#ja9doeswhole30

I’ve been meaning to check in over here for a while and, well, I guess I don’t have to tell anyone how strange and overwhelming and busy the present circumstances are.

As far as eating behaviors are concerned, allow me to present the following thesis:

While preparing all meals at home can be good for maintaining a balanced, clean diet, being in one’s home literally all the time is disastrous for healthy eating.

Restaurant and celebratory eating usually pose the biggest obstacle for me when doing a Whole30. So, when we first went into isolation, it occurred to me that if we’d be eating at home for the foreseeable future, it might be worth giving it a shot. (In general we don’t do take-out very much, since I’d rather just cook, and especially in the early-isolation days I was very paranoid about potential coronavirus exposure.)

Then, I had the thought that I’m sure lots of other folks also conjured up, which was something along the lines of “life is about to become a shitshow and a half, and I am not going to survive a Whole30 under these circumstances.”

As the Whole30/Food Freedom Forever philosophy goes, we’re adults and can make our own choices, including choosing to limit foods to those that are best for our bodies and lifestyles. But the stress, man. This situation has turned life upside down and the deprivations abound. We can’t go to work, or school, or parks, or restaurants, or the homes of family and friends. With all those restrictions, it seemed insane to opt into a highly reductive, labor-intensive eating plan.

Another big obstacle for me is the composition of my household— namely, a spouse who’s retained his teenage self’s metabolism and two small children. Before lockdown, things were manageable enough: I cooked their plain pasta and cut their fruit and did my best to resist sneaking handfuls of their packaged snacks. On the weekends, my husband would take them out for pizza or bagels, and if we ate dinner in a restaurant I ordered the best wholesome meal I could manage. And we’d also embark on the occasional outing for ice cream or visit to a relative’s house where extra goodies would be served.

With the four of us stuck at home, additional temptations have joined us in quarantine to compensate for the deprivation otherwise - a giant container of popcorn kernels to pop on the stove, a huge industrial sized box of Oreos, copious frozen desserts, a weekly tray of baked ziti (one of the few dishes in my husband’s repertoire), and a 25-lb. bag of whole wheat flour to fuel the universally-recognized coping mechanism of baking. And, because we’re home all the time, it’s been far too easy to take liberties with the available wares. 

There have been some accomplishments, & I’m proud of myself for those. Most significantly, I’ve been pretty successful at intermittent fasting. I’ve also consumed approximately one (silver-dollar-sized) pancake out of the hundreds I’ve cooked my kids over the last nine weeks. I wasn’t able to exercise as rigorously for a while, due to an abdominal injury that’s now resolved, but I’ve been as active as I can be. And, in contrast to many of my peers, I’ve consumed very little alcohol during quarantine. 

It hasn’t been enough, though, and I’ve gained 5 lbs. right as I’m supposed to be making an effort to lose more weight. I recently saw a healthcare provider who said she isn’t that concerned with the small weight gain considering the totality of the circumstances, but she keeps advocating for me to go on a weight-loss drug and the mere idea of it scares the crap out of me.