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WHAT NOT TO DO AFTER YOUR WHOLE 30
DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO
My head is throbbing, my stomach is churning, I am exhausted and I want to crawl in to bed with a warm blanket covering me and sleep. I do not have a hangover but it feels like it. I did not drink but it feels as if I drank 6 pints of beer and hit the kebab shop on the way home.If I did not drink what happened?
I finished my first round of The Whole 30 and before going on to the next 30 I decided that I would take a day off. ( mistake number 1) I did not wake up and shove my head into a pint of Ben and Jerry's ( I thought about it and it was only a matter of time). I got up and had a compliant breakfast of pancetta and eggs and guacamole. I was in control, I was not craving baked goods, sweets etc and I felt really good.
The night before I had purchased my favorite cheese while I was at the supermarket. It is a cranberry stilton and I would rather have this cheese than any other. It is a rare treat because it is $15 a pound. If we stay home for a date night I will sometimes have this with grapes and gluten-free crackers and a bottle of wine. About 11am I decided to have a little smackerel of cheese with some gluten-free crackers. In my mind I had remembered how good it tasted but, upon eating it I realized that my tastes had changed. It was good but, not in the same way that it used to be. I was not in love with it anymore. I asked the four smalls if they wanted to finish the piece that I had bought and what was left on my plate. Normally this would be a sacrifice akin to giving away a first born child. No one ever touched my cheese. They were thrilled and enjoyed a 3-minute feast as this is how long it takes them to devour a $5 piece of cheese. I was feeling slightly queasy too. My stomach had a heaviness that I had not experienced in the last 30 days. It was not adding up to the experience I wanted.
I was not hungry for the rest of the day and my biggest mistake (so far) was not eating something before we went out to an awards ceremony for one of my daughters. After it had ended we took her to the supermarket to buy a few things. She has issues with gluten too so is always starving as she does not cook. My last few hours of my day off where approaching and rather than take the advice of one of my other teens which were not to go off the diet at all I headed for the gluten-free section. I bought a small box of cookies, then headed to the freezer section to get some gluten free bread and well, what else lives in the freezer section. Yes, the ice cream. There is only one brand of ice cream that I ever eat and I am sure you know what that is by now. My rationale on this was that I could have a small portion and then donate it to the starving teen that was with me. She would be only too happy to eat everything that I did not want.
I ended up with a little stash of goodies and started with the cookies on the way home. They were pretty small, the size of a Ritz cracker and by the 4th one, I was done. It was the same experience as the cheese. They were good but not amazing and I passed them in the back seat to gleeful thank you's. When I got home I got my fork and sat with my pint pot of Ben and Jerry's pistachio ice cream. The best part was the pistachios. Ok, that was donated too.
I then made toast with two slices of gluten-free bread and foraged in the cupboard for something to eat with it that I could not have the next day when I went back to the next 30. I found a pot of blackcurrant jam. Blackcurrants taste of England in the same way that Marmite, fish and chips and Walkers crisps do. They look like a blueberry but have much more flavor and a tart tangy taste. I love them but rarely see them over here. I slathered the toast with the jam and trudged through eating one slice. On the third bite in I was regretting my eating habits of the day. Nothing tasted very good, I had lost that emotional attachment to all the food I used to crave and gorge on. Nothing had that naughty guilty pleasure that it used to. If I had been sensible I would have just looked at the jar of jam and had happy thoughts of the homeland.
I then made toast with two slices of gluten-free bread and foraged in the cupboard for something to eat with it that I could not have the next day when I went back to the next 30. I found a pot of blackcurrant jam. Blackcurrants taste of England in the same way that Marmite, fish and chips and Walkers crisps do. They look like a blueberry but have much more flavor and a tart tangy taste. I love them but rarely see them over here. I slathered the toast with the jam and trudged through eating one slice. On the third bite in I was regretting my eating habits of the day. Nothing tasted very good, I had lost that emotional attachment to all the food I used to crave and gorge on. Nothing had that naughty guilty pleasure that it used to. If I had been sensible I would have just looked at the jar of jam and had happy thoughts of the homeland.
About 3am I woke up with a raging headache. I felt awful. I dragged myself to the bathroom and found the ibuprofen and crawled back into bed after taking two and praying that I could get back to sleep. I did not jump out of bed at 6.30am as usual, I lay there half asleep with a mildly throbbing head. My hands ached as if I had arthritic pain and my stomach was making weird groaning noises like a dog when they are gnawing a bone. My whole body felt heavy and I just wanted to sleep but could not. I finally got up and headed to the coffee pot. My oldest daughter headed to the fridge and kindly gave me a gift of a bottle of Kombucha and a sympathetic look as she headed out to work.As the day wore on and I ate properly again I started to feel better. It took about two days to get back to how I was feeling before my day off.
My food choices that day were totally against the advice of the authors of the Whole 30. Each food is supposed to be added carefully and slowly and one at a time. I knew that but, I had time restraints of 24 hours as I knew I wanted to keep going and do another 30 days. If I had the maturity of my 17 yr old I would have done that or gone straight through. She is reveling in the fact that she did and is on day 34 to my day 3.
I learned my lesson and hope that if you attempt a Whole 30 that you will end it in a different way to me and not head for the ice cream, cookies and bread, and cheese!