I’m a lot late with this, mostly due to being on holiday and having a terrible WiFi connection. Against my better judgement I didn’t ease out of my Whole30 restrictions
What I learned about my eating habits.
- Sugar is everywhere! And we thought we already “avoided” sugar.
- Emotional/ stress eating – get headache or feel cold, want tea. Feel sad and happy, want wine or cheese or choccie.
- I indulge in a lot of absent minded (mindless) eating. Chunks of cheese from the fridge, handfuls of almonds etc.
- Habitual eating and drinking – flat white coffee when I go to town, wine on a Friday night with dinner, bottles of fizz for celebrations, etc.
- I didn’t miss wine and beer as much as I thought I would. Yes, I nearly went and bought a bottle of fizz to celebrate my new job but it wasn’t a big deal to not have it so I plan to have a lot more booze-free weeks.
- Our overall planned meals didn’t change much. We haven’t included much legumes, grains or veg oils in our diet for nearly 2 years now (80:20) but it’s all the extras, treats and outside food and drink that let us down. And I thought we were being so good!
In conclusion, I’m happy to reintroduce alcohol and cheese, both in small quantities of high quality product as a treat, and I don’t think I’ll miss not having them all the time. Our dairy product intake will decreasing as we really don’t need to have cheese in breakfast and lunch every day. Likewise milky tea and coffee will be a once-a-day at the most drink, with the shortfall replaced with water and I really like some of the infusions I’ve been able to buy. Where before we would buy a 4-pint bottle of milk for the week, I think we can get by on 1-pint plus a carton of cream. I do like cream in my weekend coffees 🙂
I probably won’t be making my own tomato ketchup just yet, so that will have to be a rare treat or replaced with roasted toms, but I will continue to make my own mayonnaise. The flavour of shop bought is noticeably sweet to me now and it’s not hard to make a batch for the week. Plus, I’ve found a recipe using half olive oil and half coconut oil so it can be made a bit cheaper, and I can cut it with yogurt or buttermilk if I need to stretch it into a dressing for things like with coleslaw.