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ja9doeswhole30 · 5 years

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Food Freedom: The Good

Hello friends.

I swear, I’ve been trying to write a post updating my progress the last few weeks and it just didn’t happen. The start of Passover kept me very busy, and I have a draft about the holiday’s dietary restrictions and the nature of Seder meals. I finished the Reintroduction phase right before Passover started, and I enjoy telling stories in linear fashion, so this seemed logical at the time, but now that it’s been a while it might be better to discuss things differently.

So, this post will be about all the Whole30 victories that I’ve experienced/maintained in the last few weeks. Then I’ll post separately about the fails/things that need the most work.

3 meals + 1 snack, at home. The biggest impact Whole30 has had on my diet is to emphasize large, filling, plant-based meals. I’ve always made it a point to cook lots of veggies and lean meats at home, but I was an avowed grazer. I’d have a small (usually processed-carb-based) breakfast, which meant I was ready for snack mid-morning, followed by a small lunch, and another (possibly two) snacks in the afternoon before dinner.

Now, most days, I’ve gotten pretty good at planning out meals and (limited) snacks so that I eat in a structured fashion. Once I started trying it, I found that I can usually sit down for a nice breakfast around 8 AM, which is late enough that I haven’t eaten in at least 12 hours, but early enough that I’m not starving. Sometimes if I’m able I try to push it to 9 AM to extend the overnight fasting period, but that doesn’t always work. Either way, though, having a good, filling breakfast will keep me going until lunch around 12:30-1PM. I allow for a snack in the afternoon but try to push that ‘til at least 4 PM. Then we have dinner at about 6:30 and finish by 7:00.

Less indiscriminate eating. Another big reason I started Whole30 in the first place was that I would constantly pick at my kids’ snacks, or other nonsense we happen to have around the house. Hence, always gave myself credit for being a healthy eater, but whatever good I was doing eating plant-based & whole foods for meals was offset by my random unscheduled snacks. With certain foods off-limits during the Whole30, I broke my habit of helping myself to a few Cheddar Bunnies or chips whenever I wanted. Food Freedom Forever discusses the concept of deviating from an eating plan if you really consider the treat worth it, and can properly savor the experience. I haven’t been perfect with this practice (more on that next post), but it’s a good guideline. I’m definitely in the mindset of closing the vault unless there’s a truly worthwhile deposit to be made. Yesterday, for instance, I was tired and considered ordering sushi for lunch, but decided that reheating things at home was perfectly feasible and I didn’t want sushi that badly so as to indulge.

I broke up with Dunkin’ Donuts. While I don’t drink an enormous amount of coffee, I have at various phases of life been a regular at chain coffee establishments. Although raised in a Dunkin’ household, my most sustained love affair was with Starbucks, which provided daily fuel for my second summer of law school, studying for the bar exam, and my first job. The Starbucks around the corner from my Brooklyn apartment became a necessary destination when I was home with my first baby. Thereafter we moved to a house in the suburbs, with the nearest Starbucks and DD each a mile away, serving as motivation for a nice walk when the weather was right and nothing else was going on. Following the birth of baby #2, coffee became both critically necessary and harder to obtain out of the house. The DD in the next town over has a drive-thru, which I patronized occasionally but otherwise made coffee at home - always iced, with whole milk and a teaspoon of Sugar in the Raw.

Gradually, though, my kids were spending more time in preschool, I went back to work part-time, and I also became aware that DD’s rewards program is much more generous than Starbucks’. For a long time it seemed like there was always a promotional deal, be it a $1.99 medium latte or double-points when you order on the app or whatever. Going back to this past fall, I’d gotten sucked pretty deeply into a downward spiral of vice. First came an increase in the number of visits per week (from one to three... or more). Then I got into the habit of adding ridiculously sugary flavored syrups to my order, which I justified by asking for only one pump of the stuff, as opposed to the three or four the usual recipe would call for. Finally, I would use an especially stressful or exhaustion-ridden day as an excuse to get a large instead of my usual medium.

Coffee every day having become a necessity, I began keeping a supply of small-batch homemade cold brew for my non-DD days. Thankfully I’d perfected my cold-brewing method prior to Whole30, because I knew that during the 30 days I wouldn’t be able to go to Dunkin’. In theory I could have sussed out the brand of almond milk they offer, to assess compliance, and possibly keep the habit alive. But I knew, deep down, that it would be especially worthwhile to cut my outside-coffee habit off at the knees.

It was hard. Having my homemade cold brew with almond-coconut milk (no sugar) became a nice part of my daily routine, but during the Whole30, when I was limiting so many foods, it hit particularly hard to drive past a Dunkin’ and know that I wouldn’t - couldn’t - go in. It was truly the biggest form of deprivation for me; I didn’t miss the “treat” itself so much as participation in the ritual. As with the rest of Whole30, though, it felt like a great achievement once I realigned my habits.

Case in point: On April 15th (federal tax deadline here in the U.S.) DD had an offer for a $1 medium coffee, so I made an exception, purchasing a black iced coffee on the way to work and adding my almond-coconut milk once I got to the office. It was... not good? I guess I’d gotten used to the bold flavor of my cold brew, and the way I make it at home. And while I was excited to participate in the commercial-coffee rat race yet again, the unsatisfying result was the exception that proved the rule. It’s cheaper and healthier to make coffee at home, so that’s what I do now. (I even grind my own beans, which feels really rustic and industrious.)

Daily exercise. During Whole30, I think I exercised 27 days. Initially it was motivation to earn my extra post-workout meal, but even prior to that my daily elliptical session + strength workout had become a seemingly necessary part of my routine. Since Whole30 ended, I’ve been able to maintain the habit. Some days, I need to work to squeeze it in, setting up kids with breakfast before I race down to the basement to bang out a quick 20 minutes. Other mornings my kids play downstairs and I need to pause my workout to help them figure out a toy or set up another activity. In the past, their presence might have stopped me from even attempting the workout (”Why bother if I’m just going to get interrupted?”), but I find that if I just force myself to get started, I’m compelled follow through even on the most hectic of mornings. Other times, I’ve been able to skip the morning elliptical in favor of an outside walk later in the day, which has been a (literal) breath of fresh spring air.

That’s it for now, I think! Stay tuned for the next entry which will detail all the stuff I’m still doing wrong. D:

#whole30 #food freedom #Food Freedom Forever #healthy eating #healthy food

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