Whole30 - Day 6 and 7 (The First Weekend) and Days 8-10

On Day 6, Saturday, I went to my cousin's wedding. Congratulations to Katherine and Alex! Joy! Dancing! Singing! Merriment! Cake!? Food!? Lots and lots of food.

Looking back, as a good blogger, I should have taken a picture of the food. I guess I was too busy trying to stop myself from compulsively eating EVERYTHING. Here is a dramatic re-enactment of the food I was faced with.

I spent most of the time after the ceremony asking my relatives what everything tasted like. "Oh, that cookie looks awesome. What does it taste like?" "Which side tastes better, the side dipped in icing and sprinkles or the plain side?" "Is it soft or crunchy?"

Luckily, I planned ahead and brought a cooler and a steak salad. I also had some strawberries but that was pretty much the only thing present that was Whole30 approved.

The days which followed and have led up today have not been too bad. My cravings really have curbed a bit except for a small spike today when I really wanted some candy. I swear. Candy was definitely my addiction.

Whole30 Food Suggestions

I discovered that I love coconut butter. Artisana is the brand I've been eating. I've been getting the packets at the health food store. Super caloric (221 calories per serving) but super satisfying. Coconut milk and oil have also been life savers throughout the past two weeks. Definintely recommended.

Crossfit and Whole30

New job, long hours... no Crossfit. My muscles are atrophying as I type.

Whole30 - Day 3, 4 and 5

Day 3, 4 and 5 were rough. It wasn't necessarily the cravings as much as the lack of food.

Success, as far as the Whole30 is concerned and I guess many other things in life, is very reliant upon preparation. If I do not start preparing my meals in advance, I am definitely going to have a rough go at the next 25 days. I have found that healthy, whole food does not just fall into your lap when your stomach growls. It's pretty dumb, actually.

I made frittatas in advance one night but I ate so many that I didn't have enough left to sustain myself the next day. Haha.

So, possible starvation due to a lack of preparation aside, the past two days have been particularly interesting because of the reactions I have received from people. My coworkers are pretty sure I have an eating disorder and I had a lunch meeting yesterday and the people that we had lunch with were extremely puzzled to find that I was on a diet.

I tried to explain that I am not trying to lose any weight, really. I almost went into how I would like to lose some more body fat and gain some more muscle but this was not the audience. I explained that I'm just trying to clean up my nutrition. This was met with an eyebrow furrow as they shoveled more sushi into their mouth and changed the subject. I miss sushi. Instead, I had a strawberry salad with avocado and salmon.

I do find it very gratifying to be able to say that I have successfully rid myself of many a nutritionally bankrupt food for the past few days. Usually by this time of the week I have consumed at least an entire bag of Starbursts. I really love corn syrup. I miss it a lot.

Members of my gym who are doing Whole30 are stating that their cravings are subsiding already but mine are not. These individuals must not have been hooked up to an I.V. bag full of corn syrup like I have been most of my life. At this point, I would like to raid CostCo and fill up my bathtub with Laffy Taffy, Starbursts, Skittles, Milk Duds and any other corn syrup based candy. I would then get in the bathtub and eat myself into a diabetic coma. When I awoke from my diabetic coma, I would continue to eat the candy that surrounded my body. Repeat until all of the candy is gone.

This is me doing something to a bag of Starbursts at the store. I think I might be trying to taste or smell something through the packaging.

Whole30 - Day 1 and 2

Today is Day 2 of my Whole30 experience. If you would like to know more about the Whole30, hit up this website.

In a nutshell, for me, the Whole30 is kind of a cleanse. A 30 day cleanse (hence the 30 in Whole30) that is meant to reset your body and your cravings. You eat whole foods (hence the Whole...). It is supposed to give you somewhat of a baseline. After controlling your diet for 30 days and seeing if you see any positive effects take place, you slowly introduce foods and see if you see any negative effects. It's like a science experiment with your body. Cool beans! Nope, no beans for me for 30 days.

I was introduced to the Whole30 by the gym I go to, Crossfit Utah Valley. They invited the bloggers from this  website to come teach a nutrition class and introduce us to the Whole30. The gym is challenging everyone to try the Whole30 and I am taking the challenge. This blog is meant to record my every thought throughout the duration of my 30 days. I have a lot of thoughts. And some of them are weird. Beware.

Yesterday, Day 1, was surprisingly easy. It may have been because Mondays are hectic and busy and I just didn't have a lot of time to think about what I was eating or more, what I wasn't eating. This is surprising because oatmeal usually plays a vital role in my morning breakfast. I miss it. Oatmeal and I are pretty close. 

Today, Day 2, has been a bit harder. I went to lunch and watched my friends eat a loaf of bread, steak covered in sauce, mashed potatoes and a smoothie, brimming with delicious high fructose corn syrup.

I ate a Mediterranean salad with grilled chicken. No cheese and no salad dressing. I love salad and grilled chicken but the stark contrast between my plate and my friends' was a little more than I am used to having to process in my mind.

In a somewhat successful attempt to comfort myself, I smelled the bread (Okay, I grabbed the bread and stuck my nose in it and inhaled deeply... longingly...) and tried to convince myself that it smelled like it had been made from gross, frozen dough and that it did not smell delicious and that I did not want to stuff my face with it. I love bread. If I could build a house out of bread, I would. All of my furniture would be made of different types of bread and when I wanted some bread I would just take a bite out of my couch. When I woke up in the morning in my bread bed, I would eat my bread pillow.

Later in the day, I discovered something interesting; I often turned to candy as a breath freshener. I caught myself thinking, "My breath is gross," and then I reached for the Skittles on my desk. Don't worry, I stopped myself. I have since removed the Skittles from my desk. This did not stop me from visiting my co-workers candy jar, sticking my nose in and inhaling deeply... longingly... I miss you candy...

I am also finding that my some of my cravings are sparked by making visual contact with inedible objects that look like candy. For instance, there was a magnet on a white board at work that looked like a piece of licorice. After studying this magnet for a moment and making the connection, I wanted a bag of black licorice. Windex looks a lot like a melted raspberry popsicle. Mmm-mmm. You get the point.

So far, this has been an interesting experience in discovering how psychologically attached to food I am.

It's kind of pathetic. Haha.

Whole30 Recipe

A pound of salmon got me through today. Giada De Laurentiis is a very pretty chef on The Food Network. Based on her love for pasta and cheese, I assume she knows nothing about Paleo or Whole30 yet she has a recipe that is accepted by these diets. Fascinating. Go make this salmon!

For all of those not interested in hearing me analyze every detail of my Crossfit workout, you can now go back to Facebook or whatever else you were doing before you started to read this.

Crossfit and Whole30

Are my workouts any different this week since I started the Whole30? Too soon to tell.

Monday's Crossfit WOD (Workout of the Day) was:

2 Rounds:

20 Power Cleans (95 lbs)

50 Sit ups

20 Knees to Elbows

Buyout: 5 Rope Climbs

This was not too tough but I failed to rope climb, bumming me out and making me feel like a failure. This definitely affected the way I felt after the workout so it's hard to say if I was bummed out or physically drained.

Today, I did the CFE workout which was a hill run. Running up and down the hill 3 times. I felt fairly out of gas by the end of the run. I immediately followed this up with a Hero WOD. Hero WODs are usually more difficult than the every day WOD:

Morrison:

50-40-30-20-10

Wallballs (20lbs for men)

Box Jumps

Kettlebell Swings (53lbs for men but I did 35lbs)

I started with 50 wallballs and 50 box jumps but wound up scaling from then on for fear I might pass out or have an aneurysm or worse; not finish. I used a lower weight for kettlebell swings and then cut the rounds in half.

I feel like I could have gone harder and done the full workout had I eaten sufficiently but I have likely not eaten enough today. That is one of the many challenges I get to overcome in the next 28 days. Joy!