Whole30 Day1

Saturday:

I have the feeling this is going to be a long post, it isn't even lunchtime yet but I wanted to write some thoughts down. I'll add more at the end of the day.

Last night I went to bed worried about breakfast. I'd made plans, a recipe for baked eggs with spinach, tomato and chilli. I thought I had plenty of eggs, more than a dozen. But by last night we were down to eight eggs, for six people. Even if the kids only had one each, that wasn't enough. I was so stressed about it that I had weird Whole30-related dreams. I dreamed my mum ate my steak so I didn't have anything for dinner. I dreamed I was halfway through a choc-coated muesli bar then realised I wasn't allowed to eat that (I hardly ever have muesli bars!) and panicked. I think there were more food-related stress dreams too. I read in the Whole30 timeline that a lot of people have these sorts of dreams - but much later in the process, around Day 12, not before you even start!

 

In the morning I abandoned my fancy-egg plans and just soft boiled them and had two for myself on a bed of lettuce with salt (a kind of pared-down poor-man's Caesar salad). My brother wasn't even out of bed, Aiden didn't want one and the others only had one each so there ended up being three left over ... all that pointless worry! My breakfast was rather boring and not at all the start to Whole30 I had planned. Oh well, plenty of room for improvement. I also had a cup of black tea, and water with a squeeze of lemon. Then afterwards I realised I hadn't had any fat, supposed to have some with every meal, so I had a few cashews and almonds.

Lunch will also need a rethink as I had planned my favourite chicken and vegetable stir-fry but only realised last night that I can't have either soy or oyster sauce (oyster sauce is full of sugar) so I'll have to change the seasoning. Did I really think I had a handle on this process?

Did 22 minutes of energetic dancing so well on my way to my goal of 30 mins of exercise every single day.

Oh, I did my start-of-diet weigh and measure, 80.75 kg and 102 cm around the waist (at belly button). Not allowed to do this again until the end of the 30 days.

Later:

Felt some sibling-rage when my brother got up just before noon and monopolised my kitchen making himself breakfast at a time I was wanting to start lunch. I think I was just really over having visitors here! Arg! Give me my house back! My mum had gone out to the local shop to get herself some stuff and bought me another dozen eggs, which would do for my husband making some muffins for him and the kids (not me, obviously) and us having the baked egg thing for breakfast tomorrow morning - but my brother was going to have ... well I don't know how many eggs. He got out six pieces of bread and said he was going to fry eggs two by two until he had had enough. I said he wasn't allowed as I needed the eggs, and also mum had wanted to leave to head home about an hour before he even got out of bed, so he settled for three eggs. And scorched my frying pan (there was NO WAY I was cooking for him, I'd made eggs for the house hours before!).

I was feeling quite frustrated and cranky and hungry, so as soon as he was done cooking I started making lunch. I was still ripping apart the raw chicken when they finally left. So glad to have the house to ourselves again after more than a week of almost constant visitors (some more annoying than others!).

Felt much better after getting some chicken and vegetable stir-fry into me. Since I couldn't use soy or oyster sauce, I added chilli flakes as well as the garlic I always put in. Not the same, but nice. Cooked in olive oil. Then half a big apple.

I'm obsessing over food a fair bit, but I do that anyway. At least I am obsessing over healthy food.

Tim and the kids and I all walked up to the fruit markets (and there is the rest of my exercise for the day) for a few things. I asked in the deli about their prosciutto as I'd heard you can get that with no sugar, as an alternative to bacon. I wanted something to add a bit of sparkle to some dishes, not to eat a slab of bacon for breakfast. Of the three kinds of prosciutto they had, they had no idea of the ingredients of one and one of the other two had sugar. So I bought a few slices of the third. At $56 a kilogram! Nearly $9 for four wafer-thin slices. Ridiculous, of course. But I will have it one slice at a time (or maybe half a slice!) crispy fried and crumbled into an omelette or whatever for that added zing.

Also bought a julienne peeler to make zoodles ("noodles" out of vegetables). And an avocado to see if I like it yet. Not been a fan in the past.

Had a banana for a snack when we got home. Tim and the kids had Turkish Delight. Yuck, pure sugar. Then I realised that I'm supposed to have protein and fat even with a snack. So ate a bit of cold chicken and half a teaspoon of cashew butter. It felt silly and counterproductive to do that, I was no longer hungry at all, and eating so much at 4pm made me less hungry for my delicious dinner.

Dinner was lovely, a big T-bone steak with fried mushrooms (in olive oil), fried leek and celery with chives, and salad. It was basically what we often had, I only had to make a few minor changes. No corn, and I couldn't use the "steak seasoning" as it has rice flour in it, but I read the label and sprinkled all the other ingredients (salt, pepper, paprika, onion, garlic, and chilli powder) on my steak before frying. It tasted pretty much the same as usual. After a somewhat fraught day, food-wise, it was great to have something delicious, easy and familiar.

We hardly ever have dessert, but I guess I do like a taste of something sweet after dinner because I would love a square of chocolate right now.

So how did Day 1 go? Despite some problems, I got through it with full compliance as far as I can tell - assuming I get through the evening! Should be ok. I feel a bit out of sorts but that has little to do with the Whole30 and a lot to do with feeling like I haven't had a moment to myself for a couple of weeks. I'll be glad when school goes back on Monday and I have six hours of peace and quiet every day. I may be a bit low on carbs and missing sugar, but I do think at this stage that isn't affecting me so much as other things.

My husband just showed me how to upload photos now, so this is me today:

I feel that it is a pretty accurate photo - this is what I look like right now. Usually I hate looking at photos of myself, and this one isn't particularly flattering, but I am strangely feeling very accepting of it. This is me, tummy and all. I don't think I've ever posted a photo of myself on this blog, so it is about time!

 



And here is a photo of my kids at the Tulip Gardens last weekend:

They are a bit far away to see clearly, but you can see how pretty the gardens are. I'll be posting lots more photos now that I know how to do it again!

Whole30 Day 1 is more or less over. I had a few moments where I thought things like "WHY can't I have a glass of milk, again?" but I'm feeling strong.