Tag Archives: food

Whole 30: One Week Down

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Well, after blathering on about it for almost 1000 words, I started a Whole 30 after all! Except that, in a “works for me” twist, we’re only doing it for 21 days. We’re going backpacking at the end of the month, and, as some people experience, uh, you know, intestinal difficulties after reintroducing non-whole foods back into their diet, we decided to give ourselves a couple of days before we hit the woods with freeze dried meals that include who knows what, just in case. We’re one week in, with exactly two to go. The authors of It Starts with Food, who came up with the Whole 30 program, say, for various reasons that “in [their] experience, the full thirty days of the program is essential to give you a taste of ‘the magic.’ Many Whole 30 participants report that their most significant transformations take place in the final few days of the program.” But since I don’t have a full 30 days to offer it right now, and they were also adamant about starting immediately, I figured it was better than nothing. We can always return to the program after our trip for a week or two (though “they” also say that any slip-up requires an entire reset of your 30 days….I call baloney on that, personally).

[Note: I like that they call it a program. I'm not thinking about it as a diet, and I don't think the Hartwigs intend for you to. In fact, it's sort of the antithesis of a diet.  I don't really want or need to be on a diet, especially since I think the way Americans especially approach diets is, for the most part, unhealthy. But diet is the word most people can associate easily with a change in eating habits, so I've tried to come up with a good response when people ask me what diet I'm doing. I've been saying that it's less about restricting what you eat and more about trying to change your approach to food in general.]

Bets hedged as they may be, I haven’t really experienced any of the negative things some people have written about at the beginning of the program. I had a very, very mild headache at the end of each of the first two days, but I’ve had no upset stomach and honestly no particularly strong cravings. Yesterday was the first day I even thought about wanting a Diet Coke.

That said, I have yet to experience anything particularly positive either. In fact, the more I read about the Whole30 in It Starts with Food, the more antagonistic I felt toward it, and at this point in the program, I’m feeling mostly ambivalent. I honestly didn’t buy a lot of the science they put forth in the book that was supposed to convince me not to eat things like legumes and dairy. And after some time on the program I’ve developed a few other criticisms.

The authors claim that food should be enjoyable. But the very nature of this program makes it not so! For the one thing, for the first 5 days of the program, I felt like all I was doing was thinking about food, cooking, and cleaning the kitchen. Normally Andy eats breakfast at work, but his meal would normally be oatmeal or granola with yogurt, so in order to replace that, I’ve been needing to provide breakfast, lunch, AND dinner options, which is new. So I felt like every time I turned around the kitchen was dirty again! Since I had more time to plan, this week has been much better so far, but it definitely takes a lot of work.

Secondly, this program makes socializing hard. (And I know the authors say, “this is not hard. Quitting heroin is hard. Beating cancer is hard. [...] Drinking your coffee black Is. Not. Hard.” I get that. But the Whole30 is, without a doubt, difficult some days!) I hate being “that girl” at restaurants or parties, having to ask what is in everything. We’ve managed a few outings since starting it: one featured a barbecue buffet, so we just left off the sauce, and one was for brunch, so Andy got eggs and breakfast meats and I got a salad. Last night my church community group had a cookout, and I know for a fact there was some honey in the sauce on a sweet potato I ate, but I decided to let it slide. I can only do so much.

On the flip side, among these outings I have passed up macaroni and cheese, chocolate cake, sushi at a work lunch, cake again at work, and various goodies at the cookout, and I have to admit that it feels pretty good to use that willpower muscle.

The other issue I take with the presentation of the Whole30 plan is their discouragement of eating snacks. They suggest that you eat enough lean protein and good fat at each meal so that you are not hungry until the next meal–and in fact, so that if you for some odd reason have to skip your next meal, you would be okay. They say, “Avoid snacking between meals because it turns your eating habits into grazing, and grazing can disrupt the normal functioning of leptin, insulin, and glucagon, and may promote inadvertent overconsumption.” Okay. But as one who has always struggled with blood sugar fluctuations, I have lately quite successfully structured my days around 3 meals and 2 snacks. I eat specifically portioned snacks, and I don’t graze except for on occasion. When I sit down to eat my snack, I eat my snack and that’s it. I normally eat some nuts or a granola bar a few hours between lunch and breakfast, and some sort of fruit or veggie between lunch and dinner, and I don’t see what’s so bad about that! For the sake of the program I’m giving it a try; I’ve actually started being able to make it from breakfast to lunch, but after lunch I get raging hungry around 5:00, still a few hours before we’ll be eating dinner. I can feel grossly stuffed at lunch and still get hungry like that–and I don’t think they would promote “grossly stuffed!” I just hate that this program that is supposed to promote healthy eating has made me feel guilty about one of my eating habits for the first time in my life.

So what are the positives? I’ve discovered some delicious new recipes that I think I’ll keep in my repertoire. I’ve been able to flex my meal-planning muscle and practice using willpower. And I get to think about what specific foods might be “worth it” to incorporate back in later. I’m glad the authors remind us that ”the Whole30 is just a springboard into a lifetime of healthy eating habits. We don’t exepect (or want) you to stay on the program forever, or eat according to our rules all the time! Think of the Whole30 as a tool, allowing you to build new, sustainable habits that will be with you for the rest of your life.”

That’s what’s getting me through so far, since I haven’t had any “magic” to report, but I’ll let you know if anything changes!

I’m linking up to Works for Me Wednesday at WeAreThatFamily.com!
works for me wednesday at we are that family

Eat to Live

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There are always snacks at my women’s Bible study group, and even though I’ve always eaten dinner before I come, I always eat the snacks. Sometimes, I try to plan my dinner accordingly, knowing that I will nibble on something. But at our last meeting, there was a bowl of caramel popcorn that I could not. Stop. Eating. If you asked me objectively if I liked caramel popcorn, I would say no. If you handed me a menu of desserts and caramel popcorn was one of the options, it’s never the one I would pick. Yet I couldn’t keep my hand out of that bowl. I even told myself at one point, “Okay, you’re done. You can stop now.” And then I went back for more. I’m sure there are worse things than caramel popcorn, but I felt low. I felt like I ought to be able to control when I stopped eating. I felt like I ought to be able to say no.

Enter the Whole 30.

I’ve heard about this plan for awhile. I like that it doesn’t bill itself as a “diet.” Instead, its creators really want to help you change your mindset about food, and I think I’m ready for that. The caramel popcorn incident sent me over the edge.

The gist of the Whole 30 is that you eat whole foods for 30 days. It cuts out some elements that I’ve always thought were “healthy,” like all legumes and dairy, but it also cuts out the usual suspects: all added sugar and “sugar,” alcohol, grains, white potatoes. The authors say, “Eat foods with very few ingredients, all pronounceable ingredients, or better yet, no ingredients listed at all because they’re totally natural and unprocessed.”

I eat pretty healthy, and I am pretty active, but I think it’s easy to use moderation as a crutch. You know, a lot of times magazines and whatnot give the advice to “just take the stairs” and it’ll make a difference, but Jillian Michaels, fitness guru extraordinaire, says “That is a false method of lethargy that isn’t doing you any favors. You ARE capable of working out. You’re capable of working out HARD.” I’m sort of feeling that about my diet lately.

I also listened to a podcast recently featuring Stanford professor BJ Fogg and his premise that in order to enact personal change, you need to make the change so small that it doesn’t take any willpower. For example, he started doing one pushup every time he went to the bathroom. And eventually, he started doing more. And then pushups weren’t hard anymore, so he started doing them other times as well. He’s currently working on putting his socks on inside out, just as a means of being in control of his behaviors. And something about that appealed to me: being so conscious of yourself that you’re trying to change a random behavior just because you can.

So given all of that, it’s a perfect storm that’s making me want to try to Whole 30. I want to see what I feel like if I’m eating that way, and I want to change my behaviors just as an experiment.

I’m sort of dithering, which is exactly what the authors say not to do, but I’m planning to start at the beginning of a month, because for my obsessive compulsive self that just seems right. (Plus, I want to read the book ahead of time and really give the psychological side its due weight.) However, I realized there was no reason I couldn’t start making some of the suggested changes in the meantime! Two areas where I’m trying to break my patterns of thinking are in what constitutes a “meal” and in what a snack looks like. Somehow I’ve gotten it in my head that a meal includes a meat, a starch, and a veggie. (I also cook a fair amount of casseroles, but that’s a whole other post…) But who’s to say you can’t have 2 veggies instead of the starch?! And as far as snacks go, I often envision pretzels or a granola bar. But why can’t my snack be a hard-boiled egg?! So I’m playing with these mental shifts even though I haven’t fully dived into the Whole 30.

I’m trying in the build up to put more “whole food” recipe blogs in my line of vision. I don’t keep potato chips in the house and I mostly don’t miss them, so I’m applying a similar principle to what I consume on the internet. I’ll probably be excited about whatever is in front of me, so I can let it be caramel popcorn or I can try and let it be healthier fare. Most of the recipes I’ve looked at so far have looked delicious and honestly no more difficult than what I currently cook, and the array of snacks I can think about having on hand is exciting! I think that cheese will be the hardest for me to give up, because I’ve always thought of it as a pretty healthy, proteinatious snack option.

I’ve never done any sort of diet in my life EVER, so this feels like a really big deal to me. But I’m trying to be really careful not to think of it as a weight-loss strategy. I really want to change how I think about food. I get a little panicky thinking that I might love it and I might never eat a chocolate bar again, but I will just have to cross that bridge if I come to it. I’ll keep you posted once I get started as I find recipes I like, and I’ll report back about how I’m feeling.

Do you have a favorite diet plan or approach to food? Have you ever tackled a big behavorial change like this?

Tea Tasting for Two

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Today’s post is about an experience that was both fun and frugal!

I don’t remember exactly when daily deal sites came on the scene, but I do know I fell for them hard and fast. I had a lot of fun with Living Social trying to get 3 people to purchase the voucher from my link so I could earn it free, and I was excited to subscribe to Groupon in Atlanta as soon as we knew we were moving! The trip Andy and I took for our one-year anniversary was actually with a voucher purchased from one of the sites. I think the concept is great.

But lately I’ve been getting disillusioned with all the emails. I’ve unsubscribed from all but the major players, and even then I feel like I rarely buy anything anymore. But one thing I do always keep an eye out for are discounts on experiences rather than on products or restaurants. And I’ve had good luck with that of late, with purchases including admission for 4 to the Atlanta Museum of Design, a brewery tour, a walking tour for 2 of Historic Oakland Cemetery, and one that I used this past weekend for a tea tasting for 2!

The tasting was at Zen Tea in Chamblee. Chamblee is a bit farther than I usually like to drive to do things, but for $10, I thought it would be a fun experience. Plus, I was able to share it with my good friend Kimmie, who was in town for the weekend. I would definitely try Zen Tea again. A leisurely tasting there, perhaps with lunch involved, and a visit to the consignment shop next door would be a delightful girls’ afternoon out. The $10 voucher I had included 3 small pots of tea and a dessert for each of us, but the 3-pot tasting is normally only $10.50 (not including dessert), which is definitely not unreasonable.

Kimmie had a giant carrot cake muffin-esque thing, and I had a delicious slice of red velvet cake that didn’t last long on my plate.

The 3 teas that we chose from the extensive list were Cafe Spiced Chai, White Christmas (Heaven) (how could we resist it with a name like that???), and Spearmint.

I honestly wasn’t wowed by any of the teas, but it quite possibly could have been because my taste buds were too overwhelmed by the red velvet and cream cheese deliciousness. Oops. The mint was the best, and I bought some of that to take home, as well as some chai. I also am never sure what’s the best protocol for sweetening tea. I know how I like it, but I don’t know if the level of sweetness I enjoy is necessarily the best for bringing out flavors. So since I was tasting, I tried to sweeten less than I normally would, which may have also affected my enjoyment of the flavors.

All in all, though, it was a fun experience at a pleasant little shop that I’m glad to now know about. Chalk up another success for Living Social amongst the plethora of liposuction, facial, and car detailing vouchers that flood my inbox daily!

Food for the Trail

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Andy and I went backpacking last weekend. He was an Eagle Scout, so he’s camped and hiked lots and lots of times. We’ve been a few times together, and we have a pretty good routine down as far as getting the trip organized goes. He’s responsible for planning the route, picking the campsites, and getting us there, and I’m responsible for the food. (Though, what else is new? ;-) )

The first time we went I was pretty nervous about this and stuck to a “safe” list of bapckpacking foods that I had found on the internet or something. Since then, though, I’ve gotten a bit more creative and had some fun planning our meals. Backpacking food needs to be in light containers with easy open packaging, no fuss when it comes to preparation, and shelf-stable. I tend to think of foods that would be good for kids to eat, because those usually fit all the requirements.

For dinners, we carry a small stove-like thing called a JetBoil. It has an insulated canister that boils water very quickly, and also has an attachment that allows you to place a pot or pan over its propane flame. It’s light and compact and works really well, so we try to come up with as many meals as possible that require only water. Lunches are more casual, and in fact some days we just nibble when we’re hungry rather than stopping to eat an official lunch.

Here’s what we carried last time:

  • Knorr Butter and Herb pasta pacakge with no-drain chicken breast chunks in a pouch for Friday dinner (2 of each, though we only ate one)
  • A freeze-dried (just add water) beef and potato stew for Saturday dinner
  • Peanut Butter and Pretzel M&M’s for dessert
  • 6 Cliff bars in assorted flavors
  • Cranberry Ginger instant oatmeal
  • Berry-flavored apple sauce
  • Ice cream sandwich flavored shelf-stable pudding cups
  • Wheat and cheese packaged snack crackers
  • 2 quart-sized bags of home-mixed trail mix
  • Beef jerky
  • 4 blueberry bagels spread with crunchy peanut butter for optional lunches (the bagels are sturdy enough to not get weird or soggy from the peanut butter)
  • Freeze-dried “fruit that crunches” that I impulse bought at Publix
  • All-fruit “fruit rollups” from the organic kids’ section at Kroger
  • An extra pouch of ready-to-eat tuna left over from another camping trip (just in case)

We actually brought a fair amount of this back home with us, but you always want to have too much food, rather than not enough. You can tell I like to include “treats”–that makes it a lot more fun to me! Chocolate is a good addition to any trail-eaten meal.

And beef jerky isn’t something I’d ever think about eating on a regular basis, but I sure do enjoy it out in the woods. The freeze-dried dinners, which you can buy at any outdoors store, are a great, easy cleanup option, that are also pretty tasty and hardy. Next time, I might just stick with two of those rather than trying to make a camp dinner out of real dinner ingredients.

We also brought along an assortment of teabags and instant coffees for in the morning. I never sleep well in the wilderness, and this past time it was actually a little chilly overnight, so that hot cup of caffeinated goodness is a pleasure in the morning. My favorite mixture is a package of hot chocolate mix stirred in with a couple of tubes of instant coffee–instant mocha!

The best and most fun lesson I learned this time was to use the bulk bins at Whole Foods or somewhere similar to get ingredients for trail mix. That way, you can buy small amounts of lots of different things, and not spend very much on each element because it’s charged by weight! This is much better than having to buy a whole big bag of, say, almonds at a regular grocery store when you really only need a handful.

So there you have it: food for the trail. Have you ever been backpacking? What kinds of food do you eat while camping?

Late Night Hunger

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I struggle with late night hunger. I’m not talking Taco Bell “4th meal” cravings. I’m talking gnawing, empty feeling stomach hunger that keeps me from falling asleep. I’ve always tended to get hungry at frequent intervals and needed to eat regularly, so I try to keep an eye on my hunger level and have a snack before bed if it seems I’m a bit peckish. But some nights I feel fine….until I’ve tossed and turned for an hour and all of a sudden realize that OH MY GOSH I FEEL LIKE HAVEN’T EATEN IN A YEAR AND I NEED FOOD NOW.

It’s really frustrating, because by that point, nothing I eat is going to be enjoyable. I don’t mind having a pre-bed snack, but once I get to the point of not being able to sleep, any nourishment is going to be for necessity’s sake only. For that reason, I often try to ignore it and see if I can fall asleep and avoid the awkward standing-in-the-dark-in-the-kitchen chomping a granola bar occurrence. But that’s usually a bad choice, because it only prolongs the inevitable.

It happened with a vengeance on Sunday night, even though I felt perfectly satisfied after not dinner and not hungry as I got ready for bed. No food that I could think of seemed remotely appealing, because all I really wanted to be doing was sleeping. I drank some water to see if I could trick myself into thinking I was full, but to no avail. I ended up grabbing a handful of trail mix and choking it down.

It’s hard to know what to do about this problem. I don’t want to force myself to have a snack before bed if I’m not hungry, because that would be useless calories. But I hate, hate, hate hunger-inflicted insomnia.

I try to have something small and protein-rich when I do need a snack:

  • a glass of soy milk
  • a few slices of sandwich meat
  • a piece of cheese
  • a small handful of almonds

Though there is the occasional night wherein I find myself eating cold chicken casserole and noodles straight from the container…yep. My late-night snacking isn’t the diet killer that women’s magazines always warn against. I’m not eating delicious things like ice cream because I crave them or can’t muster up self-control. I’m literally eating because I have to, if I want any sleep at all.

Do you have any times of day where you struggle with a need to snack? What are your go-to healthy and satisfy nibbles?