honestly yall, being wheat, dairy, and sugar free didn't make me feel extra special or magical or whatever. sorry but it really didn't. i mean, eating healthy always feels good, so i did feel great during it. so yeah. i don't want to poopoo the whole thing, because it's a great idea. but i think maybe the reason some people feel so much better when they do it is because they were too indulgent before, but i ate all of those no-no things very sparingly before i started (i honestly can't even remember the last time i ate pasta. sad, i know), so i already felt pretty good with what i ate. what i did notice, however, was how easy it was to stay beneath my low calorie limit for the day when i was only eating whole foods. this is a principle i'd like to stick with, since i want to lose 15 more pounds (i lost 13 last month alone without even exercising. my kids were sick ALL MONTH so i couldn't make it to the gym!).
i know people said i wouldn't even want cheese when this was over but i'm sorry, that was a flat out LIE. i want cheese. i feel kind of ambivalent about bread though which surprised me. so this next month, rather than obsessively scour ingredients lists for peanut oil, soy, "evaporated cane juice" and the like, i am going to do kind of like a "whole30 lite", which will include certain high protein dairy items (like cottage cheese, and cheese in general {VEGAN CHEESE. IS. GROSS. NOT WORTH IT!} and maybe some greek yogurt) and bring back peanut butter in small quantities, and eat some foods that may have sugar, if it's low in the ingredient list, and for heaven's sake a piece of bread here and there. and an occasional diet coke, because obviously. (so basically like atkins?? i don't know what that is i'll be real with you.) even though cauliflower rice smells like a diaper genie, i may actually keep that up as a rice alternative, since rice leaves me bloaty and is empty calories. and we'll probably be eating a lot more zoodles. but the whole thing about not drinking your food felt a little dumb. i'm going to have green smoothies for breakfast. and i'm going to like it. my calorie limit for the day is about 1012 calories, and if i stick to this (eating 300 calorie meals with a few small snacks), the pounds should come off as easily as before, hopefully.
and you guys, i know it's not about losing weight, it's about being healthy blah blah blah, but, as my doctor at my last appointment made a point to tell me, i'm overweight, so weight loss actually IS about being healthy for me. so there. and if that eating plan works for me then i'll continue to eat that way indefinitely!
one thing whole30 did train me to do was not finish bea's food when she didn't finish it. before, i would ALWAYS eat the rest of her sandwiches or whatever. and i don't feel the compulsion to do that anymore. i still cringe to see it go to waste but, anyway. it is what it is.
another thing it encouraged me to do was actually meal plan and cook. i am usually pretty lazy in the kitchen but this really got me off my butt and focusing on what our family was going to eat every night, and we had fun trying new things and staying healthy. and we ate a lot of eggs haha
i'll see how i feel after introducing these foods back into my diet and go from there.
i did indulge in birthday cake this weekend, and admittedly i felt sick at the end of the day. but you guys. i ate a. lot. of. cake. i made the cake and the frosting and had to taste it all day and then obviously had to try it when it was done, so it was basically a whole day of sugar. never again.
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| "i want a pink cake with a happy face mom." |
and for the record, i just had a nut/seed/dried fruit bar for breakfast but it has evaporated cane juice in it to bind it, and i actually don't feel as great as i did after my usual larabar breakfast. my tummy actually feels a little yucky. if that isn't reason to keep off the sugar i don't' what is! onto whole30 lite!
