Not to toot our own horn, but Derek and I are pretty freakin' awesome.
Pre-Whole30, we'd make to-do lists for the weekends of the errands/chores/random tasks that needed to get done, and maaaaaaybe we'd do a couple of them. This usually led to us being stressed out and worn out by Sunday evening, and ill-prepared for the week ahead.
One thing we made a point to implement when we started Whole30 was our Sunday prep days. We'd long been in a pattern of spending tons of money on yummy groceries (namely produce) and having it go to waste because we never got around to prepping it to eat it, and it's too much work to slice up a cucumber in the morning before we leave for work. So, we do our grocery shopping on Saturday and all the prepping on Sunday.
As a result, all we have to do in the mornings to get ready to go is throw stuff in our bags and go. We have no excuse to skip lunch because it just has to be thrown together. And sometimes we've already even accomplished that.
I totally, totally recommend this to everyone, whether you're doing Whole30 or not. It's pretty much a lifesaver, and the amount of groceries we're throwing away at the end of the week has plummeted drastically. Pair that with lower grocery bills (this week was lower than our pre-Whole30 average! What the heck!?) and we can't afford NOT to do it this way.
Best of all, this has kind of become second nature. Initially we didn't love the idea because we thought it meant limiting our "fun" plans on Sundays so that we can get all of it done, but we haven't really had to spend that much time on it. It takes us less than an hour to get all the produce prepared, and any extra time is just if we're preparing any meals for the week ahead of time (like the super yummy soup I just made another big pot of to eat for the week).
We've also managed to throw in some other chores and errands, typically, which means we end the day pretty worn out but we've accomplished a lot.
Today, for example, we made breakfast and then drove up to Alexandria to take my momma grocery shopping. On our way back we stopped at Target to pick up a few things, then came home, made lunch, did food prep, cleaned up our dining room, and even had time to relax a while before starting dinner.
I've gotta say, even if the healthy eating doesn't stick around (which I'm sure it will), this habit is definitely not going anywhere. Who doesn't need to make their life easier?
On that note...
What I Ate:
Breakfast: two over-easy eggs and bacon (kinda skipped the fresh produce here.. whoopsie)
Lunch: hot dogs, pickles, carrots
Dinner: Beef vegetable soup, an orange, and some nuts.
How I Feel:
Right now? Worn out. We've had a long, productive day, and I am ready to hit the sack. However, my energy level throughout the day was pretty decent. Not perfect, but good. I'm still in Happy-Sarah mode, which I'm sure everyone that has to deal with me on a daily basis is thankful for, ha.
As we go into our last week on the program, I've gotta say I'm a little nervous. We've spent a lot of time talking about what our post-program plans are, and how we're going to keep ourselves sane but stay on track at the same time. It feels like we've got our bases covered and that we're making the right choices to enable ourselves to sustain this long-term. However... well... I've never succeeded with a healthy-eating plan before. I don't mean to sound negative at all, it's just a point of fact. I've tried many things, and I've failed at many things. I don't have a frame of reference for what it's like to sustain a healthy-eating lifestyle, so this is all uncharted territory for me. I am confident that we can do it but I'm trying to brace myself to have to come back to this blog in a few weeks/months with my tail between my legs and painfully admit that I've undone all my hard work and that I'm back at square one.
I think the difference this time is that we will have proven to ourselves that we can be a LOT stricter on ourselves than we need to be. Like, how hard will it be to keep up with an 80/20 plan when we succeeded at a much stricter plan for an entire month? And we did give ourselves a rule that if things start to get too out of hand, we'll do another Whole30 to get back to where we're supposed to be.
So maybe I don't have anything to worry about. Maybe. But if you've met me or know ANYTHING about me, you know I'm going to worry anyway. Sigh.
On to the next one!
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