burnt asparagus I made last night. Snacked on some more tomatoes. And then I ate another banana. And then another. And then an apple. I need to keep healthy and compliant snacks around. I kept getting up to open the fridge to see what I could eat. 

8:56 pm: I took a trip to Whole Foods. 

I could not have been more excited about my WF trip. I picked up a few more healthy snacks - grapes, blackberries, turkey, bananas. I also knew that when I got home I'd be too lazy to thaw chicken, so I bought a 4oz piece of skirt steak. I came home, grilled the steak, threw some asparagus into the oven, and had one of the best simple dinners ever. #littlethingsinlife

Maybe these 30 days won't be as hard as I thought.

Lesson Learned: Meal prepping is important. Keeping healthy snacks around the apartment, also important. Adding more protein to my meals will help me snack less.

xoxo

Day 1: Complete.

One of the biggest things I was dreading nervous about giving up was dairy. I love milk in my coffee in the morning. I eat cereal for breakfast (or really whenever I don't know what else to eat). I LOVE cheese. I love ice cream - thankfully right now I'm not eating dessert, so that is helpful. But nonetheless, day número uno commenced with a cup of coffee... with no milk... and it wasn't too bad. I actually enjoyed it more than I was expecting to! First battle: won!

By 11:30am, I was starving. Yes, I could eat a plate of grilled salmon and steamed broccoli. No, I wasn't bored. 

This means I need to add more to my breakfast and/or pack a snack for right before lunch. I don't really like to eat lunch earlier than 12:30 and definitely not before noon - which means I need something to hold me over. 

Now, I had this whole plan for Sunday night about how I was going to take a nap then wake up and make day one's lunch. Fail. I fell asleep, didn't set an alarm and woke up 12 hours later. So lunch yesterday was a salad from Sweet Green - spinach, chicken, sweet potatoes, cucumber, tomatoes, hard boiled egg, avocado, and asparagus topped with vinaigrette. And due to meetings, I didn't start eating it until about 3:15pm.... so much for being famished at 11:30am. 

4:23pm: my thought "And now all I want is a (box of) chocolate chip cookie(s)."

Then, all of a sudden it was 8:52pm and I had just caught the metro. This was going to be another challenging part of these 30 days. Since Sunday night, I passed out at 6:30pm I didn't make any meals ahead of time. I knew I had to mentally prepare myself on the ride home to be sure I didn't just eat the first thing I saw when I got home. 

Mental note: I'm hoping this is a lesson learned for the rest of the 30 days and I don't put of meal prepping. 

I came home and ate a giant bowl of strawberries. Not the intention of the 30 days, but not a bad life choice either. After I finished the bowl off, I made some garlic chicken, ate a few mini heirloom tomatoes, and started meal prepping for the next day. I finished off the night with a banana and off to bed! 

Let's see how day #2 goes.

xoxo

Challenge : Accepted.

I'll caveat everything I'm going to say here with : I am TERRIBLE at 30 day challenges. I think it's a mental thing - once I say I can't have something or can't do something or have to do something for a specific period of time, I cave within the first 30 minutes. I have no clue why. I'm sure there's some sort of reasoning behind it. It probably has something to do with not caring enough or not putting significance on it. Who knows! But I'm always pretty good at keeping Lenten promises. This year I gave up desserts. The first couple of weeks are always a little difficult, but once you get over the hurdle, you're golden. You start saying "no thank you, I don't want that" versus "I can't have that". 

Anyways. While I was in Spain last week, I decided that after I ran my 10-miler on Sunday, I'd begin whole30. I don't want to call it a challenge, because I don't feel like that's what it is. I see it more as like a diet reset. And weirdly enough, I'm actually really excited to begin it. 

It's 30 days of no added sugar, no dairy, no grains, no legumes, no alcohol, no processed foods, Most of that seems doable for 30 days. The dairy part though... that's going to be a toughie. I LOVE cheese. 

Aside from the cheese part though, I'm pretty excited to begin. It'll be interesting to learn different ways to fuel my body while I'm training for a half marathon because my usual go-to's are pasta and oatmeal. So, we'll see! Stay tuned to see how I'm doing! Heck, even keep me accountable. Ask me how it's going! 

xoxo