Whole30 Update: Week 3

And I'm on the home stretch!  3 weeks down and just a little over 1 more week to go.  Day's 15-21 were without a doubt, the worst days of this journey to date.  They sucked.  They were hell.  They were miserable.  I want my homemade oatmeal.  I want some yogurt.  I want a cookie.  I want a bar.  I want a beer.  I want something other than eggs, sardines, and salads.  I brought up The Whole30 Timeline in last weeks update and will do the same this week.  Per the timeline the third week falls between Boundless Energy -Now Give Me a Damn Twinkie and Tiger Blood.  First, during days 12-15 they say that typically cravings come back, stronger then ever.  Then, from 16-27 it's said that these are the days that you do this program for.  Typically these are the days were you feel great, you thrive on the program.  To quote the Boundless Energy Phase (days 12-15):

"All joking aside, though, this phase gets really intense and for some people. This is the part of the program where our minds try to drive us back to the comfort of the foods we used to know. Our food relationships are deeply rooted and strongly reinforced throughout the course of our lives and breaking through them is really big deal. Journaling can be especially enlightening and helpful during this phase, and helpful for reflection later. Take some time to jot down what you’re craving, how you’re feeling and what tools you’re using to work through the cravings."

That pretty much sums up my past week.  That with a combination of a typical early phase (days 10-11 - "The Hardest Days").  During this phase typically, this is where you really start to experience the true psychological hold that your food habits have on you.

I don't know what it was about the past 7 days, but I really started to question this whole "Whole30" thing all together.  I mean, do I REALLY feel better?  Did I REALLY eat all that bad before starting this?

Monday was a breeze as I still was in my little mid-week work routine.  It has been that any day/night that I have had to work, I have been able to stay busy enough with my life to not have any meaningless cravings.  But Tuesday was the start of one hellish week.  Tuesday was my first day off and I started the day with a nice long swim (3,500 meters).  I came home and ate a couple of our leftovers from the previous week as my post workout snack.  I caught about an hour or so nap and then was back up into a long rest of the day running on little to no sleep, just trying to make it to 8:30pm to go to bed and crash.  But, as I mentioned in last week's update, my sleep deprived turn-around days are the worst mentally for cravings and just feeling hungry all day.  Again, I went throughout the day with moderate snacking, but mainly all vegetables just to try over my mental hunger until dinner.  On Wednesday, I had one of our regular standby dinners, (even before I started the W30) of spaghetti squash with seasoned chicken breasts, all topped with pasta sauce.  I even went out and bought pasta sauce that was all natural with no added sugars, sweeteners, or artificial sweeteners.  So, as I was putting our dinner together I grabbed the sauce from the fridge and on a random whim, I checked the ingredient list, just to double check.  Sure as shit, I grabbed the wrong pasta sauce.  Ahhhhh!  I was so frustrated!  I had already assembled all the dishes and topped them all with the sauce.  One of the dinners I had been looking forward to has now become uneatable for me.....juuuust grrrrreat.  So instead of a nice salad and dinner, I just topped my salad with some tuna and ate my salad.

This leads me to my first gripe - what the hell is it with all the f-ing added sugars in just about EVERYTHING?!?!  If you haven't ever looked, next time you go grocery shopping just try and buy something with no added sugars.  Yup, that means, you'll have to actually turn your product around and see what exactly you are putting in your bodies.  If you see Sugar, Dextrose, Maltodextrin, Fructose, Glucose, basically anything that ends with "ose" - it's off limits - Good luck!  Sure, I knew that your typical products such as cereals, breads, prepackaged oatmeals, bars, etc all had added sugar, no surprise there.  But, now, I'm looking for atypical stuff, such as seasoning blends (all have sugar), "all natural bacon" (has sugar), many beef and chicken products (have sugar), literally damn near EVERTHING has some form of sugar somewhere in the ingredients.  Why you ask?  Well, to feed our culture's sugar addiction.  If you didn't think sugar was addictive, here is your proof.  Food companies add sugars to their products, no only to make it more palatable, but also to create that endorphin release that causes things to becoming highly addictive.  So, like I said, good luck finding anything that doesn't have any added sugar.  And then, when you do find something with no added sugar, you end up seeing that it is loaded with preservatives or artificial sweeteners.  So FRUSTRATING!

Eventually I got over the fact that I screwed up my dinner that night and just looked forward to Thursday night's dinner.  My brother-in-law recently was hired at a new job and to celebrate we planned on getting together for a celebratory dinner at my favorite restaurant, Stone Cellar Brewpub.  I knew going into this that, one, it would be a test for me mentally to be in that setting with some of the best beer and damn good food and not be able to order any of it.  And, two, that if there was any one place in the Fox Valley, that would have numerous choices that would meet the W30 criteria, it would be Stone Cellar, who is known for locally grown, minimally processed, local grass-fed beef, and mostly organic food choices.  I had scoped out Stone Cellar's menu that morning to get an idea of what I might be able to order and had it narrowed down to a couple choices.  Once at the Brewpub, all I wanted as a beer and to be able to just order something without having to worry what it was made with.  I was officially starting to get extremely frustrated with the W30 style of living.  It was a minor state of paranoia - always reading ingredients, always checking what you order, asking family what they will be having for dinner in advance.  Yea, it was getting old.  On top of that frustration, Thursday was bill paying day for us and as usual, we hadn't done nearly as well as we had hoped, which added an additional stress on myself and Sarah.  So, here I am, going to literally, my favorite bar/restaurant with my family, worried/concerned/stressed about our family finances, and now I'm pissed that I can't just order fish tacos, with their 6 Grain Pale Ale, or their limited edition 666 Grain Pale Ale.  Plus, we all ordered two appetizers of spinach and artichoke dip along with a pub basket.  Now, normally I don't go crazy with all the deep fried goodies that come in the pub basket, but seriously, all I wanted was a cheese curd, or a kettle chip.  It was seriously hell.  I ended up ordering their grilled sirloin with a side of sweet potato fries, which came with a house salad and balsamic vinaigrette.  Don't get me wrong, the food I had ordered was absolutely delicious, once I ate, I was satisfied with my choice, but still wish I had just 1 cold beer to wash it down with.  For the first time since starting, I was seriously contemplating just giving up on the W30 and just getting a beer and ordering what I really wanted, not what I should want.

This led me to my second gripe - Is this Whole30 thing, really making a difference - I mean, now that I have been doing this for 18 or so days, is it REALLY that different from how I was eating?  Sure, I did have an unhealthy relationship with sweets, I will certainly cop to that.  But, to say that I ate unhealthy, would just be foolish.  My downfall came when I would succumb to my cravings.  Not only would I give in and have a treat, but I would not know when to stop.  But, is this Whole30 thing going to fix that?  Or is that something that I will just need to get a grasp on and just stop allowing myself to not be a better athlete?  Then, I began thinking of foods like oatmeal, my whole fat plain unsweetened greek yogurt, and other minimally (if at all) sweetened health foods that were deemed unhealthy by the fricken "Whole30 Food Gods."  And, what I really feeling better?  Can I even tell a difference from a month ago?  To be honest, other than not overeating and that "stuffed" feeling you get from just stuffing your face, no, I felt pretty much the same.  As far as my gut and digestive health - that might be the one difference.  Previous to starting the W30, I usually went to the bathroom once a day or so.  Now, it's more like once every 3-4 days.  Yea, not sure about that, but what ever.

After leaving Stone Cellar, I was feeling better, knowing that I had made the right choice not to scrap all my progress.  I started this thing for a reason.  I started it for me, to learn about my relationship with food and to hopefully develop some new healthier relationships with my food.  I was on day 18 of 30, over half way.  I knew that I would hate myself and truly regret giving up, so I was, in the end, happy with my choice, no matter how frustrated I was at the time.

Friday was another similar day to Thursday evening.  We had SWAT training during the day and then I was off Friday night.  We always go out for lunch on SWAT training days, and on this day, it was decided we would go to Red Robin for lunch.  So, once again, I was left to scour the menu for a W30 approved dish.  There was not one single meal that I could order outside of getting a chicken sandwich with nothing on it wrapped in lettuce as opposed to a bun.  Sounds like an expensive salad right?  I just went with their plain chicken salad with no cheese or croutons.  It wasn't bad actually. It was simple and tasty.

The remainder of the week came and went with much of the same issues as previous weeks, dealing with hunger pangs from higher than "normal" training volumes (in comparison to majority of folks who do the W30) and random snacking throughout the days.  The past week I had a total training volume of over 9 hours (about 1:20 average per day).  I had quite a lot of almond butter this week, more then I probably should have.  It was my "coping" treat.  I was eating it as opposed to my typical chocolate or baked treats.  I was eating it either on celery or on a banana.  But, man, I'm freakin hungry!

My training has finally found a consistent routine.  I ran 10 miles on Wednesday and did 7 of those miles in my Newtons.  I had to stop at home after 7 and swap out shoes because I could feel my calf getting tight.  I realized that I need to ease into my Newtons due their their lower heel drop in comparison to what I have grown accustomed to with my previous shoes.  For example, my New Balance 890 V3's have a 7mm heel drop (28mm heel height and 21mm toe height), while my Newtons have a heel drop of 5mm (28 heel height and 23mm toe height).  Sure, that's only a difference of 3mm, but you couple that with the dynamic shift in a full foot, foot strike to a exaggerated forefoot striking shoe such as the Newton, it will put more stress on your calf muscles.  The final 3 miles of my 10 mile run felt good in my old pair of NB 890's that I wore at Ironman.  I took a couple days off between my 10 mile run and my next run.  I filled those two days with a swim along with a 2:00 ride on my indoor cycle.  Saturday, I was nervous to go back to running.  During those two days away from running, all I could feel was my calf/shin, and I thought for sure I would be stopped almost immediately after starting to run.  I went to the YMCA Saturday morning to do an indoor brick.  I rode on their indoor cycle for an hour and then jumped on a treadmill with hopes of running 6 miles.  I started running at a conservative pace and then just kept going.  My calf was never an issue.  It felt normal the entire time.  In fact, I felt so good, I decided to stay on the tread for a couple additional miles, for a total of 8.  With a good volume of training already in my log book, I opted to cut Sunday's workout a little shorter and just focus on recovery.  I jumped on my indoor bike after getting home from work and just rode super easy for 30 minutes just to move my legs.  It felt good.

Maya got a much needed haircut this week!

The final 9 days of my W30 will be the real test.  I am working day hours Monday through Thursday and will be working out in the morning before work.  I think those 4 days will be relatively easy to get through as I will be so busy to just get home and then cook dinner, prepare for the next day, and then get to bed early enough to get up early enough to get a decent workout in before work.  Friday I am off from work, but we are getting together with Pat and Melissa for a couples Valentine's Day dinner at a new local up scale Latin Restaurant.  So, yet again, I will test myself (on day 26 - so close!) with no beer and having a very limited menu to choose from.

The good news, is that as of today, I have made it a full 3 weeks with absolutely NO CAFFEINE!  I will start back up again with regular coffee and green teas starting Monday.  I will mix my coffee 2:1 with decaf coffee just to keep my caffeine consumption down from what I was at previously.  I am just looking forward do drinking regular coffee again!  :)