The Skeptic’s Whole30: Day 35
Sunday, March 25, 2018
This post is part of a series. For the previous post, click here. For the whole series, click here.
So I’ve been off the diet for five days now, and here’s what has been happening:
-Now that I can eat sweets again, I can’t seem to control myself. This is my number one dietary problem. I need to get off the sweets, or I’ll gain back the weight.
-But I’ve also noticed that sweets affect me in a more strongly negative way than I ever experienced before. Like, if I overdo them even a little, I feel all gross inside, wired and a little queasy. I hope that this deters me from overdoing them.
-I haven’t weighed myself again since the first day off the diet. I’m afraid to, with all the sweets. When I get that under control I will weigh myself again.
-It really seems like my tastes are changing. I mean, I still love carbs and cheese as much as ever, and have been enjoying adding them back into my diet, but I’m simply less likely than before to choose a meal of all carbs over one that has more meat and vegetable content. On Friday Big Kid had a half day of school, and Little Kid had a full day, so Big Kid and I had a couple hours to ourselves, so I took him out to lunch. He had been craving Chinese food, won ton soup in particular, and there’s a very good Chinese place near here that also has decent sushi. I was actually looking forward to having the sushi and felt, deep within myself, more attracted to having sushi than to having something that centered around heavy, glutinous dumplings. Big Kid ordered fried dumplings, and I had one, but that was enough for me.
-On that note: I also find myself actually craving foods that I ate while on the diet even though I don’t have to eat them anymore. That was one thing I loved about the Whole30: A lot of the foods I ate on it were legitimately delicious. The sweet potato-bacon breakfast combo has serious potential as a frequent alternate breakfast to the English muffin with PB & J.
-Also, when I think back on the dinners I used to make for myself and the kids pre-Whole30, I’m now struck by how lukewarm I felt about most of them. I made things that were easy and good-enough, but weren’t awesome or amazing. Like, I used to make meatballs and soba noodles, using store-bought, pre-cooked meatballs that had an Asian flavor, and paired them with soba noodles with a little soy sauce dumped on them, and they were okay, but mediocre compared to the pork-apple meatballs that I made during the Whole30 that were served in a broth with noodles in the broth. And of course those noodles were made from spaghetti squash, which is good, but the recipe would also be good with real noodle-noodles.
-This lukewarmness even applied to meals that consisted mostly or only of grains and cheese. Like the ravioli thing. Sure, a bunch of noodles filled with cheese taste good, but not GREAT. They’re easy and serviceable, but boring.
-So this coming week I planned out our meals to conform more to this new idea of what foods are desirable.
This week, the boys are on spring break, so they’ll be home with me every day and I’ll be feeding them lunch and dinner. Tomorrow (Monday) I’m planning to take them to the zoo, and bring a packed lunch, and for myself I’m planning to bring a sort of cold antipasto of cured meat, fresh mozzarella, olives, and maybe some crusty bread. The kids will have standard sandwiches, and we’ll all have carrot sticks and clementines. I still haven’t made the burgers, so for dinner we’ll have those, on pretzel buns, with corn.
Tuesday, I’m planning to stay home. Big Kid is having a friend over in the afternoon, but other than that I’ve intentionally not made plans. So that night’s dinner will be the amazing pork tenderloin with baby carrots that I made on the Whole30, but this time, with gnocchi in addition.
Wednesday, we might go into the city, and I don’t know how late we’ll be there. So we might end up going out for dinner, and if not, I’ll make tortilla pizzas with black beans, cheese, chicken, and avocado.
Thursday, I have therapy in the evening, so I’ll take myself out for dinner. This past week I also went into the city for therapy on Thursday, and after it was over all I really wanted was a bowl of French Onion soup, so I took myself to French Roast and had that and was perfectly happy with it. I don’t know what I’ll want this Thursday.
Then on Friday, we’re going to have ravioli again. I have until Friday to find a way to make the sauce more exciting. I chose a spicy sauce this time, so that alone helps, but I want to add meat to it in some way. Maybe I’ll acquire some barbecued pork during the week, but only the kind that isn’t already in a sauce. Prior to the Whole30, I was already unenthused about the kind of pre-packaged pulled pork that’s swimming in sugary barbecue sauce, but now I’m downright repulsed by the idea of it (the fact that you can’t put it in marinara sauce notwithstanding). I’ll have to shop around and see what I can find. Or maybe bacon can be involved in some manner.
These plans are not overly ambitious, and don’t have me cooking from scratch every single day, but still incorporate a lot of Whole30 elements that will make our meals more balanced, varied and delicious than they used to be.
Tomorrow: Almost a year later. Where am I now?
