Days 26-29: One Day More!

Perhaps you need some musical accompaniment to get you as excited about where we're at as I am? Always at your service, my friends: kindly click here.

Hi! Happy Easter or Passover or Spring!

Hi yourself! And Happy Near-End of Whole30!

Thanks so much! I'm pretty stoked, like we all were in the late eighties. Except NEWSFLASH: because I want to make the most of my clean slate, I'm going to be essentially Whole30 for a couple more weeks as I gradually, with a great deal of deliberation and journaling, reintroduce foods. Full disclosure: as soon as I realized my transition might take a while, I started adding some things in before my 30 days were up. I know. Not v. W30 of me. You say cheating. I say methodically compromising.

Dude. What are you on about?

I consumed alcohol on Saturday and ate legumes on Sunday. He is Risen, after all. So instead of Easter candy, I enjoyed a tiny mimosa Saturday morning; and instead of Easter ham on Sunday, I had lentils for lunch, stew with beans in it for dinner, and a peanut butter Lara Bar after working out. The alcohol was a trip. Three sips in, I felt it v. pointedly and suddenly in the v. front of my head. This, according to the healthcare folks whose company I was enjoying even more than the mimosa, is to be expected, as the brain's frontal lobe is what the alcohol gets to first. It wasn't painful, just v. there. I also got buzzed-feeling and boneless about three minutes after those sips. It only lasted a little while and I recovered completely in under an hour.

The legumes were less noteworthy, except that I got a weird pain in my face near my left sinus. I don't know if it's related to food. It lasted all yesterday afternoon and evening and then went away overnight. I guess we'll see next time I try legumes. I have felt so great for the last couple of weeks that any ache or pain is v. acute and obvious. This is a big change from pre-W30, when I always had weird aches, pains, ailments. I am still stewing over what this all means, and what kind of food changes are sustainable for me. 

My reintroduction plan is tentatively as follows:

Day 28 Legumes

Days 29-30 W30

Day 31 Dairy

Days 32-33 W30

Days 34-35 Gluten-free grains

Days 36-37 W30

Day 38 Wheat

Days 39-40 W30

And, finally, what I've eaten while we've been taking a break from each other...

Day 26, Friday

Eggs and veggies for breakfast with a glass of mango kombucha. I had some strawberries and a tuna burger in the late afternoon.

Day 27, Saturday

Chicken livers for breakfast (heck yes! and probably never again!), with a side of kale, mushrooms, guacamole, sauerkraut, and a clementine. I needed the fruit to take away the chicken liver flavor in my mouth. Too much psychology and texture that early in the morning. But I did it. Which isn't nothing. Clearly, I'm a changed woman as I approach the close of my W30.

My favorite lunch: chicken pozole, baked sweet potato (a purple yam!), spinach, avocado, some salsa.

Green salad with Nom Nom Paleo's Kalua Pork, boiled yellow beets, sprouts, and herbed vinaigrette. A slice of potato rösti. (So, so good - it's like a giant french fry! I used ghee and pork fat.) I'm pretty sure I ate a hot dog earlier in the evening too because the pork took forever.

Day 28, Easter Sunday

Blueberry Eggs for breakfast with a glass of mango kombucha. Egg flipping didn't go so smoothly.

I had lentils for lunch and a big salad. Also had a few deviled eggs that had Miracle Whip in them (and accordingly a whole slew of non-compliant foods - my first official cheat!).

Dinner was a big plate of fresh vegetables, some fruit, and a bowl of vegetable stew with kalua pork and some beans in it, plus the rest of my kombucha. Super hit the spot.

Day 29, Monday

Breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Kale and leftover rösti hash, 3 eggs and some ghee, sauerkraut.

Lunch at 1:30 p.m. A handful of olives and a big spinach salad with sprouts, purple cabbage, 2 tuna burgers, avocado, and salsa. A slice of paleo banana bread with chocolate chips (see end of post).

Fan-tas-tic dinner at 5:30 p.m. Kalua pork tacos with plantain tortillas, avocado, and a delicious little slaw I threw together: 2-3 cups thinly sliced purple cabbage, 6 chopped dates, 1 grated carrot, 1/2 teaspoon salt, about a teaspoon of ground coriander, juice of 1 lime, 1 tablespoon olive oil, handful of minced cilantro. (Amber: make this!)

I've also dabbled v. cautiously in sugar. The deviled eggs on Sunday had sugar in them (Miracle Whip - high fructose corn syrup to be specific). Then today I had that paleo bread which has all W30 compliant ingredients except for some chocolate chips (those chocolate chips made it v. tasty). So, by normal quick bread standards, barely any sugar. By W30 standards, a lot. I got a crazy headache tonight that put me out of commission for about three hours. Was it the sugar? I don't know. But I don't typically get migraines. It also could have been caffeine withdrawals (I drank a lot of coffee this weekend and did not today), but I've had caffeine headaches many times before and this was distinct from and much more debilitating than those. I will continue to dabble. I'm taking weird notes. I'm excited about cheese. I'm not going to inhale a scone any time soon.

One day more. One good night's sleep is in order.