Whole30 Week Three

My husband and I have completed week three of the Whole30, an eating plan that is intended to reset and balance your system while helping to eliminate cravings and unhealthy food habits.  Let's start with this week's...

FOOD REVELATION:  Homemade sausage is a precious gift to oneself.  And if you do it my way, it's easy too.   It's so good I'll soon do a post dedicated solely to this happy thing.  Stay tuned!

Each week I reflect on what notable moments or lessons I've experienced.  Here are a few:

OBSERVATION #1: The Whole30 plan is self-perpetuating in a way similar to naturopathic medicine.  When you work with a naturopath, things get fixed.  Naturopathic physicians address the root cause of your conditions and everything just gets better.  It's addicting.  And therefore self-perpetuating.  For example your pain gets better so you work on your fatigue.  Your fatigue goes away and you ask your ND to address your allergies.  Your allergies disappear so you ask about weight loss.  The inevitable success of doing something the right way makes you do it more. 

In a way, the Whole30 plan is similar.  Surf the World Wide Web; you'll see that people everywhere are closing their Whole30 with resolve to just keeping eating that way.  Living without grains, sugar, dairy, and crappy seed oils just feels better.  So you keep doing it!! 

OBSERVATION #2: Being on the same page from a diet perspective brings a couple TOGETHER!  I'm already the luckiest gal in the world.  My guy and I are best friends with a pile of shared hobbies; we're always together and it's my favorite place to be.  Constantly cooking and planning meals as a team is a new & sweet bonus!  ("Sweet" as in awesome, not as in honey, frosting, and sprinkles.)  Some days, I'm the Chef and he's the Sous Chef; the next day we switch.  Sometimes he does dinner while I prep for future meals.  Whatever the gig, we're sharing the experience. 

This mutual effort is definitely the reason the Whole30 hasn't been very hard; good company improves everything.  And the togetherness is part of the increased health!  A naturopath will tell you that experiencing your food fully is an important part of absorbing the nutrients.  The tastes, smells, chewing; the breaths you take and the mood you're in all contribute to getting the full benefit of the meal.  Good company, low stress, and yes, love, all make a difference.      

OBSERVATION #3: My husband is looking very lean.  He already looked great beforehand - fit and thin.  But it's fun to get a look at his muscle definition so clearly!  He's even feeling inspired to put on some muscle weight.

HOW IT'S GOING

Bloat bloat bloat.  I'm bloated.  BLOATING.  In every tense and sense.  That's how it's going.

There's been much discussion of why; detox symptom most likely.  But it sucks and it went on all week, so by day 21 I was convinced I was probably a leaky gut victim.  And even if I'm not, clearly my system needed the Whole30 more than I thought.  Yuck.  Peppermint tea and Ginger tea are my friend.  (Thank you Mother Nature for keeping me out of the drug store!  Y'all with your tums and prilosec, go see a naturopath.  There are lots of healthy ways to make digestive distress feel better without drugs!)

We are both feeling normal energy levels in the exercise department again, which is nice.  But the idealistic "Tiger Blood" mentioned in the book It Starts With Food eludes us.  You're warned on the Whole30 not to expect too much or at a certain time, but there's all this chatter on the internet from people who are suddenly able to move mountains by now.  We've decided those people are probably 24 years old.  (Or akin to fisherman.  With delusions of really large fish.)

My sister, who is doing this with us, called one evening to ask if I'd been super emotional.  She recounted a pretty crappy day, with tears and all.  I assured her that I was feeling very precarious much of the time, doing ok though not fabulous in any way, but I hadn't had any crying spells.  When I called her two days later to describe my wallpaper removal meltdown, she shouted, "THANK GOD.  I thought it was just me!"

The moral to the story is, do not undertake any renovations that involve wallpaper removal while on the Whole30.  And if you do, don't do it with anyone around.  Oh...and expect some mood swings.  Wallpaper or not.

I'm still having low blood pressure issues & I noticed a correlation.  When my blood pressure was low, so was my mood, which reminded me of the two or three times I've done very low carb diets in my life.  They made me sad.  Sad, unmotivated, and irritable.  Sweet potatoes and various squash help!  Don't forgot your starchy veggies, folks.  Without the right balance of food, your neurotransmitters will be outta whack.  That means sad, unmotivated, and irritable.

My hands were a little numb this week, which is an an issue I got rid of with my ND's help, but I'm not surprised to see it pop back in for a few days. Detoxing can bring up old issues. I like to think my body is getting more balanced so the little devils lurking in corners are being forced out. They just like to go out kicking and screaming.

What else.....  My allergies still suck and I can't wait to talk to Dr. Birr about them next week.  I don't think I have lost any weight, and though it's not the goal, I'd be full of it if I didn't say I couldn't wait to see what the scale has to say.  And lastly, cravings were much less common this week.  We're looking forward to our meals instead of craving crap. 

I wonder if I should be taking anything for the bloat, but I'm not internet-dosing myself based on what people are saying on blogs and paleo forums.  We'll see what my naturopath has to say.

NOTABLE MEALS

Chicken Salad with homemade mayo is sooooo deliciously yummy.   I shredded baked chicken, added mayo, celery, white onion, apples, white pepper, salt, coriander, and paprika.  Good gosh.  It's also pretty tasty for breakfast when a quick fix is in order.  (The website to which I linked is filled with fun Whole30 and Paleo stuff.  I'd like to have lunch with author Melissa Joulwan.)

For a treat, I like to slice Fuji or Honeycrisp apples and shake cinnamon all over them.  Then I add cinnamon and vanilla to coconut cream and the pure joy of real, natural food coats us like honey...without the honey.

Ribolita must be on your Whole30 meal list.  It means "Reboiled" in Italian and is usually a mix of whatever veg are available plus spices and tomato sauce.  Make homemade Italian sausage and brown it, then set aside.  In the same pot, saute onion, celery, and carrots, half a head of thinly sliced cabbage, and fennel until soft; add garlic and Italian seasonings. Add a bunch of chopped greens and then let it meld a bit.  Add chopped tomato, tomato sauce, and some rich balsamic vinegar to taste then add the sausage back in.  Simmer and eat!

WEEK THREE RECAP

All of the rules and preparation and food management has become pretty automatic by the end of week three.  The only thing I'd like for us to improve upon is the availability of emergency dinners.  Even cooking a fish dish can take more energy than one has from time to time.  Then again, we didn't prepare any large pot meals this week.  That would have helped.

Aside from the air pressure crowding my belly from within, this week felt like a normal week...except we're on the Whole30 & eating better.  No big woop!  Pretty cool.

Here's a fun little quote I found from a cool kid who did a presentation on the industrial food industry versus natural farming: 
"It seems to me that we can either pay the farmer or we can pay the hospital." -Birke Baehr
 
Aside from the onions left from fall, we are paying the grocery store - but it's way better than a hospital.  I can't wait until spring when we can pay the farmer again!