It feels a bit surreal to be doing a week 3 recap, and being on the Whole30 home stretch! My husband was a little bummed out because technically, Whole30 is a couple days longer than 4 weeks, and I have been separating everything out by week. Sorry if you didn’t realize this either! It just has made it easier to break it up by weeks, for blog posts and meal plans. Be sure to check out the Week 1 and Week 2 recap if you have not read those yet. But, if you are all caught up, let me now walk you through the week 3 recap!
If you live in the south, or follow me on Instagram, you know we had a snow storm this week! All of Charlotte was out of commission for a few days. Schools were closed for 3 days and my husband was stuck in a hotel by his work because the roads weren’t too great to be driving on. These factors threw our week a bit of a curve ball. My husband texted me from his hotel room and said, “Ummm, everything is closed, I have no food and I’m starving.” I felt so bad, and actually told him, he may just have to cheat and eat whatever he could find. He’s got a lot more will power than me, and decided to just go to bed, and hit up the grocery store first thing in the morning (strong work)!
Thankfully, week 3 truly was all about the tiger blood as the Whole30 Timeline talks about. I really did not have terrible cravings this week like I did in week 2. There were many days, I just wasn’t hungry at all, and I would have to remind myself to eat.
How My Grocery Shopping and Meal Plan Went for Whole30 Week 3
I felt much more prepared for week 3. We made a trip to Costco and Trader Joe’s and we really stocked up on the necessities. This was so helpful since we were snowed in for a couple of days. As far as the meal plan went, I stuck with what I knew this week. For breakfast, we had some smoothies and egg dishes. For lunch, we did a lot of kale and chicken salads and for dinner, we had tacos, meatballs, and roast, with a few other things mixed in. I was really hoping to be all about the chorizo recipes this week because I have been craving it so much! But, for some reason, Charlotte doesn’t believe in Whole30 compliant chorizo and I can’t find it anywhere.
How I Felt Physically During Whole30 Week 3
- Day 1-4: Hello Tiger Blood! I felt great, a lot of energy, not bloated, hair and skin felt healthy.
- Day 5: I did a lot of blog work today and drank way too much coffee and didn’t have enough to eat. I felt pretty blah and my stomach felt very acidic. I should have eaten an actual lunch or loaded up on snacks before hitting the coffee shop.
- Day 6: My stomach felt a little strange in the morning, but was fine by afternoon, then felt pretty normal for the rest of the day.
- Day 7: I felt very normal and had great energy.
Staple Items That I Used This Week
Ground Beef: I made a lot of recipes with ground beef as I talked about earlier. Side note, if you haven’t made the taco seasoning yet found in the Week #1 & 3 meal plan, you should definitely try it. It is so good! (If you want these meal plans, subscribe to fitandhealthymomlife.com and I will send them to you).
Almond Butter: This is a staple pretty much every week, but we have been getting creative with it over here. In the week 2 recap, I talked about the delicious oven baked almond butter and bananas. This week, we have been putting apples in the oven with almond butter and cinnamon and it almost tastes like a crust-less apple pie. So good!
Everything but the Bagel Sesame Blend: This seasoning from Trader Joe’s is SO good and can go on so many different dishes. You need it in your pantry if you don’t have it already.
Olive Oil & Lemon Dressing: If you are looking for a really easy, and delicious homemade lemon dressing, check out the second recipe in this blog post. My daughter loves this dressing and we made so much of it this week. It is really versatile and can be used on so many salad combinations
Grainless Granola: Has anyone else found this little gem at Trader Joe’s? A friend of mine told me about it, and I am a little obsessed with it now. It is SO GOOD! You can add some coconut milk, cinnamon, and mashed banana, then heat it up, and it’s delicious! I did add this to the week 4 meal plan because I love it so much.
Looking Ahead to Week 4 (plus a couple more days)
I can’t believe we are on the final stretch! I really want to finish out the program strong, with some new recipes and intentional thinking about life after Whole30. If you read about my first Whole30 experience, you know it truly was a life changing experience for me. I want to start sorting through my notes and thoughts this week to wrap my head around this 30 days, compared to my first 30 days of the program.
Begin Thinking About Reintroduction This Week
When Whole30 concludes, you aren’t quite finished yet. The next step is key to the whole process. I did not do the reintroduction step during my first Whole30 and I really wish I did. Although I have a pretty good idea of what my trigger foods/ingredients are, some things were still a mystery. I am wondering if I would have solved these mysteries if I did the reintroduction step. I am going to try and reintroduce different food groups this time around.
If you aren’t familiar with the reintroduction step, I encourage you to read this section of the book or find the synopsis online here. The main premise is that you will reintroduce “less healthy” foods back into your diet, one food group at a time, while keeping the rest of your diet Whole30 compliant. If your body does not have a negative affect to the food group you added back in, then it probably isn’t a trigger for you. However, if your body does react in a negative way, then you just gained some really valuable information about your body.
As I said, I did not do this step my first time through, but I know cheese is a really big trigger for me. We use to buy SO much cheese! And goodness cheese has gotten expensive. After my first Whole30 experience, I now, hardly ever buy cheese and we actually have not missed it too much. Yes, I love to put goat cheese and feta cheese on my salads and some dinners, but we really don’t use shredded cheese like we use to, at all. It was amazing how being off of it for 30 days made me realize, we really don’t need it. If there are foods you know are not good for you, and you feel you haven’t missed them too much, then try to limit them moving on with life after Whole30.
According to the Whole30 Timeline, during the last 9 days…
- You’ll feel so over it all. A new recipe doesn’t sound appealing, and food boredom starts to set in, but don’t let it! Follow @whole30recipes on Instagram, try out a recipe you haven’t made in the 4-week meal plan or scout out Pinterest. Hunger and boredom are a recipe for disaster!
- You get tempted to quit early. Don’t give in to the temptation!!! You made it this far, finish out strong! You will regret it if you quit early.
If you follow @whole30recipes on Instagram, you may have seen the Garlic & Thyme Roast Fingerlings recipe that @Primal_Gourmet posted. They look amazing and I am definitely thinking about trying them this week because potatoes are getting a bit boring. You can check out the full recipe here or follow it below.
[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:4]