Whole 30 Day 5: pivot….

Well, I think I made it pretty clear in yesterday’s post that I was, errr, having some cold feet.

I always like the IDEA of challenges, but when it comes right down to it, I think I don’t actually like them!!! haha. At least maybe not in this phase of my life.

30 days is not really very long to do something, so theoretically, this should not be a huge deal. But our lifestyle is just not compatible with extreme diet restrictions!

My husband is not compatible with diets and challenges. lol. (He honestly hates it whenever I try and do things like this. He is just NOT an “abstainer” and is a “rebel” personality tendency and loathes a) being told what to do and b) he finds it all arbitrary and just ridiculous.) Not that he can’t/won’t support me, if I choose to do something like this, but it’s not the same as if I had a partner doing it alongside me. Or even just someone who was really into health and fitness and liked playing around with optimizing diets, etc. and didn’t like to eat out or drink beer. 😅

Inevitably, when one member of a couple does a diet challenge, it impacts the other person. At least in our case it does. (For example, if I just want to eat plain food at home and he wants to go out, or we can’t share an appetizer (or popcorn!), or even just meals we’ll make at home, etc.) It’s just a hassle.

Again- 30 days is not long. Is it the end of the world to be inconvenienced for 30 days? Technically, no.

But Whole 30 felt like just a little too much for me, I think! Too extreme.

However, I was not comfortable with caving into temptation and quitting on a whim, either. That just felt yucky. So on Thursday, when I was staring down that basket of chips, I said, nope, not today. If I’m going to quit, it’s not going to be now. It’s going to be a calm, rational decision- not one made in the heat of the moment.

I am proud of myself for persisting!

However, I did decide yesterday that I’m moving to a modified version. As SHU called it, Whole 30-ish. 😉

After some consideration, I think it makes the most sense to focus a little smaller, anyway. My biggest suspicions are: dairy, sugar and highly processed foods/ refined carbohydrates.

So I’m going to put my efforts there. NO dairy at all (temporarily), as the main focus.

For sugar and refined carbs, I’m going to just severely limit them for the next few weeks, to hopefully just trace amounts. I’m not worrying about “perfect”. It doesn’t really matter that much.

I want to continue focusing on WHOLE, REAL foods almost all of the time. I don’t want to nit-pick here. Not chasing perfection. But for example, no PB sandwiches or little McDonald’s sausage burritos, lol. (I really like those damn burritos!! 😫) No flour tortillas or cookies right now, etc. I’m okay eating some grains like a bit of rice or corn (including tortilla chips when we go out, and they make them in-house, so I doubt they’re that bad, anyway?).

Regarding my skin, I don’t know for sure, but my “gut” tells me that I do not have some specific dietary trigger that I must forever avoid in any quantity. I believe deep down that it may simply be an accumulation of bad habits + overall poor diet and more about HOW MUCH. Too many processed foods, unhealthy drink options, too much cheese/ dairy, too many restaurant foods, too few fruits and vegetables. I do think that all of these things can have a place in a healthy diet, however. Just probably in smaller amounts than I typically consume them.

I do eat healthy foods often, too, don’t get me wrong. My diet actually isn’t awful. And I don’t have a big sweet tooth or eat many desserts. But there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement, and our lifestyle (which includes quite a lot of eating out) means “unhealthy”/ not-skin-friendly foods can really creep in and add up fast in a week if I’m not careful.

So that’s the latest! I will try and refrain from posting triumphantly that I’m doing any more sweeping extreme diet challenges. 🤣

What I ate:

B: early morning- banana + heated almond butter drizzled over it + black tea. Later- bowl of my slow cooker chicken with 1/2 plain grapefruit.

L: salad + more chicken, strawberries, sweet potato with salt and pepper only.

D: Don’t judge me, but we went back to the Mexican place! Haha. Hadn’t been planning to, obviously, since we went Thursday instead, but I had wrapped up work early at 3:30, cleaned the whole main part of house! (which felt amazing to have done on Friday!) and was in a good mood. I was itching to go back for my chips, anyway. 😅😅 So I had chips + salsa (yummmm instant happiness) and Ivan, Asher and I all shared a big molcajete. (Big bowl basically of steak, chicken, chorizo, shrimp, veggies.) I didn’t eat the side plate of rice/ beans or tortillas, or really any of the chorizo.

Happy long weekend to those in the U.S.!!

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for how adorable Charlie looks when he passes out in bed! Haha. We put a show on after dinner in bed and Charlie crashed.