How do you approach the plan?

Last night I still didn't sleep well. Too hot and my lower body ached terribly. I'm contributing it to getting over my cold combined with doing more activity than I have in almost two weeks.  My joints ached and I was hot. The kids woke up in the middle of the night and were awake for a long time. I guess that is the trade off for them going to bed early.


You aren't supposed to weigh yourself while doing the Whole 30, and that is a bit of genius right there.  If I'm not losing as fast as I want to or think I should I tend to get discouraged and give up.  I'm estimating my starting weight around 153 because I was 151 before my off week and a half, and I probably have about 3 pounds of bloat on me (156) and I don't want to include that in my start weight because I can get rid of that doing what I was doing before.  I want to see how much fat I lose, not how much water weight I lose.  
Starting weight: 153

No Tracking:  Huzzah!  *happy dance* you eat within the guidelines they give you and then tweak the portion sizes as you listen to your body.  The hunger test is simple: does steak and broccoli sound appetizing? If yes you are probably hungry for real, so you can eat more or add a snack. If not you are not really hungry so don't eat. Tough love.  They are big advocates of learning to listen to your body because your body knows how much you need to eat and if you get all your hormones functioning properly by getting rid of all the hormone altering foods you are consuming then you can learn to listen to your body and trust your body and learn when and how much to eat.  There is a fair amount of trial and error built into the program.  You can increase or decrease the size of your meals, you can add snacks if you need to or take them out.  You can have pre and post workout snacks.  So a lot of variability.  A note on hunger directed eating.  I think that when you start out, tracking is super important.  It makes you aware of what and how much you are eating.  Also many people don't know how much to eat, what to eat and you need to start somewhere.  Some people need to start reducing their calories from eating 3500 calories in a day.  In which case calorie reduction and counting are important.

Another important thing to consider is your approach. If you approach this from the viewpoint of I want to lose weight and you tackle this like every other fad diet then that is what it will be. You will suffer for a time, see some results, fall off the bandwagon and then quit and gain all the weight back plus more.  That is not what we want to do.  Instead I'm using this as a tool to guide me towards eating healthier, getting in touch with my body, ridding myself of cravings, and learning how to cook and serve and eat healthier foods.  I want it to spring me forward into a major lifestyle change.  All the diet foods have served their purpose and it's time for me to move on.

So this morning I made poached eggs and hash browns, skipped the toast (although I made some for my husband), and put fresh baby carrots and green beans on my plate for good measure (potatoes technically count as a vegetable but I wanted to make sure to get in some traditional veggies too). And had half a mango with my meal.   Between breakfast and lunch I was not hungry but it was hard for me to identify because I still felt stomach upset a little and it is hard for me to differentiate between just not feeling 100% and true hunger. I have always eaten when my tummy is a little sick, maybe believing that if I eat I will feel better.  It doesn't always help but it's a habit I have that I need to break.  Lunch was leftovers of yesterday's breakfast, and I made Matt a grilled cheese and the kids had cheese, pretzels, grapes, and turkey.  Then Matt decided that today was a good day for a chocolate cake.  Test of resolve number 2 (the first being pizza and cupcakes at the birthday party). But this was a huge test afterall it's only day 2 and I could easily start over tomorrow. But then I reminded myself that there will still be cake tomorrow, and there will always be reasons and excuses to quit.  I made the cake and didn't eat any of it. Not even a lick. The hardest part turned out to be not licking the bowl or my hands or snacking on the pieces that fell off (and when I bake layered cakes they always fall apart. Remember the birthday cake I made for Lily last year?)

I did it though and I'm proud of myself for it.  This afternoon I was a bit constipated, starting on that symptom already.  My headache wasn't as bad as yesterday and I actually feel better today physically than yesterday.  I didn't get hungry much this evening so I chose a smaller plate instead of a large plate and had some leftover chicken and kale plus a really yummy sweet potato and Brussels sprouts bake. I ended up eating around 6:00 which is huge for me because I'm usually starving by 5:00 even if I ate a snack.  Today I didn't get hungry at all (again filtering out the desire to eat cake and the queasy ness of my stomach). I just did the hunger test and all I wanted to eat was junk food and sweets and to have a precious diet Pepsi, steak and broccoli was not appetizing until about 6pm. As it was I ate much less than I normally would have and I feel stuffed.  This is definitely not one of those starve yourself type of diets.

Matt put the grill together today (woohoo!) now I can start grilling up a storm just as soon as I get the propane tank filled.