Day 3–done!

As you can see, I didn’t get my Day 3 Blog posted yesterday and that is because by around 2:00 in the afternoon I hit a wall of exhaustion the likes of which I could have slept off until this morning if I didn’t have two kids, a husband and one last meal to eat…

But other than feeling really tired, yesterday was again surprisingly okay. Even at church during our Sunday School breakfast (biscuits, sausage, jelly and fruit salad with fruit juice) I didn’t feel overwhelmed with a desire to eat any of it – I thought that would be a hard test, but it turned out to be pretty easy.

After two days, I was ready to have at least SOME fruit, I felt like it wouldn’t “awaken” my need for sweets and that it wouldn’t cause any regression in trying to get rid of my unhealthy relationship with sweet foods, so as part of lunch (as you will see below on my menu of the day) I had a Whole30 approved Banana treat (banana, almond butter with coconut flakes) – and let me tell you… it was SWEET! I really didn’t expect it to be so sweet – but it really was sweet. Prior to the Whole30, I tried the almond butter and I didn’t think it was sweet (at all) – I was sort of disappointed, but now… after only 2 days of eating a strict regimen of meats/eggs and veggies only this almond butter and banana concoction matched the likes of the sweetness of a snickers bar! (No joke!)

Now I have been basically sailing through the first few days of the Whole30 – with the exception of getting really tired, but my husband… although he has ALREADY noticed some positive changes, is the one struggling the most with things, he has had to literally gag-down his veggies for a few meals. He has never been a big fan of veggies, but now they are in every meal AND there are LOTS of them. I am trying to figure out a better way to incorporate them for him so he won’t have to “gag” them down. But it will take some time to figure it out.

As easy as it has been (with the gag exception), I had to ask my husband last night, “Do you think we’re just SO unhealthy that our body has built up toxins and yucky stuff to live off of for several days – which explains why we aren’t having many negative side-effects that the Whole30 faithful have warned us of yet?” Really, that is the only explanation I could think of why we wouldn’t be seriously struggling at this point. No headaches. No withdrawals. No super-duper cravings. Well… there is ONE other explanation, and I am starting to believe that this is the reason we are doing so well: We covered this process in prayer. Our friends and family are praying for us and we have dedicated this journey to God – it’s not solely about self, but about honoring God… and I truly believe that He is blessing that desire by making  our journey not as hard as we expected and others predicted. That’s not to say that He won’t allow us to go through more difficult times during the journey, because otherwise, we would miss out on some significant growth opportunities, but for now, I do believe He has blessed us by keeping discouragement from us.

So there you have the main updates – below is my Day 3 menu:

Breakfast: Breakfast mix of eggs, broccoli and mushrooms and a new concoction I came up with all on my own (I was very proud of myself), Sweet Potato “Porridge” (I will post the recipe later this week with photos!)

Lunch: Chili Stew – this was originally called “Whole30 Chili” but really it tasted like tomato-based beef stew – it was ground beef, lean stew meat, celery, carrots, bell peppers, onion, chili powder, cumin, 1 can of tomato puree, 1 can of crushed tomato, 1 can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes and a little bit of water. (I served it with avocado on top). It was very good with the avocado mixed in! I also had my banana treat and because I didn’t want to go over-board with “sweet” I only had 1/2 a banana with almond butter spread on top and sprinkled with unsweetened coconut flakes. It was SO YUMMY! Can’t wait to have another one!

Dinner: Grilled Steak, Grilled asparagus and left-over cauliflower “fried rice”. I desperately wanted to have the other half of my banana after dinner before we started eating, but after I finished eating, I was WAY too full to even consider any more food… so I guess it’s working! (Sigh.)

Day 3 down. 27 to go!