Whole30 Nutrition Challenge Recap: Week 3

Whole30 Week 3 is done and gone, and there is just one week left!

Thankfully, this week went much smoother. Kaitlan seems to have completely recovered from her stomach bug and went back to daycare. Even though we haven’t reintroduced any dairy, she’s doing really well on almond milk and we found enough alternatives to make her lunches exciting (she loves Greek yogurt and string cheese — it was a legitimate concern).

This week she has been on an eating tear, not only NOMing through her portions, but ours as well. She must be in some growth spurt!? And she’s definitely sprouting some molars. Needless to say, we haven’t felt like we’ve gotten much of a break.

Dinners this week included a lot of chicken. Rotisserie chicken salads and NOM NOM Paleo’s Damn Fine Chicken (with mashers and broccoli) through most of the weeknights. We did one Chipotle day (we were desperately craving not to cook, and Neil was feeling over chicken), and will finish off this week with meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

Lunches were quiche and salad, and breakfasts were either eggs or the rice pudding (adapted from this recipe) I’ve been making every week (rice is one of my exceptions as part of the hybrid challenge.

Thinking ahead to life after Whole30

Being a parent is a mixed blessing when it comes to Whole30. On one hand, I feel like it’s made what used to feel like eternity spent on Whole30 go much faster. But on the other, the fact that SHE herself isn’t on Whole30 means there is non-Whole30 (albeit healthy) items lurking all over our kitchen.

That all being said, I can not believe we are headed into our last week already! Seriously, time has just flown by. And although our Challenge got a little derailed in Week 2, I’m so happy with how it’s gone.

Week 3 is typically the time when most people start thinking about life after Whole30. While it’s easy to get caught up in wanting that first beer, or a slice of pizza, I know from experience that the transition must be undertaken with a plan and goals in place for what comes after 30. At even just 3 weeks in, I’m seeing some physical results and I’m definitely feeling them. Where do we need to be in order to eat better, and keep our results, but not feel deprived, depressed or socially isolated? In our conversations so far we’ve talked about:

What we need to do better:

• The amount of prep for Whole30 is too much for our lifestyle, but we could definitely be prepping/planning for meals other than dinner. We were doing great until Halloween, but the holidays always seem to throw us for a loop.
• Meals out need to be special or something we really want, not just out of laziness.
• We definitely don’t need all the snacks we were buying. Much of it is mindless snacking that could be eliminated with better meals.
• If we are paying so much attention to eliminating processed foods, we need to do so in our health/beauty/household products as well.

Why Whole30 doesn’t work for us long-term:

• Our lifestyle just doesn’t support it. That’s not a cop-out — you can’t work full-time, have a toddler, own a business, and essentially have a part-time job and spend as much time food prepping as we have. Not without something (mostly our sanity) giving way.
• We are feeling less energetic. We’re just really active people, and can’t prep/eat enough to alleviate it, nor do we really want to be constantly eating.
• Because we’re busy, we batch a lot of things, and they get redundant fast — like chicken.
• We miss the diversity in our meals (we like Asian food and homemade bread).
• We definitely miss the life balance 80/20 gives us a much-needed break on Fridays and Saturdays with a pizza or dinner out.

I think most of all, we just like to enjoy food and feel balanced. We’ve never been super regimented or strict. I don’t believe food should become punishment or something you don’t look forward to. I’ll definitely be sharing more about life after Whole30 in a few more posts!