I was initially planning on a gradual sampling of things but the thought of putting myself through 3 meals including beans, or dairy, or anything really that I had not had in awhile seemed... super unappealing to me. I already saw that taking those "unessential" foods out of my diet made me feel better, so introducing them multiple times a day even for a day sounded like a bad idea. So one day I had truffles Anna made me. And they were delicious but gave me the biggest "food baby" I have had in a long time. I would go about two meals whole30 and then the 3rd introduce something new, and before I knew it I was trying Cane's and fries and... well, you know. Faceplant into the life (and as a result, the bloated belly) I had a month ago. Boo.
So it's no surprise that Whole30 was super restrictive. But I am still working to find what my new "normal" is now that I am done with my Whole30. As much as I hated the 3 meals a day rule, it now seems so easy, so logical. But what if I get hungry inbetween?! Should I do 5 smaller meals? Should I stop having chocolate (every day) again?! Can someone please slap away the teddy grahams and the chocolate pb brownies Drew just made last night!?! Whole30 was EASY in that it was so black or white. It has sugar or it doesn't and you don't have to think too much about it. I miss that part. I think the "mom" part of my brain loved that it was so mindless to automatically go to the stuff that was whole30, especially after the first week or so.
Stuff I did like and continue to try to apply to my eating: protein and some sort of fat at every meal, eating more veggies and I don't feel like I "have" to have fruit every day. Now I am just working on all the rest of that "grey area".
But I love the Whole30. I love the way it makes me feel, I love the ease of putting together simple meals, I love how my body reacts to whole foods, and for the first time in my life I understand why I eat what I eat and I am developing really good habits that will hopefully (eventually) become regular for me. I don't think everyone has to experience a Whole30 (and even the author's do NOT tout it as a Whole365, but they hope that the experience of the whole30 will help to reset a lot of bad habits and replace them with better ones) to reap some of the benefits.
So for the next little while, instead of my usual wordless Wednesday (which I am starting to tire of since I have been doing it for over 5 years now), I want to share little bits of what I am now looking at as my new Whole30-ish part of my life, where I try to eat whole foods as often as I can but still manage to enjoy some delicious "not quite as nutritious" foods as well.
For this week, one of my favorite whole30 discoveries was USING VEGETABLES AS A VEHICLE. I thought the only way of doing this was celery for peanut butter, but I quickly discovered carrot sticks for guacamole, peppers cut in half (that saves a lot of time, too!) to hold ground turkey (With a little bit of cotsco marinara, which is whole30 approved!) or tuna. And of course since avocado is basically a veggie we can't forget the egg in avocado that I really need to try again. (I probably would have done a lot more but the price of avocados went up, and it was cheaper and easier for me to use wholly guacamole packets that I could store in bulk in the freezer and take out a few each night). Enjoy and hopefully you find some inspiration for trying something a little whole30...ish. To health!
