COVID-19 Whole 30: Complete

Everyone's lifestyle has changed at least in some regard, if not in every regard since mid-march. Our grocery shopping and diets went through a few phases:
1) Panic shopping: buy canned and frozen goods; stock up on essentials and favorites in case they aren't available later.
2) Drink more. Long days ended with a drink or two. Several trips to the liquor store . . . also, they deliver!
3) Add take-out to the menu once a week to support local business and give me a night off.
4) Back to normal but more comfort food: Shelves are stocked again so buy what feeds the soul. Chocolate. Crackers. Snacks for the kids (that mom likes too), etc. Sandwiches for lunch everyday. So much bread.

And then the clothes started to get tight and my gut didn't feel too great. I was tired and had low energy. Change was needed. After 2.5 months of eating poorly and not getting the normal exercise I had been accustomed to, I decided to do another round of Whole30. Chris was in, too.

And for the most part, it was awesome. Day 3-4 were terrible and hard and I was angry at everything (this is actually very normal). We ate good foods, snacked a lot less. Slept better most of the time and wasn't quite so low-energy with the kids. And I lost a couple of pounds.

I wanted to stick to it as closely as I could, but I ended up slipping a few times completely unaware until I was prepping our meal and adding an ingredient that shouldn't have been used. I use a meal planning app called CookSmarts and it's so awesome and yummy; they have a few whole30 friendly recipes and a ton of paleo options; but I hadn't read the recipe completely before choosing to buy the ingredients and make it.. so got to step 4 and realized, oops... this needs honey. Or this needs coconut aminos (which none of my go-to stores currently carry). So non-whole30 substitutes were used;  or we went with grace and used the honey. I also made an error when I bought almond butter. I didn't realize the brand I bought had sugar in it! I used it for a couple of days before deciding that it just didn't taste right and read the label.. Oops!

I also found it challenging to shop while taking Covid-19 precautions and not be able to do my normal comparisons between products - either the store only had one option or had signs up that asked customers not to touch products unless they bought them.

So, what did we eat?
Breakfast: Turkey, sweet potato egg bake with onions and bell peppers
Lunch: Salad with meat (chicken or steak), roasted sweet potato, walnuts, avocado, homemade dressing and a side of fruit
Dinner: I tried quite a few dishes. Our favorites: Egg Roll in a Bowl and Pesto Zucchini Noodles
We snacked on bananas and almond butter daily as well as mixed nuts.

I said this last time I did Whole30 and I'm going to say it again. I'm going to try and keep it up as long as I can. We have some travel plans at the end of July so if I can hang on until then, I'd be really pleased.

What have been your shopping/dieting struggles during this pandemic?

Everyone's lifestyle has changed at least in some regard, if not in every regard since mid-march. Our grocery shopping and diets went through a few phases:
1) Panic shopping: buy canned and frozen goods; stock up on essentials and favorites in case they aren't available later.
2) Drink more. Long days ended with a drink or two. Several trips to the liquor store . . . also, they deliver!
3) Add take-out to the menu once a week to support local business and give me a night off.
4) Back to normal but more comfort food: Shelves are stocked again so buy what feeds the soul. Chocolate. Crackers. Snacks for the kids (that mom likes too), etc. Sandwiches for lunch everyday. So much bread.

And then the clothes started to get tight and my gut didn't feel too great. I was tired and had low energy. Change was needed. After 2.5 months of eating poorly and not getting the normal exercise I had been accustomed to, I decided to do another round of Whole30. Chris was in, too.

And for the most part, it was awesome. Day 3-4 were terrible and hard and I was angry at everything (this is actually very normal). We ate good foods, snacked a lot less. Slept better most of the time and wasn't quite so low-energy with the kids. And I lost a couple of pounds.

I wanted to stick to it as closely as I could, but I ended up slipping a few times completely unaware until I was prepping our meal and adding an ingredient that shouldn't have been used. I use a meal planning app called CookSmarts and it's so awesome and yummy; they have a few whole30 friendly recipes and a ton of paleo options; but I hadn't read the recipe completely before choosing to buy the ingredients and make it.. so got to step 4 and realized, oops... this needs honey. Or this needs coconut aminos (which none of my go-to stores currently carry). So non-whole30 substitutes were used;  or we went with grace and used the honey. I also made an error when I bought almond butter. I didn't realize the brand I bought had sugar in it! I used it for a couple of days before deciding that it just didn't taste right and read the label.. Oops!

I also found it challenging to shop while taking Covid-19 precautions and not be able to do my normal comparisons between products - either the store only had one option or had signs up that asked customers not to touch products unless they bought them.

So, what did we eat?
Breakfast: Turkey, sweet potato egg bake with onions and bell peppers
Lunch: Salad with meat (chicken or steak), roasted sweet potato, walnuts, avocado, homemade dressing and a side of fruit
Dinner: I tried quite a few dishes. Our favorites: Egg Roll in a Bowl and Pesto Zucchini Noodles
We snacked on bananas and almond butter daily as well as mixed nuts.

I said this last time I did Whole30 and I'm going to say it again. I'm going to try and keep it up as long as I can. We have some travel plans at the end of July so if I can hang on until then, I'd be really pleased.

What have been your shopping/dieting struggles during this pandemic?