DONNELLE: Day 13/-4 – Let’s call it a Whole13
February 21, 2018
Yes, the rumors are true: I quit my Whole30.
Yes, part of me feels guilty for not seeing it through, especially because I went into it in a semi-partnership with Dana and I HATE feel like I’ve let someone down (sorry again Dana!!)
Part of me feels like a quitter, and I don’t like that feeling.
Part of me is worried I sacrificed my best chance this year (while it’s cool enough in LA to cook) at getting a full-picture look at how different foods affect my body.
Part of me feels like “Wow, food must really have some bad control over my life if I’m not willing to go 36 days of my life without eating sugar, dairy, grains, soy, and legumes.”
But ultimately, I reject those last three.
By Saturday Feb. 17th, my 13th day on the diet, we had finished all of our leftovers. In total, we had cooked 11 out of those 13 days. For me to succeed with this diet, I knew I’d have to LOVE my meals, so I focused on making sure I’d fulfill that requirement at every turn, but that required A LOT of extra shopping, prepping, cooking, and packing. There’s not a whole lot you can buy on Whole30 and skate your way through with; if you’re going to truly love what you’re eating, you’re going to have to prepare it yourself. The whole point is to eat whole foods with minimum processing.
So Day 1 of my 3-day weekend, we were already out of food and had to shop and then cook. And it wouldn’t be enough to just cook ONE meal, because if that’s all I have on hand to eat, I’m going to burn out. I needed at least 2-3 prepared items at a go, so I was staring down a Saturday of prepping at least 2 meals. That’s not how I want to spend my Saturdays. Like, at all. We managed to find a compliant rotisserie chicken at Ralph’s, which we took home and tore into like wild animals. But we had no veggies prepared as a side, so I just dipped it into some truly not at all great Annie’s BBQ sauce (compliant and available at Whole Foods). The whole effect just tasted…sad. I wanted to relax, dammit. I wanted to ENJOY MY TIME. And this diet was keeping me from that.
And then it hit me: Including the 10-day reintroduction period, which includes 6 days of eating completely compliant, my Whole30 wasn’t going to be over until MARCH 17th. And it was only FEBRUARY 17th. And I’d been devoting all of my sanity and free time to this diet instead of focusing on my business (which honestly needs to be my top priority) and enjoyment of my own life.
Well…that’s not a healthy life choice. Not for me.
So I called it. Time of Death: 7:09 PM. I ate a few Triscuits in a half-hearted attempt to “reintroduce” wheat, then said screw it and ate a Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg. It was glorious. And my stomach felt fine for the rest of the night and weekend.
Ate pizza the next day (being careful to take 2 Lactaids; I’m just super nervous about dairy coming off of all this after feeling so great and non-bloated for once). Felt fine! And I felt MORE than fine, to be honest. I felt sane again.
The kicker is…I’m still cooking despite my annoyance with it. What can I say? Whole foods are addictive. I mean without question we have eaten FANTASTIC home cooking for the past two weeks. Can you blame me for not wanting to return to freezer fare? Not to mention according to my rules I stated in my previous post, I am fully determined to eat like this on weekdays going forward.
Two more recipe successes from the Whole30 Fast & Easy cookbook:
Behold this lovely spinach-tomato frittata! A sprinkle of fresh lemon juice and zest on top before broiling gives the whole thing a fun brightness.
And here we have a lovely roasted salmon with tomatoes, fennel, and a caper-mustard sauce.
As I am (extremely) new to liking salmon, I had a weird breakdown over this salmon during the weekend because we bought it on Saturday, and then as you know Saturday night, I’d shut down the diet. This being only my second attempt ever at cooking salmon, I am SUPER PARANOID of fish tasting “off”, so for the next two days I fussed and fidgeted over this thing sitting in the fridge. “Should we cook the salmon?! Or should we freeze it?! No that’s going to ruin it! It’s fresh, we should cook it, right?! But I know we wanted to enjoy the rest of our weekend WITHOUT having to cook! Oh man, do you think it’s okay just sitting in there? What should we do? Should we just cook it? It’s a really easy recipe! Or should we go out?! WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT THE SALMON?!?!”
(Seriously, ask Trey about my salmon breakdown. Also this should give you a good idea of how mentally obsessed I became with juggling this diet around, even after the fact.)
Anyway. We cooked it Monday afternoon and it turned out great. The end.
So this may not teeeechnically be my Whole30 experience blog anymore, but I’m still going to post a bit here and there while I continue cooking well for myself and following my revised diet. I will say one thing I’ve noticed is I seem to get VERY sleepy after I consume sugar, which is confusing to me. I always thought sugar was supposed to give you a rush? Unless I’m confusing that reaction for something else, I’m super tired now after eating it. And I would know; I pounded an entire box of Peanut M&Ms at Black Panther on Sunday (and I mean POUNDED. I NEVER put away candy like that; my sugar dragon was SCREECHING for some reason in a way it never does. But I’ve felt balanced since then, which is a relief.)
Dana and Donnelle spend altogether too much time thinking about food. They’re in a burger club called Team Burger; the club is not going to be excited about this Whole30 development.
Awww, I’m picturing your sugar dragon as a weird dragon-monkey hybrid, whose back is studded with M&M spikes and is always drooling.
And I’M SO HAPPY you got past your weird salmon block! I know we’d discussed it before and I LOVE SALMON. Next step: the Kenji pan-searing method!