My mantra this week has been, “I woke up like this.” I say this whenever someone asks me how I’m feeling during the final stretch of Whole30 (which is quite often). I said it when I schooled my friend Tara at her new time-killing obsession, Kolor. I said it to my son when he marveled at how I fixed his sunglasses. It’s a take-charge kind of week. I woke up like this.
That’s how I feel about Whole30 right now. I feel empowered because of how successful we’ve been at it. If you’ll recall, Whole30 is the 30-day restrictive diet that prohibits consuming processed grains (and most carbs), dairy, alcohol, refined sugar and legumes. We’ll be done with our grand experiment on Sunday, and I’m seriously amazed at how easy it has been, now that I’ve gotten the hang of it, to adapt our favorite recipes to fit into the restrictions of Whole30 and still make other, interesting dishes. Take, for example, this Whole30 watermelon cucumber salad that I made the other day as a refreshing side dish to a roast chicken. The kids had a school carnival around dinnertime, and I’d been in a tizzy about how we’d manage to stay on track with our Whole30 diet and still enjoy ourselves at a carnival certain to be chock full of fun food. Finally, the hubby and I decided that I’d roast a chicken, and I’d pack it up along with a side dish that didn’t have to stay hot that we’d eat at the carnival. While we ate like kings, we also didn’t get to chat much with the other parents. People looked at us kind of weird, which is fair because I was an Asian lady carrying a whole, lukewarm chicken in her tote bag. (It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.)
