My Whole30 Challenge Day 6- Surviving Social Outings and more
Day 6
I woke up at around 9am on Saturday morning after another night of sound sleep (thank you, Natural Calm). I saw a post on the Whole30 site for green eggs so I got the idea to make my own. I took handfuls of spinach, a clove of garlic, and shredded broccoli and carrots (conveniently in a bag from Trader Joe’s) and put it in my mini food processor. Damn, I love that thing. Once it was all nicely chopped up, I mixed it in a bowl with a combo of egg whites and 1 whole egg. I am still unsure about the whole egg white vs whole eggs debate so I’m proceeding with caution there.
Once the egg mixture looked good I added a splash of coconut milk, whisked it again one more time, and poured the mixture into a pan and made scrambled green eggs. I served it with avocados and blueberries. It was so good. My husband Marion loved it, too. He is enjoying trying all of this new food on Whole30, even if he’s not following it as strictly!
After breakfast I jumped in the shower and got ready to go to my friend’s baby shower. I made sure to make a bag of trail mix in my purse because I wasn’t sure what they would be serving. This was going to be my first “social outing” since starting Whole30. I knew if they were serving chicken or beef for lunch (which my friend’s family normally does), I’d be fine. When I got to the shower, there was a gorgeous table in the entry way set with all sorts of yummy sweets and treats – cake pops, chocolate dipped strawberries, cake, licorice, peach rings, and chocolate. It all looked really good. Normally looking at something like this would give me a salivating and sort of longing, depressed feeling like “Ah, I can’t have any of this.” But I don’t have that at all and to be honest I haven’t really had those types of reactions to food since going gluten-free. I looked at the table and saw a bowl of fresh strawberries and I thought to myself “Oh, good. There’s something I can have!” No cravings. No feelings of longing or depression over not being able to eat sugar. Wow. Who am I?
At the shower I got to catch up with friends and many had been reading my posts and seeing my updates about Whole30 on Facebook. By now most of my friends and family are accustomed to me being gluten-free and eating this way so they are fully supportive of my efforts. Plus it has saved a lot of the awkward conversations that I’ve had to have with family and friends in the past. They usually start something like this:
- “Why are you doing this?”
- “You look great. You’re being too hard on yourself.”
- “Live a little bit. It’s okay.”
- “Are you sure you have an allergy?”
- “Why can’t you be happy with who you are?”
I love my family and friends dearly and I’m so happy they finally understand more about me being gluten-free because I don’t have to answer these awkward questions anymore. Because the truth is I know I have lost weight and I do want to live – I want to live a healthy and happy life. And I am healthy and happy! I think before it was hard for people to understand because I would adopt these eating principles and have ZERO results (before I discovered the gluten allergy). Now they all see the awesome results I’ve had and they commend and respect my choices and decisions. It’s great. Actions speak louder than words and I’m happy to be on that end of the coin FINALLY!
When lunch was served I did a quick walk through around the buffet line to see what I could eat. I did this with a friend of mine who has an onion and garlic allergy. We talked about our allergies and I told her that I can’t even imagine how hard that must be for her: EVERYTHING has onion and garlic as flavoring. How does she do it?
This was the plate I was able to make for myself. I was so happy to have so many great options:
And this is the plate my friend with the onion and garlic allergy was able to have:
My friend commented on how much more nutritional my plate was. I never realized until that moment how hard an allergy to spices as common as onion and garlic must be. I put onion in garlic in 75-80% of the meals I make! And how do you eat at restaurants? We talked about Whole30 and she has the book It Starts With Food and is going to revisit it after talking to me. I was glad to hear it!
After the baby shower was over I drove back to Manhattan Beach. It was over an hour and a half drive so it was a long day. I came home and my husband was watching the Packers / 49’ers NFL playoff game. I thought about making dinner but I was honestly zapped from all my energy. I decided to take a nap and slept for an hour. Normal?
When I woke up it was too late to make anything for dinner so we had leftovers. I also noticed that our Farm Fresh To You CSA Box that we got on Tuesday is already almost empty. I guess that’s a good indication that we’re eating healthy. I’m going to find out if Farm Fresh can deliver another box to us this week. I think I’m going to get it delivered to us weekly or at least bi-weekly while we are on Whole30.
After my dinner of leftover Chicken Coconut Curry we watched some TV and headed to bed for an early morning 5:30am wakeup call to watch English Premiere League soccer.
Overall today wasn’t bad at all except that I had a pretty raging headache throughout the day. It was right in the middle of my forehead. Anyone know what it could be? Detox symptoms? Let me know.
How do you handle social situations while on a strict diet? Post in the comments and let me know!
In This Post:
It is difficult in social situations when you are eating differently from everyone else. I run into at work, too. “That’s all you’re eating?” when my plate is salad instead of the gross, cheesy and oily pasta, etc. Oh well! I have stopped trying to explain and usually just say something like ‘this is all I’m hungry for’, ‘I’m fine’, etc. And just re-direct the conversation!