So far here are my thoughts on our progress.
The Good
1 - Having spent Sunday precooking and preparing all the food for the week, nightly meal prep was a breeze. It saved me at least a half an hour in the kitchen every night. Obviously this is nothing to do with eating whole food but still a wonderful side benefit of undertaking this challenge.
2 - Always having a healthy option available . We made sure to clear our pantry of all the junk so we wouldn't be tempted, and having all our snacks precut and prepared we could just grab something and go.
3 - Finding that good, organic produce is available in so many more places at an affordable price. I even bought organic chicken breasts at Costco for only $5.99 a pound.
4 - We have not been hungry at all .
The Bad
1 - While we have not been hungry I can say that there have been times when my appetite has not been satisfied. Mostly this is in the afternoon after I workout or at night after dinner. I know this is just my sugar craving talking but sometimes eating some fruit and nuts just didn't hit the spot for me...( this was about the time I was dreaming of M&M's).
2 - I miss eating bread :(
3 - I think the biggest issue for me is meal size. I have never been a big eater and I tend to eat smaller meals and grab snacks in between when I am hungry. Normally for lunch I would just eat a sandwich and an apple but because eating bread is out I find I have to eat more volume to make up the calories. If I were not training for Ironman I don't think this would be as much of an issue but my training demands mean I need to eat a lot of calories and that translates to a LOT of food. For me the quantity is almost too much. My body feels like it's working over time all the time just digesting.
4 - And since we are talking Ironman training I will say that I have not found a satisfactory replacement for chocolate milk for post workout recovery that still fits the Whole Food criteria. Now I know there are many many ironman triathletes that follow the Whole 30 program year round and have great success with it but as my training ramps up I don't think I could maintain my energy levels without having a post workout glass of chocolate milk or the occasional slice of bread....and of course M&M's as a reward :)
The funny thing is that Matt's experiences are quite different form mine. He is loving it. He feels better, has more energy and less cravings and blood sugar spikes than before. While I have experienced more tiredness and lethargy than usual. Go figure. But the experiment continues. Let's see if I can hold it together for another week.
