It’s halfway through the month of October so I wanted to give you an update on how my Whole30 experience is going.

The positives:

• I have not had peanut butter for over 3 weeks now!  That’s a pretty major achievement for me!!
• I can definitely feel that my stomach is less bloated, and my pants fit better.  I always thought I had a few pairs of ‘fat pants’ for work, but for a few months I never found them (they all look the same!).  Since last week, every pair I’ve worn have felt like the ‘fat pants’!
• I am enjoying creating new meals with Whole30 compliant ingredients, and am amazed that a lot of my recipes are already compliant, or can easily be made compliant.  Check out my new creations here (Thai beef curry, Turkey meatballs with marinara sauce, Sweet potato toast with egg & avocado and Applesauce and trail mix).
• I have still been baking a lot for friends and guests.  And I haven’t had one single lick of the spoon or scrape of the bowl.  At all.  While most of what I’ve made has been full-gluten and full-dairy to help me get into better habits, I recently made my ultimate chocolate peanut butter slice, which is fully gluten and dairy-free and I did not have one taste.  I’m counting that as a major win!
• The kids tell me I look more awake and more happy.  And that’s true – I feel more happy now that I’m not constantly worrying about how I’ve overeaten.

The challenges:

• Life happens.  And every now and then Grant and I like to go out for a meal together.  Typically we would choose places like Indian, Thai, etc, but now I’m leaning more and more towards the steakhouses, where I know I can get a decent piece of meat and some steamed vegetables.
• Trying to balance the flavors that I like – eggs, avocado, sausage – without having the same things every meal every day.  I’ve had to put together a meal plan so I can do all this.
• I’m still not sleeping that well, but that may be due to the change in weather, the cats sleeping on my side of the bed, and/or Grant’s snoring, rather than any digestive issues!
• We were recently invited to a friend’s house for dinner.  She made a chicken veggie soup that was full of good stuff, but she showed me the ingredients of the chicken stock and it contained honey.  I battled with myself as to whether I should bring my own food and appear rude, or whether I should just eat the soup.  So I ate the soup and it was yummy.

Now I need to figure out whether I should either start the 30 days again, or realize that amount of honey wasn’t going to bring back all the old habits of overeating or promoting any sugar cravings and just continue for the rest of October.  I am really enjoying eating this way and am thinking I’m not necessarily going to reintroduce many of the foods I’ve taken out this month.  I think it will just be a decision each time as to the costs vs benefits of each food.  And still enjoying life.

So I’m definitely continuing for the next 16 days.  It just depends on how I feel at the end of the month, whether I feel I’ve gotten out of all those bad habits while baking, as to whether I continue to strictly monitor sugar contents and the grains/legumes (read peanut butter).

I’d love to hear any advice from people who have done the Whole30 or something similar … and also what you think of all my new recipes!

Until next time, enjoy cooking at home!

Sarah