Day 4 & 5

Day 4&5 were spent in Union City PA at one of our manufacturing plants.   We had employee meetings and during these we serve meals to everyone.   This time, the meal was lasagna, rolls, salad and lots of cookies.

As I was serving everyone their food, I tried to distract myself about the salad I had waiting for me when I was done.  But for some reason all I could think about was sticking my face in that pan of lasagna and following it up with a couple of brownies.

Luckily, serving lunch quickly passed and we had a few minutes of free time during which I ate my salad (spinach and kale - organic turkey, olives, carrots and cukes).   I forgot to pack oil and vinegar so I had to eat my salad dry...  Not the best but I was feeling pretty proud of myself for making it through lunch still committed to Whole30.

During the day we had a number of different meetings, and during the afternoon sessions I started to get hungry and grabbed my cashews and apricots that I had packed in my computer bag.   Couple things I was learning:

1.)  I need to be sure to eat the right amount of foods at each meal and also have some healthy fat in each meal or I will get hungry quickly
2.) Planning is everything -  if I hadn't planned and packed a lunch or had my cashews with me when I got hungry - it would have been very tempting to deviate and eat something
3.) I like flavor!!  A bland salad is not going to satisfy me very much.

That night four of us went out to dinner.   Now since I had the experience from the night before, and since I had sent my wife the name of the restaurant that we were going to and she had previewed the menu, I was very confident that I had a lot of choices to go with.    Hardest things about dinner were the warm bread and butter that were brought out before the meal and that everyone was having a very tasty looking beer.    I ordered my club soda with lime, and waited for a very tasty Whole30 compliant meal.

Our last meeting of the day was at 11PM, and we got back to our hotel around 1AM.  We had an early morning on Day 5 and I was interested to see how my POTS was going to do.   Lack of sleep has been a big trigger in the past.   Well, Day 5 at 7AM came along and I was feeling pretty good.  No POTS symptoms.  Had a breakfast of scrambled egg whites with spinach and turkey and off to the plant we went.

For lunch that day we were ordering in.   The menu for the place we were ordering from was full of Pizza, Stromboli, Calzones and sub sandwiches.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME.... Day 5 and tempted by my favorite food group - Italian....   I searched the menu, and on page 2, in the lower left corner, found the salad section.   Ended up ordering a plain salad, no cheese with Oil and Vinegar on the side (I had organic turkey in the refrigerator at work).   Lunch came and it was a disaster.  My "salad" was actually just some chopped up iceberg lettuce with a few carrot slices and 2 cuke slices.   The oil and vinegar looked good, until I read the back to the container and saw that it contained all different types of sugar and things I couldn't pronounce.   My plant manager saw me staring at my "salad" and offered up some fat free dressing.   I knew without looking at the ingredients that this was a no-go.   So I ate my salad dry.. .again... while everyone around me was chowing down on pizza and calzones.   I felt dejected!!

An hour later I was hungry (go figure) - but luckily I had a Lara bar in my computer bag (remember - always prepare).   Around 4PM I headed out for a 2 hour drive to my brother's house.  I snacked on carrots and hard boiled eggs on the drive and realized that I normally get very tired around 3PM but here it was 4PM and after only 5 hours sleep, I was feeling good and not nodding off while driving.

My brother's house was a great visit.   I made some chicken in olive oil with garlic, mushrooms and onions which filled me up.   My brother and I like to enjoy a good beer, so it was a little tough to be drinking club soda when I really wanted a Dortmunder Gold.   We had a good time and got to bed at 1AM.  I had a 9:15 flight so once again... looked like 5 hours sleep.