Whole 30 Day 7 : Who Wouldn’t Wanna Do This? Me.

Whole 30 Day 7 : Who Wouldn’t Wanna Do This? Me.

8:32 a.m.

Did anyone ever think maybe this was a bad idea? I mean consider this – the first two books on the Whole 30 diet were written by Melissa and Dallas Hartwig. The most recent book, only Melissa’s name appears on the cover. Dallas probably lost his shit and their whole relationship ended over a quesadilla.

What is the point of this whole thing? I’m going to feel good AF for fifteen or so odd days and then I’m going to piledrive a BRC (bean, rice, and cheese. know this) down my trachea. One simple indulgence is going to make me hate myself. I knew you weren’t strong enough to continue making decisions that made you feel better, the voice in my head will say. And every time I make a decision about what to eat I will be plagued with the knowledge that this food is bad for me but I’m eating it anyway because it feels good in the moment. Or, I carry this diet on forever. And I become a superhuman. But everyone hates me. I’ll have too much energy to deal with and without an obvious vice, I’ll be untrustworthy.

I don’t see how there’s anyway this diet will not ruin my life completely. Why is nobody talking about that?

8:45 a.m.

I’m not even looking through the window at the food people are eating inside the cozy gourmet Italian restaurant across the street. I’m past that. I’m now to the point where I am becoming jealous of people’s garnishes in their cocktails.

9:04 a.m.

I have work pretty much nonstop today until 3 p.m. A meeting then a photoshoot then another meeting. It might be the day of the Larabar. We haven’t been eating any of their “approved” emergency snacks. It makes me feel like a cheater and a failure.

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Another morning date with eggs, avocado, and sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are already not my friend. I discovered them years ago, prematurely.

We were so hungry last night before bed. We wanted to watch the season finale of Breaking Bad season two but I knew that if we stayed awake for another hour I was going to bite her in the shoulder. Still, I laid in bed for an hour anyway trying to imagine that we had been kidnapped and soon a nice warm meal would come as soon as Liam Neeson got there.

We ended up having a “snack” that looked like the remains of the food tray after a corporate fundraiser.

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10:44 a.m.

First meeting in the books. I might join another small business association. There a part of me (3%) that thinks one day I’ll be the mayor of San Diego. Mostly because politicians are such lazy excuse makers and I want to know if it’s them personally or if the job is actually impossible to do well. Anyway, I’d have a pretty straight-shooter campaign and a message of tough love and government accountability. I don’t know what my scandal will be yet but I will have it leaked early in the campaign to get some free press.

11:11 a.m.

Alexis made her first sale on her new online vintage clothing shop SAME SAME VINTAGE. That is exciting. We tried to celebrate but then we realized we were too grumpy to feel anything inside.

11:30 a.m.

Life has definitely changed for me already. For one, I am constantly taking out the trash. And I never stop washing dishes. And I’ve actually begun returning things to the grocery store. Didn’t even know that was a thing before this.

Some positives – we are constantly looking for things to distract us. Alexis cleaned her entire closet last night. I have become fluent in Lebanese.

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12:49 p.m.

Woody took off across the street when Alexis and I were carrying out a hand full of boxes. Ten minutes later she just called me crying, thinking about what could have happened to the sweet little guy.

Lunch – red leaf lettuce with leftover roasted veggies from last night and some turkey. Olive oil and salt. It was good because the hot veggies made the turkey warm and it reminded me of being a kid and eating grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches. Excuse me, I need a moment.

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1:15 p.m.

My sister texted me and said that she did her Whole 30 grocery shopping today. She said she’s out looking for a part-time job now.

You certainly can’t please everybody. But it is a little embarrassing that in order to eat HEALTHY food you have to have considerable financial means. We aren’t even buying full organic. At this point I can’t justify it. And I’m not 100% confident that food labeled “organic” doesn’t contain trace amounts of all the harmful chemicals that the rest of the food has. Not to mention I feel a lot better when I switch from eating out to cooking at home than I do when I switch from cooking conventional at home to cooking organic at home.

1:30 p.m.

Ashley came by with Caira. Normally we see them on Tuesdays and Thursdays for our mental health because Caira is such a cute peanut. But today I texted Ashley back and said we’re not doing so good in our household today and that maybe we would see her next week. She sent a video of 18 month old Caira saying, “Lex. Turk. Wood,” over and over so I caved.

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He mostly followed her around and kissed her face and she mostly ran away from him screaming. But the second he stopped… “Wood?” She also came with cheese. Cheese. You remember that stuff right? The stuff you eat when you want to be transported to heaven. I helped her feed some to Woody. In my head I was reciting the Hail Mary.

3:26 p.m.

Some slick bastard stole my business credit card number and tried to buy $607 worth of perfumes and luxury skin care products from Osswald’s in Manhattan. Credit card fraud is like no big deal nowadays. I’m not even mad. I’m not going to tell everyone at work tomorrow how my card got stolen and the world is going to shit because of these computers. I’m just upset I have to update payment information on about 16 different accounts. That is the real pain of modern day credit card fraud.

3:29 p.m.

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It may look like I am making sweet love to my thumb but it’s actually a rotisserie chicken. I feel the same way about this rotisserie as you did about Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You.

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Today we decided that we need a small meal between lunch and dinner. That it wasn’t good for our relationship to go five hours without eating. We had rotisserie and the rest of the cinnamon sweet potato soup from last night. It was a godsend.

4:14 p.m.

The first Amazon shipment has arrive – whisks and a small bin to scoop all of our food scraps into.

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5:16 p.m.

We got final approval for the TV commercial we produced a couple months ago. The client signed off and it will head to cable soon. Not to mention the remaining $$$ gets released. Which normally would mean great things. Not this month. I will go down as the only person to produce a commercial for cable and get evicted in the same month.

It’s actually a really great commercial. Except for the fact that it’s about food. I cut out all the pita bread. If I can’t enjoy it neither can America.

5:37 p.m.

It’s 5:37 and I don’t hear anything happening behind me. I am becoming concerned. She’s just sitting there on her computer around the corner. Do I say something?

“Hello…”

Although I will admit, the midday meal has held me over considerably.

Tonight I am going to total up this week’s expenditures and see what that leaves us with moving forward.

Perhaps I can tell the bank these purchases were fraud as well.

5:50 p.m.

I don’t miss any one food in particular. I more miss textures. One thing that is absent from the Whole 30 is a good old-fashioned crunch.

5:54 p.m.

After some light Googling it appears that I can thinly slice a sweet potato and bake the pieces in the oven for two hours at 250 degrees and have a crunchy little number.

6:02 p.m.

Alexis asked how the writing was going today. I told her badly.

“Why?”

“It’s boring now. Everyone gets it. We’re hungry. It’s expensive. The end.”

“People want to hear about how the health stuff is going.”

Is that true people? Are you curious about The Daily Gas Log? Last night was as bad as ever. I don’t get it. It smelled like burnt plastic toys anywhere within six feet of me. At one point I had one last so long it sounded like the old door at your grandma’s house that never quite stops opening.

Now I need to take Woody for a walk. I think he’s depressed. Ever since he partied his brains out with my mom’s dog for three weeks he hasn’t been the same. He doesn’t want to play with any other dogs at the park. All day he sits at our feet and yips. Is this what it feels like when your teenaged son grows his hair past his eyes and starts listening to Fall Out Boy? Maybe we need to play a Fall Out Boy song for him.

7:01 p.m.

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I call this one Pandora’s Taco. Alexis made some guac out of an avocado that was on its way out, probably to a home that would put it back in contact with a blue corn friend. Along with some pepper sauce and chicken this made for a delicious, albeit brief, dinner. Those are mushrooms on the side. And while tasty, they were just another insult to my appetite.

Alexis says the book recommended only serving half the portion she just gave me for dinner. What’s weird is that I will stab the book.

Immediately after dinner is always panic. I look frantically through the fridge looking for Whole 30 approved vanilla cupcakes with white frosting. All I find that’s even close is a pineapple. So I eat that. Then it’s the cupboard. Did I make the sweet potato chips? I know I didn’t. But I’m still looking for them.

7:32 p.m.

It passes. I have to remember, it passes. The food digests and my stomach feels momentarily content. These snack cravings have absolutely nothing to do with hunger. I feel out of control, like I don’t know my own mind. Certainly can’t trust it to act in my own best interest. Then again, how can I blame preservatives? We (Alexis) made ranch dressing the other day and it has already gone bad. Making homemade ranch dressing every two days isn’t sustainable.

7:53 p.m.

I am ungodly hungry.

“I don’t know how people do this,” Alexis said. “I don’t know what else to make.”

Wake me up when the answer is pizza.

7:57 p.m.

“Is this worth it?” She asks. We have hit a low point.

“I don’t fucking know.”

A Week In Finances:

12/30. Whole Foods : $219

1/2. Costco : $116

1/2. Sprouts : $76

1/4. Trader Joe’s : $45

1/5. Sprouts : $24

Ready for this ?

$480

(Fireworks explode in the background and you seen Queen Elizabeth holding up a middle finger).

A monthly payment on a Tesla.

A Week In Emotions:

I had some bouts of extreme energy bursts and mental clarity but it has been overshadowed by constant hunger, nausea, and a real doubt in the human ability to stay interested in things.

A Week In Relationships:

Alexis claims that I have been relatively nice to her despite the burning rage I feel inside. I am trying to be incredibly grateful because she has cooked 21 meals for us in the last seven days and I would have been at McDonald’s on night two without her. It’s hard to say there’s a ton of excitement in our house. Even our dog is depressed. By the time we get in bed we are both too weak to even think about putting on a Keith Sweat record.

A Week In Health:

I have definitely noticed a dent in the high-tech insulation my lower abdominal possesses. My workout was strong and I felt very little muscle soreness the next day. I have absolutely no desire to exercise on my own. Not even yoga at the end of the night. I am hoping to have much more productivity in this department next week. Alexis says the chronic pain in her right hip has gone away completely. That’s something. I guess if I think about it, I have had less joint pain than usual as well.

A Week In Blogging:

Just under 700 people are reading these articles every day. Some, I’m sure, are participating in the Whole 30 and some, I know, are just here to offer their emotional support to a couple in need. Until I get a share or retweet from a big site I imagine the stats will hover in this area in perpetuity. The most popular article I’ve ever written on my site was about beating the Whole Foods salad bar and it received 85,000 reads. I have written for other publications that are much larger and I thought about pitching this current project to a bigger site like Greatist or Vice but in the end I decided to keep it at home. Something about that feels right.

Week one is in the books. Thanks for coming along.

 

Read Day 6 HERE

15 Replies to “Whole 30 Day 7 : Who Wouldn’t Wanna Do This? Me.”

  1. For the record, I am LOVING reading this, Kirk — I’m sorry you two are so hungry/miserable (I don’t blame you), but it’s REALLY effing entertaining 🙂 Hunger and anger makes you even funnier than usual. So there’s that… xo

  2. Day 6 for me. This isn’t that bad so I must be cheating. It’s funny how I’m paralleling your experience. I came down with a cold last night and 24 hours later thanks to Zicam Nasal Swabs and Alka Seltzer Cold and Flu I’m feeling much better. A few days ago I rode my bicycle to Mercy hospital to visit a friend and it was stolen from right in front of the sign that read “this area covered by 24 hour recorded surveillance”.

    Back to cheating. I didn’t buy the book, just searched Google for “The Whole 30 diet” following what I read there and your first posts about it. No diary, grains, sugar or sugar substitutes, and legumes. No white potatoes. Scour labels for hidden sugar because it’s in almost all packaged foods. For snacks I eat apple slices or 1/2 a banana or 2 dates. Is that cheating? Portion size has not been something I worry about and now the portions are getting smaller anyway out of boredom.
    I have to make my own food just because it’s easier than listening to Michelle complain about how hard it is. Keep it up!

    1. Ted – that’s because you’re a freak of nature and doing the yoges 4-5 days a week. i envy your easy about this.

  3. I am hungry too. I ate an entire can of coconut milk two days ago. It was delicious and disgusting simultaneously. I’m not sorry.

  4. I have an awesome whole30 dressing recipe if you’d like it! Lasts about two weeks in the fridge or about seeek if eaten everyday!

  5. THIS IS FRIGGIN’ hilarious! I’ve been sharing with my husband because as of Jan 2nd, we are doing this together as well. His first time, my second. He’s been asking why his pee is still bubbly even though he’s not drinking diet fountain sodas anymore. If nothing else, this “diet” sure brings out some humor!

  6. Have done loads of Whole 30 and mostly (mostly) we (my husband and I) eat Whole30ish 75% of the time. I think you are’nt meal planning effectively! If you take the time to do it, I promies you will eat delicious filling food. I am NEVER hungry one Whole 30 and I eat alot! Send me your email and I will send you some ideas on how to make what you are buying stretch through several meals. Wait till you try your first piece of cheese or milk and watch how your stomach blows up!

  7. have gone thru that ‘is it worth it’ stage every time. (and i still contemplate if the mental breakdowns are worth the physical reward), but at this point you don’t want to quit. …i can’t say it gets better. there are better days ahead and crappier days too. in the end you’ll be glad you did the 30 days. regardless you continue after that or not you will now know how great you can actually feel… loving the blog. makes me want to jump in and do another whole 30 so i can share your misery … and your accomplishments!!! keep it up!..farts and all!

  8. I just found your blog today — I’m on Day 16 myself and your posts are making me laugh so hard, it’s making my nose run (battling a head cold here in Colorado). Keep it up. You got this, Kirk!

  9. It really sounds like you guys need to eat larger portions. You shouldn’t be starving. Double the recipes, add more protein, etc. Hilarious read as always.

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