Whole30-Day 12

I am SO over this.....and it's only day 12. I haven't even made it to the halfway point yet and I feel like there's no way I can make it to day 30. The only 2 things keeping me going are 1) that my entire family is involved and the kids are being such troopers that I can't possibly tell them I want to quit. And 2) the maybe 20 people who might read this blog. I would really hate to write a post saying I failed. So I didn't quit and this is how day 12 looked.

Breakfast
I didn't have any rotisserie chicken leftover and no hard boiled eggs so I went with a scrambler. I don't think I've had a picture of the scramblers since day 1 so I thought I'd take a picture today! :) This one had the chicken sausage, green peppers, onions, and spinach.

Mary and Robbie both had a scotch egg and a sliced apple.

We then had to rush to Robbie's soccer game at 9, Mary's volleyball pictures at 9:15 and Robbie's pictures after his game! Robbie's game was good. He scored 2 goals right away, which I missed because I was with Mary getting her pictures done. It was close to 11 when we got home after all the craziness. And once again I felt like the rest of my day was devoted to food.

Lunch
I still had to go to the grocery store (since yesterday I just bought a few things), so I did that and Drew got the kids lunch taken care of when I was gone. They each had turkey, avocado and bacon wraps with some fruit and veggies. Of course Mary didn't eat all her veggies, and apparently daddy's wraps have too much avocado in them.

I was supposed to get Drew a salad bar when I went to the store but I completely forgot. So when I got home he made himself a salad and I just made myself some turkey, avocado, bacon wraps with veggies and homemade ranch dressing to dip.

This afternoon I spent some more time boiling eggs, cutting fruit, and doing dishes. I was able to relax for about 2 hours before I started prepping dinner!

Dinner
And this would be part of the reason why I'm SO over this right now. I decided to try out 2 new recipes tonight. The one was pretty easy and although it took a long time to simmer on the stove, there wasn't really any prep work. The other one was a big ole pain in the butt and I ended up not even liking it! We had Cinnamon Braised Beef with Mashed Rutabaga and butternut squash and green beans.

The beef was good. It was actually more tender than I thought it would be. I couldn't really taste the cinnamon, but it made it smell great while cooking. The mashed rutabaga and squash is what's underneath the beef and I really didn't care for it. No one else really did either. Fail. So I'm getting really frustrated because I'm trying to branch out with veggies we've never had before and hoping that I'll just be so excited when we like them. Well, none of the new vegetable sides I've tried we've liked. We tried sweet potato hash, cauliflower mash and this and didn't like any of them. And, they're all way time consuming to make.

I have more new recipes I'm trying out this week, but perhaps after that I'll stick to the boring vegetables for a few days. I did really love the roasted sweet potatoes I did last night so perhaps I'll do those a few more times.

The Lowdown
I'm still (obviously) not in a good place. I went back to the website and visited the timeline again. This is what they had to say about days 12-15:

 This is the part of the program where our minds try to drive us back to the comfort of the foods we used to know. Our food relationships are deeply rooted and strongly reinforced throughout the course of our lives and breaking through them is really big deal. Journaling can be especially enlightening and helpful during this phase, and helpful for reflection later. Take some time to jot down what you’re craving, how you’re feeling and what tools you’re using to work through the cravings. - See more at: http://whole30.com/2013/08/revised-timeline/#sthash.P9kn8csS.dpuf

What I find interesting about this particular phase is that I can't say I'm really craving any specific thing. They talk about people having vivid, crazy dreams about food. I haven't dreamed of anything (yet), but I also can't pinpoint something I want. I just know that I want a break from having to THINK about it. And that's always my problem and why I hate when I try to do any kind of healthy eating plan (diet - whatever). I mean, obviously I would like wine, but even that isn't a huge craving.

Reading the timeline helps. It reminds me why I decided to try this in the first place. It reminds me that one of the things I hoped to get out of this was to change my relationship with food. I have always said that I wish I could have a more normal relationship with food. I wish I could be someone who could eat what they what when they want because what they want most of the time is healthy and when they want something unhealthy it's no big deal because it's every once in a while. It'd be nice if this actually changes that for me. Right now I'm doubting that it will. And then, of course, I re-read a section of the book that points out that you may not make the change in 30 days. I won't say that I'll never do this again or anything, but you can bet that after day 30 I'll be letting myself have something that is currently prohibited!

As of today I don't really feel any different than when I've started eating healthier other times or have done other things like Weight Watcher's or Sparkpeople to track my food and lose weight. Hopefully my posts will start looking different soon; but I have a feeling it's going to be a rocky road for at least a few more days.