Whole 30: Favorite Recipes & Week 1 Check in -

If you’re doing a January Whole 30 then go ahead and pat yourself on the back because if you started when the official one began on January 2nd, then you have (almost) completed your first week. Woo! If you’re new here and aren’t sure what a Whole 30 is, you can read about my journey with it here. I’ve done quite a few before and I remember looking back and asking myself countless times “is this normal?” I did my first one two-and-a-half years ago and I only had one other friend who was willing to try it with me at the time (or who had even heard of it). We were constantly asking each other questions, particularly during the first week. We’ll talk more about that and my experience later.

For now, I want to share my favorite Whole 30 recipes with you all. You can easily search ‘Whole 30’ and find all of the tagged posts on my site, but wanted to make it even easier and have them all accessible in a post. Each of the links to my Whole 30 recipes are below:

My chili recipe is one of my most used and you HAVE to make the organic chicken coconut curry. I seriously give myself props every time I make it because I was able to recreate this dish after I had it an amazing restaurant in Rio. And the potato skins for football games are the perfect game-day snack!

The Whole 30 suggests you steer away from smoothies because drinking your food is not as satisfying as eating it. Well, I found a way to help that because I LOVE smoothies. Enter the smoothie bowl. Yup, just pour your smoothie into a bowl, add more of your favorite toppings, and eat it with a spoon. It really is more satisfying than through a straw and still allows me to have a ton of delicious smoothies. And because I am such a smoothie fan, I have quite a few recipes from my site to share with you all. Most of the recipes linked below are compliant, but one or two require a slight modification.

These chili cilantro lime shrimp tacos can be lettuce wrapped to be compliant, too. The tortillas I used in the recipe are technically compliant when you read the ingredients, but the official Whole 30 rules consider them to be SWYPO. If you’re unsure what the heck that means, you can read more about SWYPO here.

Anddd now a little check-in. I’ll start by saying that each person’s Whole 30 experience is difference. It particularly depends on what your day-to-day looked like before you started. If you ate buffalo wings, cheese fries, pizza, cheezeits, and cookies all on the day before you started (which is the exact lineup of what I had) then you may have felt rather sluggish this week. I’ve already heard of a person or two throwing in the towel because ‘they felt so bad this week.’ Well, detox is tough people. That is your body getting rid of all the crap you’ve been eating. The sugar detox is real and it is often not pleasant. You’ve got to get rid of the bad before your body can run off, and reap the benefits of, all the good. I usually seem to go along with the Whole 30 timeline pretty well, but again, everyone is different. (I reference the timeline almost daily btw) I’ve noticed that the more I do them, the less extreme some symptoms are.. or maybe I’m just used to them and know its all worth it. Regardless, a break down of this week is below.

Day 1: I was TIRED. I just came off two weeks with no work and part of that included a one week vacation. I indulged leading up to the holidays and all through them. I wanted to cry when my alarm went off and then throw a small tantrum when I realized I couldn’t start my day with my favorite almond-milk chai tea lattee. Waahh (#firstworldproblems) I skipped my workout this day without question.

Day 2 & 3: I was real sleepy when my alarm went off both days. I was super busy so I didn’t have much time to dwell on being tired once I got to work. I skipped my workout again on Tuesday and wanted to crash. I did a little mini 30 minute workout on Wednesday just to slowly start working my way back into them.

Day 4 & 5: I snoozed as long as possible when the alarm went off. The sugar hangover definitely started kicking in these days. I had random headaches throughout the day and felt a little irritable. The ‘kill all things’ phase definitely came and went throughout the day. I did a fun little ballet workout on Thursday and nothing on Friday (it snowed and I ran errands so we’ll use that as my excuse).

Day 6: I slept in and felt fine when I woke up, except I was hungry. I ate, did a workout, and ate some more. Then, I had the perfect mixture of laziness and productivity. No headaches today!

Day 7: I’ll have a productive Sunday full of report writing for my job, blog work, and errands. Hopefully I feel fine.

I’ll add that this week I also had cramps but its because of monthly lady problems. It definitely made working out on Thursday hard, but per usual I was glad I powered through after. I’m sort of glad to be knocking that and the first week of the Whole 30 out all in one week. I’m looking forward to next week when I slowly start feeling better and this detox can stop. There are definitely other symptoms of the detox that are not pleasant, but power through! You won’t get all the amazing benefits if you don’t.

I stuck to my plan to only ‘indulge’ in things like compliant bacon on the weekend this week. But, now that it is in my fridge we’ll see how I do this week.

If you have any questions.. again, feel free to reach out. Hopefully the check in helps you know what is ‘normal’ and you have a lot of new recipes to try! I’m lucky that I love leftovers and can eat the same thing a few days in a row. Whether you do or do not, switching up your recipes and trying new ones is essential for Whole 30 success and ensuring you don’t burn out.

Also, don’t forgot to check in on my other blogger friends who are doing a #Whole30Jan (follow that hashtag we are all using on social media) by looking at their blogs for tips, recipes, and checkins: Fleurdille // Lauren McBride // Life in the Green House // Life Lutzurious // Living in Color // My Life Well Loved // Sunflowers & Stilettos// Taz & Belly // XO Beverly

Stay tuned.. I’ll be sharing some tips to save you a ton of time during your Whole 30 soon. As well as some new complaint recipes. Until then, happy week 2 my friends! XO