1 - Oh my God I miss gum SO BAD. Worse than iced coffee.
2 - I miss iced coffee pretty bad too.
3 - Cut corners and you end up with a gross lunch.
4 - Pack food for longer than you think you'll need.
After I last posted I went grocery shopping. It wasn't bad AT ALL. The RealPlans app kept me SUPER organized and the food I needed was all pretty easy to find. I know I keep comparing this to The Ultimate Reset but that's the closest experience to this I've had and I can tell you that shopping for The Whole 30 is MILES easier than shopping for the Reset. I think that's mostly because Whole 30 lets you decide what you're going to eat. Downside is I'm not likely to discover new foods like I did on the Reset. Good news is I'm not driving 45 minutes to find jicama and liquid aminos.
Also, without being told what to have when, I'm able to just quadruple a recipe and get two lunches and two dinners out of it.
I hate cooking WAY more than I hate monotony.
I spent $96.91 at Aldi and $47.83 at Giant Eagle. And some of it was things like olive oil and almond butter (holy $12 jar of almond butter) that will last me far more than the one week.
As I was waiting to check out I was eyeballing the candy shelves and the little cooler with all of the pop and bottled iced cappuccino, and reminded myself of the little bottle of apple juice I picked up from the dairy isle. I LOVE APPLE JUICE. I don't like apples much, but I LOVE apple juice. So I had that in the car on my way home and thoroughly enjoyed it. It truly was almost better than candy.
....almost.
When I got home and went to put all that away I realized my cupboards and fridge were in desperate need of clean out. To be fair my freezer is too but I only bought one tiny little bag of frozen asparagus so that was no problem. Clearly Whole 30 is very geared to ward fresh and simple ingredients.
So an hour after getting rid of an embarrassing amount of expired canned and boxed food, I realized I had 45 minutes 'till I needed to leave and I had yet to have lunch.
My planned lunch was chicken avocado salad. First, I cut the corner of using canned chicken. Technically compliant but not ideal. Combine that with an under-ripe avocado and my lunch was, in a word, gross.
The olives made it edible.
So lesson learned...never use canned chicken in anything that doesn't include a sauce to camouflage the odd taste of the tuna.
But I made it out the door only 10 minutes late for a doggie play date, at which time it was discovered that my dog was peeing blood. So from the parking lot of the dog park I made a vet appointment for 7:30 the same day.
Normally when I leave the dog park I hit Starbucks drive-thru before I get on the highway to head home. And the urge was STRONG y'all. Seriously. But I made it home without a stress-induced snack.
Fortunately I had a few hours to kill between dog park and vet appointment so I was able to make my dinner recipe, which was chili.
I think my house is going to smell like chili for a week but it was pretty good. I'll use the recipe again when I'm done with the Whole 30, but I'll add tomato paste and beans....and cornbread...and cheddar cheese.
But it was good. I can't share the recipe because it's part of the Real Plans Whole 30 subscription, but next week I'm going to use only Pinterest recipes so I can share them with you guys if they're good.
Of course about the time the chili was ready to eat, and I was good and hungry, it was time to go to the vet. The appointment went well and Rue is on the mend thanks to antibiotics. But I found myself driving home at 8:30 at night....right past McDonald's. But I did not submit. I came home and had my chili. I try really hard not to eat after 8pm but desperate times call for desperate measures.
I ended day 1 feeling very positive. Like "I can do this" kind of a feeling, which is nice.
Day two started with apples and almond butter, and stepping on the scale.
I didn't want to record my day-after-thanksgiving weight as starting weight for this, so I waited 'till day 2 to weigh in. Good news is I've only gained 0.2 lbs in the last two weeks, Thanksgiving inclusive. Bad news is my weight is just not acceptable.
But I knew that. Weight recorded and moving on.
Anyway, I don't think I've ever had almond butter before and this was pretty good. $12 a jar good? I'm not sure. But pretty good.
I added a hard boiled egg that I didn't even really want but I knew lunch was going to be very late so I had it.
I knew I was going to be gone 'till at least 3:00 so I packed a 100 calorie pack of almonds and a banana, and thought I'd just have a very late lunch and dinner.
Well around 1:30 I realized I had made a huge mistake. I was starving, starting to have blood sugar shakes and a good 3 hours away from getting home.
Oh and I was also within walking distance of McDonald's and nothing else. No stores that sell food. No gas stations. Nothing.
I got a sausage, egg & cheese McMuffin, without cheese, and threw away the muffin. This breaks the rules because the eggs were cooked in non-clarified butter, and while pork is allowed, it's supposed to be lean. In retrospect I should have ordered a plain grilled chicken sandwich and thrown away the bun, but I'm not beating myself up over it.
When I got home I had stuff I wanted to get done, like feed animals and blog, so I had about 1/2 cup of mixed nuts (no peanuts) to tide me over 'till dinner, which will be chili. The plan was to make roasted potatoes with sausage & peppers but since I didn't have chili for lunch I'm going to just heat up a bowl of that and move the potatoes & sausage dish to tomorrow. Another nice flexibility that The Ultimate Reset doesn't give you.
And I may pair it with a nice wine......glass full of apple juice.
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