Whole 30: A Diary {Week 3}

They say it takes 21 days to develop a habit, and it seems natural to assume that it would, then, take 21 days to break a habit.

I'm here to tell you that losing things is much, much harder than creating them. Unless, you are a set of keys, YMCA scan card or clean bra. In that case, it's much easier to lose those than to find them. 

Case in point: Diet Coke/Diet Pepsi. I still really miss them, at least in the carbonation sense. I drink a lot of sparkling water, which helps, but I still get the urge to hit a drive-through on the way home from a run.

Case in point 2-point-0: I am known to put cheese on, well, everything. I have to really watch myself that I don't put a slice on my omelet or sprinkle some on my broccoli.

But, other than a few hiccups, week 3 went pretty well. Instead of giving you the day-by-day, I thought I'd touch on some observations.

Novelty ... it's gone. From a cooking perspective, the first two weeks of Whole30 were almost fun. I was challenging myself to create new dishes and explore new flavor combinations. By day 15, I did not give a flippity-flip-flip. There are only so many things you can put in an egg scramble, and I felt like I had them all. As such, I got lazy this week and kept things pretty basic.

Sleep. You magical beast. I LOVE YOU. Many people report that they sleep much better on Whole30. However, sleep wasn't an area of concern – only because my sleep quality and quantity is often a reflection of how Si is sleeping. (Dear boy, Can you at least try to be a unicorn and sleep through the night consistently? Love, Mom) I didn't realize, though, that I wasn't sleeping as well as I could have been because ... damn. I am sleeping HARD. In fact, I have not stirred during several night-time awakenings by my child, who was tended to by my husband. I felt bad about it for a hot minute and then I realized something: KARMA.

Weight loss. Friends who know I'm doing Whole30 have asked whether I've lost any weight because it's an obvious goal with such a restrictive eating challenge. My answer? I don't know. I didn't weigh myself at the start, mostly because I was scared, but I have been waffling between 138 and 141 the past few months, once getting down to 136. For, like, a stupid day. I'm fairly certain that I was closer to 141 three weeks ago. Now, the Whole30 powers that be say not to get on the scale. You don't want to get discouraged nor is it the point. However, I have stepped on it twice but once was after a mid-morning run at the Y and the second time, the next day, at home when I woke up. However, my scale is an asshole and will not stop displaying my weight in stones regardless of how many times I change the settings. That morning, I had yet to imbibe coffee and therefore could not do the math. I am hoping to buy a new scale before the end of this thing. (Dear Universe, Please send me a smart scale. Love, Shameless Blogger.)

For the love of God, I just want to eat out. OK. That's a lie. I have eaten out on Whole30 but this week, it was just really hard and I had a big fat baby tantrum about it. I felt like Whole30 was not just affecting how I ate but how I spent time with my family. We normally go out on Friday but I could think of nothing that we could all enjoy in our budget so I got grumpy and ate leftovers while the boys had Subway. The next day, Miles wanted to go to the mall (he's so my child) and we opted to do lunch there. I started to get overwhelmed in the food court when I decided to say "eff it" and just pick the best I could. 

I got a meal from the basically a Thai version of Panda Express. I got steamed vegetables instead of rice or noodles, curry and basil beef. After eating it, I'm fairly certain that the beef had sugar but the meal was much better than the chicken philly and fries that I would have gotten pre-Whole30.