A Simple & Efficient Approach to Whole 30--Week 4

I did it!  I completed Whole 30!  I just finished week 4 and here is my recap.

I really did enjoy it.  I would totally recommend it and I would definitely do it again. I would for sure do it in January post holiday season, perhaps in May and then again in September.

One of my biggest concerns going into Whole 30 was that it was going to require me to eat a ton of meat which I wasn't so sure about.  A few years ago I ate mostly a vegetarian diet and taught myself to cook really well using grains and legumes as my staples.  I don't like cooking meat because raw meat grosses me out, however, as I mentioned in this post, I felt like I needed to become a more well rounded cook and that meant learning how to cook meat and doing it more frequently.  I usually just cook meat that I can throw in my crockpot and I don't need to mess with it or really touch it.

While in full swing of Whole 30, I realized that this wasn't going to require me to eat tons and tons of meat.  So, if you are concerned about the amount of meat required during Whole 30, rest assured that you can do it without consuming large amounts of meat.  Eggs on the other hand, now that's a different story.

In my Whole 30 week 3 post, I mentioned that I had grown accustomed to the initial benefits that I felt in the first week or two of Whole 30.  That doesn't mean that the benefits went away, but rather I just got used to feeling great.  Here are some of the categories that I was measuring and how I felt.

• My headaches only occurred when I got my menstrual cycle (this was AMAZING to me)
• My skin felt very soft and didn't have any breakouts but I didn't necessarily notice much of a change
• My sleep was about the same, perhaps slightly better
• My brain and my mind felt MUCH more focused, sharper, clearer, and alert
• I didn't necessarily have this boost of energy where I was skipping and jumping everywhere, but as I mentioned above, my mind seemed to have more energy and I felt less foggy in the head.

The other interesting benefit of Whole 30 was that it made it so much easier for me to make decisions.  I often struggle with making decisions because we are bombarded with so many options.  Because Whole 30 eliminates A LOT  of foods, I would come across recipes or products in the store and just pass them by knowing that I couldn't have this or that.  I know that it sounds kind of depressing, and at times I did feel sad that I had to pass up some new seasonal food product at Trader Joes, but I noticed that once my routines were in place, I spent significantly less time perusing food blogs, grocery aisles, and recipes.  I stuck to what I know and fortunately I am a pretty routine person and I had my systems in place which allowed for slight variations but were ultimately very similar week to week.

Ok, enough jabbering.  Here are the systems that I used for what I ate and when I cooked it.  

**Lunches almost always consisted of a hard boiled egg or egg muffin on top of greens or steamed veggies (sweet potato and zucchini noodles and green beans) with an avocado and maybe some chopped almonds or pecans.

Sunday: 

• Cook shredded chicken (about 3 chicken breasts) in the crockpot
• Spiralize sweet potatoes and zucchinis into sweet potato and zucchini noodles to use throughout the week
• Hard boil 10-12 eggs for 8 minutes.  See this post on how to make perfect hard boiled eggs.

Monday: 

• Curry chicken salad or blood orange jalepeno chicken salad over greens or steamed green beans

Tuesday: 

• Roasted Veggies (onions, red peppers, carrots) with shredded chicken and a side green salad

Wednesday: Make egg muffins using the zucchini and sweet potato noodles that you spiralized on Sunday. Add Trader Joe's Garlic and Herb chicken sausage.  Toss in any other veggies that you have on had.  Red peppers and broccoli are nice additions.  I used silicone muffin liners and am a huge advocate of those.  I bought these ones at Michael's last spring and use them all the time.

• Sausage, zoodles, and marinara sauce

Thursday: Flounder and roasted potatoes

Friday: Shrimp and Zoodles and sweet potatoe noodles, with a lemon garlic olive oil sauce or just use a jar of Trader Joes sun dried tomatoes to pack a lot of punch and flavor

Saturday: Sheet pan fajitas (roasted red peppers, onions, cumin, olive oil, salt, lime juice, pepper) add chicken or shrimp or flounder to this

**One week I made a large batch of cauliflower falafel and crispy cauliflower patties (basically the same as falafel just flattened).  These were great to have on hand in a pinch but they weren't that delicious and they weren't a huge hit with my family so they were not a repeat but if I needed to grab something to throw on top of a salad or roasted veggies, they were available.

You can see my previous weekly posts for more dinner ideas.  They are fairly similar because I find that routines make everything run more smoothly, especially when doing an elimination diet where you are constantly thinking about what you can and can't have.

The sauces and flavoring that I used were:

• A fresh container of salsa from Costco (not the jarred kind)
• Olive oil and lemon on salad or the above salsa
• marinara sauce ( 2T olive oil, 6 cloves of garlic, 1 can of TJ's crushed tomoatoes, 1/2 tsp salt)
• TJ's sun dried tomatoes
• This green sauce from Paleo Gluten Free Eats

Overall it was a great journey.  I was able to really listen to my body to see how it felt by eliminating certain foods.  I'm still amazed at the decrease in headaches.  I will probably continue eating this way just for the sake of having fewer headaches.  I'll be doing another post about the reintroduction phase and how my body responds as I introduce new foods.

I highly recommend giving Whole 30 a try.  It doesn't have to be as daunting as it seems and I think that the benefits highly outweighed the pizza, birthday chocolate cake, bean dip, and yummy rolls that I had to pass up during Whole 30.