My Whole30 Experience: Week Three

Read weeks one and two of my Whole30 experience here.

It was this week that I first “cheated” although I hate the use of that word. I had taken Max to the aquarium for the day with some friends and after we went to lunch at a favorite Tampa spot, Alessi Bakeries. I mean, this place is a Tampa staple and my family has consistently purchased food from here for random lunches, but also for big gatherings. Have you ever heard of scachatta? It’s a flat Sicilian pizza that they specialize in. Any Buggica gathering you could bet that there would be scachatta platters. It’s actually one of the dishes I want to perfect making at home.

BBQ pork and egg breakfast taco

But anyway, the options for lunchtime are limited. I could’ve eaten Whole30 if I got chicken and that’s it, or maybe if I ate some sandwich meat and called it a day, but I chose instead to split a picadillo (a Cuban ground beef dish) lunch with Max. It came with rice and beans and platanos. The non-compliant foods were the rice and the beans. I stayed away from the beans, but did have some rice because the picadillo was all mixed into the rice.

I definitely thought they’d be separated, but that’s okay. My intentions were there, but I was so hungry, I wouldn’t painstakingly separate rice pieces from ground beef pieces, you know what I’m saying?

The rest of the week was Whole30, but then on Friday I was invited to Howl-O-Scream, a haunted house experience at Busch Gardens, the major theme park here. I had a grape cocktail before I even knew what was happening. 

And, I have to say that as much as I’ve been saying that I don’t feel the wonderful effects of Whole30 that the majority of people report, I did feel the desire for more non-Whole30 options coming back once I had a taste of them. I was fine and I wouldn’t even call them cravings because they were very much not intense, but once I had some rice, I noticed I wanted pasta more, and once I had that cocktail, I noticed I wanted beer more (at the event).

Honestly, I think the craving for more variety was what was more intense than the craving of the actual food. Does that make sense?

Whole30 Instant Pot Ropa Vieja

In this week I was getting suppppeerrrrr bored. I got tons of inspiration from my Whole30 favorites: The Defined Dish, Primal Gourmet and the Whole30 Instagram feed, but I still felt like I was going through the motions and not truly enjoying coming up with ways to curb my appetite into these compliant foods. All I have to say is thank goodness the program changed a couple of years ago to include potatoes.

I also started to feel the effects of having to cook all my meals from scratch. Now I can’t just whip up a plate of pasta in less than 15 minutes and on some days, that’s difficult. Sometimes my kids are trying and it feels impossible to get my meal on the table, and sometimes they allow me all the time in the world if I want it.

So, how is Whole30 going for you? Let me know!