Saturday, May 28, 2016

Whole30 Day 2

I think I'm starting to understand the differences in my hunger. I've been slowly learning how to distinguish my types of tired. I no longer think "I'm tired", but try to distinguish between "I'm physically tired" and "I'm mentally tired". More times than not, I'm mentally tired which let's me reflect and figure out what is mentally tiring. Usually it's a whirring in the back of the brain I'm not fully conscious of, but does take energy. Now I'm trying to figure out if I'm carb hungry or whole food hungry. Usually if I feel carb hungry but have been good on other fronts, I realize I'm not really hungry. Sugar cravings are pretty obvious and luckily not much of those ...yet. 

This morning I woke up early again, but not until 4:30, so the jet lag is getting better. Decent energy and not too hungry but as 6 am rolled around, I was feeling the hunger. I decided to go with more cooked meal for meal 1 instead of raw vegetables. 

Meal 1: soft boiled eggs and vegetable stir fry with chicken sausage
- 3 eggs
- one sun dried tomato chicken sausage
- half large red pepper, sliced
- half medium onion, sliced
- one tablespoon, for cooking

I filled up on this meal, on the last few bites I was conscious that I was pretty much full. I think the sausage helped. I had pulled out the ingredients to have monkey cereal, but glad I didn't prep a serving. I'm not sure if I got the fat in this meal as the oil got lost in the juices of the stir fry. 

Meal 2: Leftovers salad
- 1/2 chicken breast
- 1/3 cup salmon
- 10 asparagus stalks
- 1/4 sweet onion, sliced
- 2 handfuls lettuce
- 8 strawberries
- small mango
- 1/2 lime juiced
- 1 tbsp olive oil

This meal, I wasn't sure if I had enough meat, we'll see. I was pretty full by the end. This was made from stuff in the fridge that was pretty much ready to go - cooked already. I'm curious what it will be like as it gets hotter this month. I usually eat yogurt or sorbet to help keep my body temperature down on hot days. And I feel like there is a bunch of cooking. Everything has been pretty quick, but still, stove/oven in the summer isn't great. I always have the AC units I can put in if needed. On another note, I don't think I'm drinking enough water. Need to start a water log I think. First I got to figure out how big my glasses are. 

This afternoon I was sluggish but I blame it on the heat - it was in the 90s and I really slow down in the heat. I had my first craving. Luckily it wasn't in the house which is good. My go to is cold yogurt with homemade strawberry jam or some Italian sorbet. It was kind of a sugar craving but more psychological since I associate consuming those items with an initial cooling down. 

I have boxed up the freezer and fridge - taped boxes in out of sight spots. As I was working on the pantry I was reading the ingredients religiously and realized I already messed up. Turns out it's ok since it's a sugar thing and a small dose. My balsamic vinegar, which is on the ok list, has caramel coloring. It seems obvious this is a sugar, but only discovered after I googled about the vinegar and another ingredient. Who knew?  And that's the point, to be aware of exactly how much you consume has sugar in it. Looks like my other vinegars are good and frankly I've been liking the lime juice vinegrette. If I want I think there are compliant balsamic vinegars, maybe in week three I'll pick it up, along with mustard - mine has wine in it. I really don't have much on stock which feels strange. I left the tea out, but mainly so I had something on the shelf. Frankly it's too hot to think of tea, even without honey. 

I find I'm referencing the book "It Starts with Food" a bunch to remind me of the particulars. I'm still reading the science stuff behind how the foods work and feel like I should get a notebook out and take notes, I keep forgetting the particulars. I think it's due back at the library soon. I hate buying hard cover books, but it's not out in paperback - bummer. 

The heat has effected my appetitie, but am glad I had cooked up leftovers. I've learned from previous years to pace myself with raw leaf vegetables (from my years of having a CSA were I ate salads morning, noon and night). So I'm trying to limit one salad meal per day, at least at first. Maybe I'll try the monkey cereal tonight. I definitely find myself wanting snacks, but am finding what I really need is either water - dehydration or, as right now, I need to just fix a proper meal and not have a snacks dinner, which I often do in the summer, years past. 

Meal 3: monkey salad + chicken/tomato/asparagus salad (no lettuce)
- 1/4 chicken breast
- 4 asparagus stalks
- one small tomato 
- 3 tbsp chopped basil
- 1 tsp olive oil
- one banana
- 1/4 cup cashews
- 1/4 cup blueberries
- one tbsp almond butter
- one tbsp coconut flakes
- dash of cinnamon

Not as many vegetables and I've exceeded the recommended 1-2 fruit helpings per day. But I think I ate the fruit because it went with the meal and not for sugar cravings. I need to pay attention next time. And the plate for dinner was a small lunch plate, so although I had my meat, and filled the rest of the plate with veggies, it was on the small side. But I was reading that if you had too much meat earlier in the day this is you trying to balance things out. That, or it's just hot out and my appetite is low.  Found I gobbled everything down, so although I didn't feel supper hungry I was actually hungry. Good to know. 

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