Whole30 Day 29 Recap: Bring It On!

Whole30 Day 29 Recap: Bring It On!

I woke up on Day 29 of Whole30 feeling good and ready to rock this challenge and finish strong. I would be lying though if I didn’t tell you that I was tired from the weekend.

We had a great weekend snowboarding in Mammoth and rode hard. Usually after a hard day of snowboarding my body gets a bit sore. I am happy to report that I had no aches and pains from the weekend. Although I did feel a bit more tired than usual. But that’s nothing compared to overall body soreness. Is it whole30? Or am I just stronger now? I have no idea but I’d be foolish to think that this wasn’t somehow connected to the way I’ve been eating the past 4 weeks.

On Monday I had two fried eggs and sausage. I wrapped it in a big piece of raw Swiss chard like a burrito. And guess what? It was real good. The heat from the eggs complemented the cold and crunchy texture of the Swiss chard nicely. Going to have to use this technique more often.

I had another bowl from Brian’s Bowls for lunch because we didn’t have time for Sunday meal prep this past weekend due to traveling. This makes the week slightly harder to plan, but its nothing we can’t handle.

After work I headed to Whole Foods to pick up some food to make for dinner. We had soccer at 9pm so I decided to make salmon in the oven because its quick and a perfect pre-workout meal. I got a pound of wild salmon and drizzled it with olive oil and some jalapeño that I chopped up in the food processor. I made the same jalapeño salmon meal last week and it was real good so why reinvent the wheel.

Now, one thing I’ve learned from spending so much time in the kitchen recently is that peppers are HOT. When I cut jalapeños sometimes my hands burn afterwards. I’m always very careful when handling peppers and I’m not sure what happened in this situation, but somehow I got jalapeño in my left eye. And holy cow did it burn. I mean, bad. It was very painful and I didn’t know what to do to stop it. I put an ice pack over my eye and it didn’t help. I was wincing in pain for almost 30 minutes. I was trying to stay calm but it was very uncomfortable. I thought I was going to have to miss my soccer game but then my husband had the brilliant idea to pour saline solution in my eye. I wish we had thought of doing that sooner because it immediately helped the pain. But then it did something weird. The burn went from the outside of my left eye down my cheek and under my nostril. It made my face red and it still hurt but it was much more tolerable than having it in my eye. I went to soccer with a hot, burning face but at least it was my cheek and not my eye. Note to readers: be VERY careful when cooking peppers!

Soccer was a good workout as always. I always like working out the day after coming home from the mountains because your body produces more red blood cells in the altitude. And that is great for working out. So when you come back down to sea level you can work out a bit harder. I guess that’s why marathon runners like to train at altitude. It all makes sense now.

As I went to bed I realized that my whole30 challenge would soon be over. Normally I am counting down the days and hours until a diet ends but this is different. This doesn’t feel like a diet. Because its not a diet. It’s dedicating 30 days to making better food choices to see what a difference it can make in your body and mind. And it really does. I look forward to sharing with you my recap for day 30 and my overall thoughts on the program.

What about you? How do you recover if you miss your meal prep day? Have you ever been burned by a hot pepper? Post in the comments and let me know!