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Whole 30: whole lot of pain or whole lot of yumminess? Part 5

Day thirty-one: Whoops! There was a whole process to reintroducing the non-compliant foods back into my diet? Oh bugger! I had forgotten about that bit. In one day, I had cancelled out all the gut detoxing of the past thirty days. No big deal. I’ll do the Whole 30 again and do the reintroduction properly in thirty-one days time. So… I did. Not a difficult decision when the bunch of carrots swung in front of me included: being at home (sigh), weight loss (six kilos), clear skin (no leprosy aka egg allergy blisters), more energy (so much should not be legal for one 50+ woman), no joint pain (tennis elbow is for cry-babies), working taste buds (still bouncing and singing), a love affair with unprocessed foods, and a folder full of recipes for delectable delights. 

Twelve months later, and you guessed it; she’s back on the Whole 30, this time with the whole household and some family members in Melbourne. We have a group on Messenger where we swap recipes and support each other. Jeanella’s ‘Ta Jean’ sweet potato and butternut pumpkin tagine (sans any actual tagine) has become a staple and some of my son’s contributions have become all-time favourite recipes: braised sirloin steak, pork rashers, chicken nicoise stew… drool drool drool. 

Now, more often than not, my meals are compliant. I rarely eat dairy, sugar, grains or legumes – other than lentils, as my dahl is delicious Darling (and it assists my bowels to perform unplugged). I brew my own kombucha and have 250ml servings when I feel the need for some acidity. And my relationship with alcohol has changed for the better. I’ll have the occasional gin – a top quality gin, of course – with cold tap water, no ice and no condiments. (Professional bar staff appreciate this order. Unprofessional bar staff screw their faces up, ask numerous times ‘are ya sure ya jus’ wan’ gin ‘n warda? From tha tap?’ and will nudge their fellow bar staffers whilst rolling their eyes heavenward before putting the drink on the bar.) A good gin needs no company, I say.

Below are actual entries from my Whole 30 Journal, which I kept for the first six days. (The names are changed to protect myself from the wrath of the actual persons.) I sigh with relief when I read this journal. Hindsight: what a wonderful 20/20 visioned thing! I fully recommend doing the Whole 30 when you are at home with your supportive, loved ones around you for the 30-40 days, as doing the Whole 30 when you’re aboard an emotional rollercoaster is not for the faint-hearted! Though, fear not; I have since recovered to live and learn a great deal more about everything (no future blog spoilers here…). 

My Whole 30 learnings are: 
* If possible, do it with others who are motivated and/or know what’s involved.
* Always have compliant food ready. (The urge to eat sneaks up stealthily.)
* Always have compliant food with you. (A bag full of things in the car: I was caught hangry and foodless in the vehicle a couple of times. The nail and teeth marks are still on the steering wheel and door.)
* Always check the labels. (Sugar or wheat or soy is in most packaged foods.)
* Always eat three substantial compliant meals a day. (Try not to snack.)
* Always eat a protein with each meal.
* Stay at son’s place for prepped compliant meals: so worth the dollars. (No, you cannot stay at my son’s place, but thanks for asking.)

Your body will tell you what foods work for it and, if you listen (and do the Whole 30 reintroduction correctly), it will tell what foods do not work for it. And, hopefully, you will not contract leprosy.

P.S. I still have some of the fish sauce, sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers, pickled kale, raw seeds, dirt, the word ‘compliant’ and a taste for cocomino from that first visit to the special boutique wholefoods grocery store.

Day One (Monday 8 January 2018)
Breaky: Two eggs, smoked salmon, mixed nuts (except peanuts)
Lunch: salad of cos leaves, alfalfa sprouts, asparagus, carrot, tomatoes, tuna and orange segments. (Yum)
Dinner: Handful of mixed nuts and seeds at 6, sweet potato tagine (very late, after 9pm); Jeanella made it W30 with pumpkin (no chickpeas, rice, yoghurt or honey: checked).
Kombucha and water throughout the day.
Shit day because of moving Miss X but stuck to it: can do anything if can do W30 during a day like today!

Day Two (Tuesday 9 January 2018)
Breaky: Nuts, salmon, boiled egg, salad
Lunch: nuts, salad
Dinner: slow cooked chicken curry and cauliflower rice
Kombucha and water throughout the day.
Another shit day because of moving Miss X but stuck to it. Caught up with Miss H, took computer in and test drove and bought Doug. Again, can do anything if can do W30 during a day like today.

Day Three (Wednesday 10 January 2018)
Breaky: fried (in coconut oil) eggs x 2, ham and tomatoes
Lunch: salad, nuts, apricots
Dinner: made sweet potato tagine (no tagine in sight) with pumpkin and roast potato pieces.
Kombucha: none today. I don’t think my body likes the fermented stuff or maybe it’s the carbonate added to it – shall test that out.
Had a quiet day starting with a walk on the beach and swim with Miss J, sending pics of Miss X’s new place to her, paying the storage place, watching Guardians of the Galaxy, snoozing and playing cards with Ms A, Mr M and Miss H. Getting annoyed – could it be W30 or period or both or plain old annoyed?

Day Four (Thursday 11 January 2018)
Breaky: nuts, apricots, mango
Lunch: left over sweet potato no tagine
Dinner: steak, salad, boiled potato
Kombucha: had some after 5pm and felt crap by 8:30pm. Hmmm… Jeanella’s brew was okay because it wasn’t carbonated. Making my own.
Picked up Doug and drove her down to Miss X, who then drove me to Miss H’s, lunch at Miss H’s, drove back to the coast, played cards with Miss H and Mr M. Thought Ms A was bringing in a bag of chips and my mouth salivated: it wasn’t chips but interesting reaction. Went to bed feeling very ordinary. Again I found I was annoyed: is it W30, or that people are eating and drinking non-compliant stuff around me when I’m not partaking, or period, or smugness, or a bloody shit couple of days? Weird!

Day Five (Friday 12 January 2018)
Break: nuts, apricots, mango
Snack: nuts
Lunch: left over sweet potato no tagine
Dinner: nuts, nuts, nuts, currants, nuts, olives and nuts! Started eating at 4pm, finished at 5:30-6.
Went to the beach for a walk, swim and puppy fix. Gah! It’s official. I’m hot, tired, cranky, overly-sensitive and annoyed. Time to go home to hubby. Housesitting son and partner’s house and staying Sunday night with them. Went to see 9:45am session of The Greatest Showman on Earth: great movie, great songs and lovely that it moved the lady sitting next to me to tears. Went to Roads to do Doug transfer and it’s too early, need to do it next week. Packed and said I’d be back up the coast on Sunday to beach walk, Cotton Tree market and go see a movie. Call from Mr R complaining about Miss X (already): jeepers that girl doesn’t learn. Time to swoop in, wave the magic wand and toughen up. No more Mrs Nice Chick methinks. Miss my computer 🙁

Day Six (Saturday 13 January 2018)
Breaky: carrot, eggs x 2, tomato, ham fried in olive oil
Lunch: potatoes x 2 microwaved and baked
Dinner: potatoes x 2 boiled and baked
Lazy day by myself watching TV after a hot, restless night, air cond. on, napped, spoke to Ms Pat, hubby and son. Am super emotional and am super itchy with the little blister things that have been popping up since Monday: may be eggs? Having potatoes (carbs) to see if that helps, should if it’s keto rash or an egg allergy. Gawd, the two combined are pretty shit! Again, stupid hot and can’t sleep; and far too much thinking going on, am upsetting myself, need to go back to being grateful and happy, stat!

*Note: As a writer of fiction loosely based on personal experiences, conversations, family, acquaintances and locations, please forgive any exaggerations. Apparently there is an automatic allowance when one holds a creative licence.

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Whole 30: whole lot of pain or whole lot of yumminess? Part 1

There are times when I have looked back on things I have done and asked myself ‘what the hell were you thinking?’ Usually when the ‘thing’ didn’t pan out well or was an uphill climb on one’s fingertips and toes… for hours, days, months even; with no peak in sight and no spectacular vista as a reward for the effort. Then there are times when I have thanked the heavens for doing what I was thinking, saying to myself ‘thank the heavens for doing that!’ Or words to that effect; though only when the ‘thing’ brought with it some wonderful feel-good hormones spread out on a picnic rug with a wicker basket containing some lovely brie, nice wine and a freshly baked baguette or two smack bang in the middle of that there rug. My inaugural Whole 30 experience was, for the most part, a combination of both pain/hell and yumminess/heaven.

There I was, visiting my child in January 2018, innocent and/or ignorant of the ways of the Paleo and Whole 30 worlds, and, minding my own business and that of my son and his partner (as a mother is prone to do). Eavesdropping (as a mother is prone to do) on a conversation about a friend not joining my son’s partner in doing the Whole 30. 

‘I’ll do it with you,’ I heard a voice sounding very much like my own offer. Having absolutely no idea what the hell I was getting myself in to or where the hell that had come from. I looked around anxiously, searching for the demon that had temporarily and suddenly possessed me. Gulp. It was the ‘best mother-in-law (possibly) in the world’ she-bitch demon. I hate that demon! ‘What does it entail?’ I asked, sipping on a G&T, gnawing on a piece of baguette smothered with brie, flashing my best fake ‘yeah, I’ve got this, I can do anything, I am invincible’ look. Both of them looked at me, then at each other with small knowing smirks.

‘It means…,’ deep breath, pregnant pause ‘No alcohol…’ I choke. ‘… No dairy…’ I cough up a piece of brie. ‘… No grains, which means no wheat, rice, quinoa…’ I continue coughing up brie and bread. ‘No legumes, including peanuts…’ I gulp down some G&T to staunch the coughing. ‘And… no sugar.’

‘Well, that sounds doable,’ gulp, gulp, guzzle, guzzle. ‘When do we start?’

‘Tomorrow.’ More shared smirking.

‘Right,’ I finish the G&T, the baguette, the brie. ‘We’d better go shopping then.’ I’ll show these two spring chickens, I thought as I flapped my wings and struggled to extricate my bottom from the couch’s boa constrictor like grasp.

Off we went to the special boutique wholefoods grocery store: which adds ten percent for each letter of the words ‘wholefoods’ and ‘organic’ – which one finds incredible, as there is less processing, manufacturing and packaging involved. Why did I voice that out loud? Queue lesson on mass production, chemical spraying, recycling, land clearing, greenhouse gases, climate change, permaculture and minimalism. All before selecting my first organic, locally grown avocado. I hold tight to the trendy wicker basket (a nice touch provided free of charge at the entrance; though, I was sad to find out, one cannot take the basket home no matter how much is spent in store, and no matter how tightly it was held… bummer). My son and his partner walked the aisles whilst I trailed behind gasping at the prices of the items they were putting in the tightly clutched trendy wicker basket.

‘You’ll need this…’ plonk. ‘… and this…’ plonk. ‘Read the labels of EVERYTHING. No sugar. It is in EVERYTHING. Except this…’ plonk. Three hundred dollars later (I am prone to exaggeration as well as eavesdropping and minding my son and his partner’s business), I walked out of the store with a lovely hand-made paper bag filled with fish sauce, sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers, pickled kale, cocomino (what the hell is that?), raw nuts, raw seeds, organic veggies complete with dirt, smoked salmon, some special non-cured bacon and ham (?) and the word ‘compliant’. 

‘We have a heap of compliant food at home,’ they said as we walked to the car. ‘We cook our compliant meals every Sunday for the whole week,’ they said as we climbed into the car. ‘You can have some of our compliant food…’ they said as we drive back to their place. ‘…If you’re happy to throw in some money,’ they said. Smirk, smirk, smirky, smirk. So why did I just buy all this stuff? Hmmm… I am sure these two have shares in the special boutique wholefoods grocery store with the trendy wicker baskets and lovely hand-made paper bags. And, ironically (and with a healthy dose of stupidity), I am a tad proud my son has turned into a miser-meister, the direct opposite of his uber-bountiful mother, and am sure I would be prouder still of them extracting money from the innocent and/or ignorant, if that idiot wasn’t me.

After unpacking the groceries and whilst some furious productivity occurred in the kitchen, I was initiated into the world of Whole 30. ‘There’s a book over there,’ knife pointed in the general direction of the bookshelf whilst indicating ‘get the hell out of our kitchen while we cook’, which I completely understood. I took my chicken wing arms covered in olive-oiled brussel sprout leaves over to the bookshelf and whipped out the book titled ‘Whole 30’. How hard can it be? Really? I can eat all the veggies I like (and I love veggies), all the meat I like (except cured bacon and ham), all the nuts I like (except peanuts), all the seafood I like (except lobster; because I am a white belt miser-meister), all the fruit I like (except all the fruit I like; perhaps one piece a day as the amount of fructose should be limited), all the mushrooms I like (except I don’t like mushrooms), all the eggs I like (watch this space), plus I can drink all the water I like. Luckily for me, I’m a glass of water half full type of gal. I am certain I can do this.

That night, with the Whole 30 book downloaded onto my iPhone, a glass of G&T in one hand and a slab of brie in the other (waste not, want not I always say), I read, by backlight, the reasoning behind eating wholefoods for thirty days and then reintroducing the eliminated foods back in gradually. I read the Whole 30 is a detox for the digestive system, flushing out the modern additives and ‘flavour enhancers’, absorbing the vitamins and nutrients from organic, grass-fed, chemical-free, in season, unprocessed foods: a similar diet to the grannies of old, hold the baked goods and dairy. I read the Whole 30 encourages good eating behaviours, three solid meals a day with no snacking. I read the benefits may include weight loss, eliminate aches and pains, eliminate bloating, clear skin, an increase in energy levels… I tip out the G&T and throw away the brie. I’m in. And it’s only for thirty days, right?