Here are my thoughts:
I think it was beneficial, but I don't think it's a long term sustainable lifestyle for me right now for 2 reasons:
1. Expense. We are on a grad school, newlywed budget. I spent a lot of money on foods that were compliant. While I always try to eat fresh foods, our budget depends a lot on us having filler foods in our diets like pasta and rice. Using those helps stretch all the vegetables and meats for a few days longer than they do now.
2. Time. I am in the depth of writing my thesis right now. I simply don't have the time to cook all of my meals fresh each day. I have been doing really well with it, but there were some mornings, and evenings, where it was a little much for me to take 20 minutes to cook up something quick and still make it to work on time, or to bed on time.
I will continue to incorporate a lot of the philosophy of whole30 into my meals, avoiding sugar where possible, eating lots of fresh veggies and fruits. Preparing most of our meals at home. Things like that.
Since I haven't updated since week 2, here's the general overview of how things went:
Days 1-22: I was unreasonably grumpy. Like perma-PMS grumpy. My energy was still horrific, wanting naps. I even cried uncontrollably some mornings because I was so tired. Also, whole30 is supposed to 'reset your body' including hormones, so things were really freaky.
Bless my husband for putting up with me. Around Day 20, I read a post in the forums that said if you have a history of depression, Whole30 will screw up your system like crazy, they referred to a discussion they had with their doctor which was very medical-y and scientific talking about serotonin levels and carbs or something.... Which really explained a lot of what I was feeling.
I stopped having cravings around Day 20 as well. Before that it was a daily battle around dinner time. I craved foods like hush puppies, cheese quesadillas, ritz crackers. After awhile I think the 'cravings' were really desire for convenience. It's just so dang easy to run to the Chick-Fil-A and order a sandwich. It would leave me with a whole half hour or more in the evening that I could read or work on my thesis! I did not cave once though. And my husband was good to text about it or say "I want a Reeses" to. He always said that I really didn't want one, or that I can't go to the fast food place. I have not had a craving for over a week! Even when I sniffed a pan of cookies (turned out it was raisins not chocolate chips, so there was no temptation at all). People will say that if you eat a lot of fruit on whole30, you will still get cravings because of the sugar. I ate fruit the whole time, quite a bit I think (2-3 servings a day) and for me, the cravings did go away.
I no longer have to use an alarm. And I don't cry in the mornings. It's still tough every few days, but nothing compared to what it was before. I also notice that I still get slumps, but they occur later in the day and aren't as debilitating as they were before.
I have not been nauseous since Day 6. This is a pretty huge thing for me, I basically was constantly nauseous for the last year.
While a lot of my issues that I started whole30 to help out with were explained as "stress" by the doctor. Now, I am still under the same amount of stress as before, but I am definitely feeling better. Not as much as I would have liked to, but there is an improvement.
But I am looking forward to hush puppies and quesadillas again.
-
No comments:
Post a Comment