Boy, I’m slow at getting these out! I’m writing this as I’m nearly finished with my vegan Whole 30! If you’d like to find out what was different during week 2, if my mood improved after a rocky start during week 1, and what I ate, read on.
If you’re wondering why I’m doing the Whole 30, or are a bit Whole 30-curious, check out my post for people thinking of doing a vegan Whole 30.
(Psst if you’re just joining me you can check out my weekly reports, menus and my final results here in my whole 30 section).
What I learnt during Week 2
This week I definitely started feeling better in just about every way. Cravings diminished noticeably, and food looked more appetizing to me (the food that I had prepared, that is).
I kept meaning to have a more “Whole 30 breakfast”, savory style, but fruit is so quick and I don’t usually eat it any other time …
And this vegan Whole 30 stuff is hard enough as it is, if I have to cook another meal every day (breakfast) I’ll SCREAM.
I comfort myself with the thought that if my diet has been reduced to vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds for 30 days, then I can probably safely up my fruit content a bit more than is optimal in the regular Whole 30.
Plus, as I basically never ate fruit before, I see my new fruitiness as a good thing.
What did I eat during my second week of a vegan Whole 30?
I was more prepared this week, and it showed. I highly recommend planning the week ahead for your meals and making sure you have all the ingredients, it really does alleviate a lot of stress about what to cook.
I was still cooking quite a bit, but at least I had a plan and ingredients, which made me feel calmer.
I do still have an “emergency Whole 30 meal” which is frozen vegetables pan-fried or heated up in the microwave with cashew cheese or tahini-lemon sauce, as well as a small pack of olives in my bag to steer me away from temptation should I have a crippling snack attack.
I had the occasional smoothie for breakfast when I was low on fruit and just had bananas left, as there was no way in hell I was eating a whole banana (it’s a texture thing).
Smoothies are “frowned upon” in the Whole 30, but not expressly forbidden, FYI. I get it, it would be better and more filling to eat several pieces of whole fruit, but it’s the only way a banana is getting into my digestive system.
| Day | Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner |
| Monday | Chopped pineapple, melon, 12 almonds. | Vegetable stir fry with Cauliflower rice | Raw rainbow pad thai (adapted) |
| Tuesday | Chopped pineapple, melon, 12 almonds, a handful of green olives. | Vegetable stir fry with Cauliflower rice | Peri peri courgette peppers and onions, potato wedges and pineapple slices |
| Wednesday | Spinach coconut banana smoothie, some pineapple and almonds. | Leftover vegetables with peri peri sauce. | Cream of mushroom soup, with spinach and strawberry salad |
| Thursday | Pineapple and melon with chia seeds, chopped nuts and coconut milk | Leftover soup and salad | Lazy meal (some nuts, asparagus and brussels sprouts with cashew cheese sauce) |
| Friday | Banana strawberry smoothie | Leftover veg with cheesy cashew sauce | Morrocan style cauliflower couscous |
| Saturday | Banana smoothie | No-pasta-no-beans-minestrone | No-pasta-no-beans-minestrone |
| Sunday | Banana coconut chia pudding | Leftover Morrocan couscous, potato salad, melon | Meatless beanless chili and cauliflower mash |
24/06/2019 Day 8
Feel good, a little tired as I foolishly stayed up late last night. Breakfast was fruit and nuts which was really tasty but I was hungry again way before lunch.
Think I need to up the fat content in the morning so that I stay sated for longer, as fruit digests relatively quickly.
Sparkling water is really rising up in my estimation, it gives me that kind of hit at the back of the throat that you normally get from soft drinks or beer if you drink it really chilled.
Lunch was stir fry and cauli rice, tasty and very filling.
Dinner took absolutely forever and was an absolute minefield. The 25th is my stepson’s 17th birthday so I had decided to make the cake and prepare some food the day ahead.
It was an absolute pain as I was also making rainbow raw pad thai for dinner (adapted from Oh She Glows’ amazing recipe in order to be compliant, with fried tofu and edamame and noodles added in for the rest of the family).
I kept accidentally going to lick my hand or finger when I got cake batter or chocolate on them, and then catching myself at the last minute. I did accidentally lick a drop of soy sauce off my hand and literally ran over to the sink and washed my tongue. A bit ridiculous…..
25/06/2019 Day 9
Had trouble getting to sleep last night, but not as much as I used to. Slept like a stone when I did finally sleep. Finding it easier to get up in the morning and do things, even if I am still a bit tired.
I can see that I’m definitely not getting enough sleep in general, which I kind of knew before, but this weekend I’m definitely going to have a think about how I can get at least 7 hours.
After all, if my body is detoxing and repairing, it would be nice to help it along. One weird thing about eating this way is that – TMI warning – my pee is quite yellow most of the day even though I’m drinking a lot of water – maybe excreting toxins?
More stirfry and cauli rice for lunch. I could totally get used to this. Three comments on how “healthy” and “well” I look from people at work who knew I had started the whole 30 and had to put up with me moaning at my desk the first week. Seems like some of my workmates now want to do it!
Dinner was the big birthday dinner, and it was a bit of a revelation. The kids and hubby had peri peri chicken, buttered corn on the cob, homemade coleslaw, “nacho” potato wedges, and my coconut lemon rice, and a three-tiered birthday cake.
The cake featured a rocky road cake experiment that I’m working on in the bottom two layers, and my caramel pie on the top with a biscuit (graham cracker) style crust and chocolate ganache dripped over everything.
I had a handful of oven baked potato wedges with the skin on (tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper, hot smoked paprika and onion granules), and some sauteed courgette peppers and onions with lashings of my peri peri sauce (which I had just realised was Whole30 compliant). I had a few pineapple slices afterwards as well.
My food was really tasty, but the real revelation was that I didn’t want to eat the other food on the table.
Not. One. Bite.
No cravings. No twang of misery at not being able to eat the cake. No feeling of missing out. And you know what? It felt great.
26/06/2019 Day 10
I had a spinach coconut banana smoothie for breakfast, along with a handful of pineapple and a few almonds. Was hungry early again.
Really need to rethink my breakfast. Feel like I would be better off having a savoury meal, and then just keeping fruit for “dessert” as I can eat quite a bit of it but it doesn’t fill me up.
Lunch was leftover vegetables smothered in peri peri sauce, I didn’t have time to make any cauli rice today but it was still super satisfying on its own.
Spent half my lunch contemplating things to do at the weekend and trying to convince hubby that we should all go to a lake with a beach and kayak and hike a trail up to a great viewpoint on Sunday.
Realised I am actively looking to keep busy and engage in physical activities, who am I? I couldn’t swim on Monday or Tuesday due to a ton of housework, today I need to work on the blog and make dinner but it’s an easy one, so will be prioritizing making it down to the pool.
I was peckish/bored after lunch, so I had a few pickled jalapeño slices and some sparkling water (yes, you read that right, pickled jalapeños are a favourite snack of mine, why did you think the blog was called the FIERY vegetarian?).
Dinner was cream of mushroom soup and a spinach strawberry salad, nice and filling. I’ve kind of given up trying to fit in with the Whole 30 food template, it’s just not possible if you’re not eating meat and eggs. Settling into eating this way.
27/06/2019 Day 11
Tired when I woke up despite sleeping like a log. Went to bed pretty late again. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many days of unbroken sleep before in my life. I suffered from pretty regular sleep paralysis before starting the Whole 30, and I can’t remember the last time I had it now.
Breakfast was quickly thrown together, some chopped pineapple and melon with chia seeds and chopped nuts sprinkled over and a little coconut milk. A minor skin breakout today, overall I’m really pleased with my skin now.
It seems more “glowy” and fine lines are finer, way less breakouts than normal. My face also looks thinner, although I’m not really noticing any non-scale victories anywhere else, apart from my stomach being flatter.
I had leftovers for lunch and was full and contented. My mood was not great today though, after feeling fine for days I had a ton of cravings for anything and everything, especially a gin and tonic.
I distracted myself with lots of chilled sparkling water and pickled jalapeño slices and concentrated on breathing deeply until each craving passed.
It was absolutely roasting today, temperatures are over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Madrid at the moment.
For dinner I was missing some ingredients for the meatless chili I was going to make, and anyway, the idea of standing over the stove or in a hot kitchen seemed incredibly unappealing, so we went down to the pool to cool off instead.
In the end, dinner was a lazy affair of leftovers that had accumulated during the week for everyone else, and I had a handful of nuts and some frozen Brussels sprouts quickly pan fried with a few spices, with a little thin cashew cheese sauce, and asparagus on the side.
I could not finish my food and put aside a lot of it for lunch the next day.
28/06/2019 Day 12
Another deep dreamless sleep. For breakfast I had a banana blended with ½ can light coconut cream and a tablespoon of chia seeds, with some chopped hazelnuts, 2 tablespoons dessicated coconut, and a handful of frozen strawberries.
Read last night in the Whole30 book that you should eat breakfast within an hour of waking, and that if you weren’t hungry after waking up it was a sign of hormonal issues. Wonder how true that is as I’m never hungry in the morning… I’m currently waking up at 06:30 and have breakfast at work at around 9.
Another factor could be that in Spain we eat dinner relatively late, especially in summer, anywhere from 8pm-9pm, although I do try for 8 o ‘́clock as I go to bed around 11:00-11:30 and like to have a 3 hour break to digest between dinner and bedtime.
I popped a few frozen blueberries in my water bottle as well to help keep it cool and get in a little fruit.
For lunch, I had leftover Brussels sprouts drizzled with a bit of cashew cheese sauce and some peri peri sauce from earlier on in the week.
For dinner, I made a Morrocan style cauliflower couscous which was tasty but a little watery – need to squeeze the water out of the cauliflower in the future. Why have you suddenly become squishy and watery cauli rice? DON’T ABANDON ME CAULI RICE.
It is incredibly hot in Madrid and we are basically down by the pool every night. My life for an ice-pop.
29/06/2019 Day 13
Today I was a bit lazy about cooking as I needed to prepare stuff for the picnic tomorrow and also do up the menu and organise the grocery shopping.
Hubby and I decided to split the weekly food shop in two and get half on Saturday and the rest on Sunday, as we just don’t have the space to store so much fresh produce.
While that sounds great in theory, in practice we totally ended up buying food for the whole week. Some stuff like breakfast things, lunch items for my stepson at home, snacks for the kids at camp etc. all need to be bought at once, and I always forget that we tend to have leftovers.
So in theory, this was the menu I set for half of the following week:
| Day | Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner |
| Saturday | Smoothie | Minestrone | Chili |
| Sunday | Banana chia seed pudding with fruit and nuts | Potato salad, fruit | Peri peri veg and cauli rice |
| Monday | Banana chia seed pudding with fruit and nuts | Leftover peri peri veg | Stirfried veg |
| Tuesday | Banana chia seed pudding with fruit and nuts | Stirfried veg | Coleslaw & tabbouleh |
For lunch I made minestrone and separated a portion out for me without beans and pasta. We also had enough for dinner and it was too darn hot to cook, so the chilli got bumped to Sunday dinner.
30/06/2019 Day 14
Minor skin breakout decorating my face when I woke up. We had a super active day today. I had some banana coconut chia pudding for breakfast, and then we drove to a beautiful dam-reservoir thingy (I never know how you say pantano in English), el pantano de bolarque.
We swam and frolicked in the water and went kayaking. Kayaking was great fun, except I hit my 3-year-old daughter in the head with my paddle (OMG, social services are going to come for me).
I also fantasised about throwing my seven year old out of the kayak to lighten the load on our return journey, which was a bit of a race-against-time. Fun times.
I had packed a picnic and had some leftover morrocan cauliflower couscous, some potato salad (made with Whole30 compliant avocado mayonnaise), and some melon.
The others had the same plus white bean salad and paninis. The potato salad was really really tasty. I’m totally going to write it up and publish it, I just need to tweak the potato cooking time in the microwave and the amount of dressing.
I did have some serious cravings while toasting the panini in the morning, the smell of bread is something that really sets me off. It doesn’t really make any sense if I stop and think about it, as I’m never going to sit down and just eat a plain piece of bread.
It’s really just a vehicle to get things to my mouth. It makes me rethink sandwiches and wraps (I wouldn’t enjoy eating a plain flour tortilla wrap either) and how I should find healthier substitutions after the Whole30 if I honestly don’t really want to eat them in the first place.
For dinner I made meatless chili and copied my own chilli recipe but left out the chocolate, beer, beans and sweetcorn, and added some finely chopped mushrooms.
I served it with some mashed cauliflower (it’s the only thing that frozen cauliflower is any good for really), chopped avocado and chopped spring onions. Very filling.
Hubby was watching some cooking program set in south-east Asia where very slim people were chortling over their bowls of rice and noodles. Insanely mildly jealous.
Week two done and dusted!
- Easy Papas Arrugadas (Canarian Wrinkled Potatoes)
- Easy Rigatoni al Forno
- Quick Pasta Alla Gorgonzola
- Easy Vegetarian Sushi
- Easy Mushroom Zucchini Pasta