Permanent And Healthy Lifestyle Changes With The Whole30 Diet

Whole30 Turkey Pesto Burgers On Roasted Red Peppers

While we focused on making three solid meals a day during our first round of The Whole30, we’re now a couple weeks into round two and past The Whole30 novelty stage. We’ve now moved into the real life stage, and turning the parts of Whole30 we like into long-term, sustainable lifestyle changes by creating new healthy habits.

Part of the reason we chose to do a second round of Whole30 was to transform the healthy choices we were making during Whole30 from a novelty to a habit, making then a core part of our normal everyday life — and that means that sometimes we’re not going to eat pre-planned, meal prepped, fancy meals.

We needed to continue with the program and simply let life happen. We needed to go out to dinner with friends and family. We needed to have hiccups in our schedule. We needed to get used to making healthy Whole30 compliant decisions on the fly, regardless of the situation.

So far so good…

The Food And The Workouts

We’re just about two weeks into our second round of The Whole30.

The positives include increased energy, weight loss, clearer skin, stronger hair and nails, and better sleep. Shopping and cooking Whole30 is also becoming easier and more part of our natural everyday life.
On the other hand, the negative is that adding Focus T25 from Beachbody On Demand to my daily routine means everything hurts. I’m sore. Muscles I didn’t even know I had are sore. But as the days progress, the workouts are feeling easier — not easy at all, but easier.

Whole30 Round 2 Day 7

Natalie had a friend sleepover last night and I promised the kids that I’d get them donuts, so this morning before everyone else was awake, I drove over to our favorite donut shop across town, picked up a dozen donuts, and grabbed some extras for one of our fun waffle experiments.

While the kids devoured the raised donuts with frosting, I preheated the waffle iron to make some Donut Waffles out of the cake and crumb donuts. The kids LOVED them. They said the Donut Waffles were better than the actual freshly baked donuts! But the Donut Waffles made the entire house smell like hot, freshly baked donuts all day long even with the windows open, and Brian and I were dying!

The waffle iron is so much work to clean out after making something like Donut Waffles that I just had an RxBar for breakfast to avoid making another mess. Then I popped in my T25 workout for the day and got it done before lunch.

Brian and I weren’t sure what we wanted to do for lunch. We were low on groceries and we didn’t want Chipotle… but then Brian remembered that Nugget Market has an awesome DIY salad bar! We made huge salads with egg, chicken, spinach, mixed greens, peppers, tomatoes, carrots, and more, took them home, added Tessemae’s Cracked Pepper dressing, and enjoyed our delicious lunch by the pool.

For dinner I met up with my mom and my youngest sister for an early Mother’s Day celebration at Cheesecake Factory. When my sister had the idea, she reached out and asked, “Let’s go out to dinner to celebrate Mother’s Day. What restaurants can you eat at?” I really appreciated that and the support my family has shown as we’ve gone through this experience.

I had my favorite salad again, the Skinnilicious Factory Chopped Salad, with no corn and no blue cheese, double chicken, and oil and vinegar instead of the vinaigrette dressing.

Now here’s what’s interesting: I had been craving cheesecake since I started the first round of Whole30. My whole family will tell you I talked about eating a piece of cheesecake the whole time. I almost delayed starting a second round of Whole30 for a day just to squeeze in a piece of cheesecake, but then realized that’s exactly the opposite of what Whole30 is all about! While at dinner, my mom and my sister had cheesecake and I didn’t even feel a single pang of desire. Not one. I didn’t want any and didn’t feel deprived or like I was missing out while they were eating. Now that is amazing.

Whole30 Round 2 Day 8

Monday came early for all of us after partying it up all weekend. I walked Carter to school and got my T25 workout done right away so I could get to work on a couple client deadlines and get ahead of my work for the week. For breakfast, I made a quick Kale And Balsamic Chicken Sausage Breakfast Scramble topped with Wholly Guacamole.

For lunch I had an RxBar, baby carrots, and a small spinach salad with Tessemae’s Creamy Caesar Dressing. That night Brian and I had the WordCamp Sacramento speaker selection committee meeting at Panera Bread. We went early to eat dinner, hoping we could find something Whole30 compliant on the menu, but no such luck. While Panera Bread promotes its menu as healthy, basically EVERYTHING at Panera, even the chicken and turkey, have added sugar from the flavorings and marinades. Also, have you ever looked at the calorie counts for their foods? Yikes!

We tried to order a salad, asking for it without some items and with oil and vinegar instead, but they didn’t have an oil and vinegar option. Also, asking for a salad with most of the ingredients removed and still paying full prices stinks, so basically we’re done with Panera Bread. I just got an unsweetened iced tea and ate an RxBar when I got home.

Whole30 Round 2 Day 9

The housekeepers came today and I scheduled a hair appointment for 9:00 am, so I ate some plain scrambled eggs really quickly and headed out the door.

By the time lunch rolled around, I was starving and Brian and I decided to try Chilis. We used to eat at Chilis all the time (like once a week) because they had a great rewards program, but then they changed it, now it stinks, and we barely ever eat there. But if we’re going to make this Whole30 lifestyle sustainable, we’ve got to figure out more dining out options.

At Chilis we both ordered the exact same thing: chicken fajitas with no butter, cheese, sour cream, rice, beans, or tortillas, and extra guacamole and pico de gallo. We basically had a big plate of peppers, onions, chicken, pico de gallo, and guacamole — sort of like a chicken bowl at Chipotle, but way better.

I got busy working on client projects all afternoon, took Carter to karate at 5:00 and picked up the kids Little Caesar’s on the way home for dinner. I was still full from eating a giant lunch at Chilis, so Brian and I just snacked on freeze-dried strawberries, blueberries, and bananas, mixed nuts, and baby carrots.

Today is the first day I missed my workout and I could feel it. My body is getting used to daily exercise and by skipping it today, I felt sort of blah… almost like something was missing. I was also really disappointed in myself for not making it happen. I guess my rest day for the week is going to be today.

Whole30 Round 2 Day 10

After missing my workout yesterday, I was determined to get back on track today. I got my T25 workout in right after taking Carter to school with my muscles seriously burning, and then stretched for about thirty minutes after.

For breakfast, I once again made a Kale And Balsamic Chicken Sausage Breakfast Scramble topped with Wholly Guacamole. Because the Kale And Balsamic Chicken Sausage is the only sausage I have found that is Brian compliant (no pork casing) and Whole30 compliant, I always have it in the fridge, so this Whole30 breakfast scramble is quickly becoming our new go-to breakfast to fall back on when we’re low on groceries.

Wednesdays are our crazy busy days and if we don’t eat dinner early, we don’t eat together. I made plans to make dinner early and eat no later than 5:00 pm so Brian and I could sit down and eat together while Natalie and Carter played with their cousins whom we baby sit Wednesday evenings. Because we ate a late breakfast and were having an early dinner, I just had a light lunch of freeze-dried fruit, mixed nuts, and baby carrots.

For dinner I made Coconut Curry Chicken Meatballs Over Cauliflower Rice. I was craving something different, wanted to make chicken meatballs, and found the recipe from The Bewitchin Kitchen. It looks like it would be a complex recipe. When I shared a photo of the dish on Facebook, a friend of mine even commented on how difficult the meal looked to make. But guess what? It’s not hard at all! In fact, it was really pretty easy and tasted freaking amazing.

This recipe is definitely one we’ll be making again very soon.

Whole30 Round 2 Day 11

Every Thursday morning, we watch my nephews again for about three hours. We went for a long walk and played at the park, and then had a late breakfast. We were out of so many things because I haven’t done the weekly grocery shopping yet, so making a new and unique breakfast scramble wasn’t going to happen. Our Whole30 breakfast scramble today consisted of cubed baby potatoes, onions, tomato, spinach, Kale And Balsamic Chicken Sausage, and eggs, topped with Tapatio and Wholly Guacamole.

For lunch I had some mixed nuts, baby carrots, raisins, and some strawberries — and I am getting so completely and totally sick of eating this lunch. Usually I go major grocery shopping every two weeks, which means I should have gone grocery shopping this past weekend, but I haven’t gone because we were busy all weekend, our weeknights are busy, and I hate going alone. The result is that we have basically no great options for lunch. This weekend I’m doing the full grocery shopping and I am going to focus on lots of lunch items — and maybe make some more chicken salad, egg salad, or tuna salad to have on hand for days like today.

For dinner I picked up some pre-made, plain chicken kabobs with onions and peppers. They were so good last time, I just couldn’t resist buying them again! I brought them home and Brian marinated them in Tessemae’s Cracked Pepper dressing before throwing them on the barbecue.

To go with the chicken kabobs, I made Garlic Carrot Fries with Buffalo Mayo Dipping Sauce — and they were fantastic! OMG. They were so good, even Natalie was chowing down on them and swiping them from our plates.

Whole30 Round 2 Day 12

Hallelujah! It’s Friday and I am sooooooo ready for the weekend!

This morning an appliance company come out because our main refrigerator went out last weekend and we’ve been keeping everything in the garage fridge. Our dishwasher is also broken and one of the burners on the stove it out. This is what starts happening when you bought your house 14 years ago — everything starts breaking.

Brian and I just ate RxBars for breakfast because we didn’t want to be cooking when the appliance person arrived. I also delayed my workout to the afternoon — no way was I going to be in the middle of a butt-kicking T25 workout and have someone else in the house to hear me grunt and groan my way through it!

For lunch I had some fresh fruit, mixed nuts, baby carrots, and iced tea, and then squeezed my workout in before the kids got home from school.

I didn’t eat a big lunch and with my workout in, I planned on making a very early dinner so we could all watch a movie together and get to bed early. Our weeks are so busy that by Friday night we’re all exhausted. For dinner, I made Turkey Pesto Burgers on Roasted Red Peppers, making the dairy-free pesto from scratch with raw cashews. Holy moly, I forgot how much I love fresh homemade pesto, and this cashew pesto was to die for. The burger patties were also insanely delicious and packed with veggies.

The Garlic Carrot Fries from the night before were so good, that I wanted vegetable fries again. So today we decided to make Rosemary Yam Fries to go with our Turkey Pesto Burgers on Roasted Red Peppers.

Mmmmmmm. The Rosemary Yam Fries are my new favorite thing. We ate the entire baking sheet of those babies so fast… After Brian got dinner cleaned up — yes, I do the cooking and he does the clean up — we all snuggled in and watched Star Wars Episode I.

We usually skip this one and watch the movies in Machete Order, but Carter wants to watch every movie in order, including Rogue One, so that’s what we’re doing.

Whole30 Rules And Exercise

The main Whole30 Rules are no dairy, no sugar, no grains, no alcohol, no legumes, no baked goods or recreating baked goods with compliant ingredients, no carrageenan, no MSG, no added sulfites, and no measuring or weighing yourself. But there are also other rules and recommendations, like the eat three meals a day rule and the no snacking rule.

When I added the Focus T25 Workout Program into my daily routine, I also needed to adapt the Whole30 rules.

If you’re adding intense exercise to your day, you need to eat four meals a day or add a pre-workout or post-workout snack to your day to help your body refuel and recover from your workout. The first week or so I was working out I didn’t do this. I kept eating my normal three meals a day and I began feeling fatigued and run down. My entire body was so exhausted that even lifting my arm to brush my hair felt hard and it was because I wasn’t eating enough. I wasn’t giving my body the fuel it needed.

Apparently, even when eating healthy, there is such a thing as not eating enough. Who knew?!

For the second week of combining Whole30 and T25, I added a snack to my day, usually after my workout. I’d eat an RxBar, or a large handful of mixed nuts, or some cashew cheese and baby carrots — and my body felt way better! I didn’t feel sluggish or lethargic like I did the week before.

Now I’m looking forward to week three where I’ll hopefully benefit from all this working out and notice that the workouts are getting easier!

If you want to follow along with my Whole30 + Exercise Journey, check out the posts documenting my experience below:

Also, if you’re starting your first Whole30, or you’re doing another round, but it’s been a while since your last Whole30, check out my recap posts from my first round of Whole30 for a whole bunch of easy, delicious Whole30 recipes, as well as what to expect and how we navigated a road trip, birthday parties, date nights, being sick, and a holiday: