Whole30: Day 20

Two thirds of the way in. Ten more days to go. And I will be counting down every single evening. Because this diet isn't so bad in the morning, for two reasons. First, and probably most importantly, having the same thing for breakfast everyday isn't a problem. Once you settle into a routine for breakfast that works, that's your ritual. Changing things up is the exception, not the norm. And so that brings me to the second point, which is that I have an awesome breakfast that I love, and I feel like I sacrifice nothing: there are lots of good breakfast foods that I can eat, and I can have as much cold brew as I like.

Lunch is a little harder. It's not bad, and I feel fortunate to have as many options as I do, but lunch is a meal where I definitely want a little more variety than I do at breakfast. At lunch, I mostly just miss cheese, or am incredibly resentful about the fact that it turns out I can't have roasted garlic vinaigrette, of all things, because there's sugar in it. Yes, I'm still angry about this.

And then dinner. I've put quite a bit of effort into finding lots of different recipes to try so that we can have a good variety of things to eat at dinner. In fact, it's not all that hard to find meals we like that are compliant: that's something we could probably continue to do for a very long time. (Again, I would really miss cheese, and other dairy products like butter, now and again.) But no beer or wine really hurts. I suppose a treat like ice cream or some other dessert might fill that void a lot of the time, but I can't have that right now, either.

All this is combining to really bring out my whiny side, or my sarcastic side, or my "I hate everything" side: basically, I now behave like some version of an annoying teenager every evening. I don't love it. Austin isn't a big fan, either.

Ten days left.


How I felt: Great for most of the day: good energy, alert, all of it. And then I hit a wall at 5:30 and my brain just stopped operating correctly, and I became super tired. I met a friend out for dinner, came home, and got in bed. At 8:30. Might be getting sick, though I certainly hope not. And what the fuck would be up with that anyway? I stop drinking, start eating right, and getting lots of sleep, and then get sick? Just fuck everything if that's the case.

Breakfast: One hardboiled egg, a sausage patty, sliced avocado, and the biggest bowl of sliced strawberries yet. All fantastically delicious.

Lunch: I signed us up for Sunbasket because they have a paleo option, and those meals are 95% compliant--you can leave out the honey or whatever that the recipe might include if you want to--so I made a sauteed pork loin with jerk seasoning, and the kale blueberry salad that goes with it. I was pretty underwhelmed with this first recipe: I ate 100% of the salad (it's supposed to serve two people, but maybe they portioned it for two people that hate salad), and the salad is supposed to be made by tossing the bell pepper (which I also left out, as I'm not a fan of peppers; Austin'll eat it), cucumber, and blueberries with honey, lime juice, oil, finely chopped shallot... like a lot of it... and some red pepper flakes, then adding in the baby kale and some roughly chopped cilantro and tossing again. Hmmm. I tried just making a salad dressing with those components (lime juice--you can make it with lemon, why not lime?--olive oil, chopped shallot, salt and paper, and a bit of mayo as an emulsifier and to make it creamy) and then tossing everything with that. I don't think it worked. The only thing I liked about the salad was the blueberries, and we already have a fridge full of blueberries. They certainly didn't need to be mixed up with kale and lime vinaigrette.

Dinner: Met a friend at Urban Plates again, and had a steak plate with potatoes and carrots, and a glass of gingerade kombucha. I shouldn't have had the carrots, because they miiiiiight not have been 100% compliant, but IT'S BEEN 20 DAYS AND I HATE EVERYTHING HOW DARE YOU TELL ME I CAN'T ORDER SOME FUCKING CARROTS.