I had no problem waking up this morning, unlike yesterday when my body felt heavy and tired even after seven hours of sleep. Since the Whole30 program encourages you to eat before your work out, I opened up the fridge and took out my leftover half avocado. I looked at it. I put it back. I grabbed a handful of fresh blueberries and popped them in my mouth. I then went downstairs to the gym and started running on the treadmill – a light nine minutes a mile. I love to run, but not inside. At about mile 0.2 miles, I began thinking, “maybe I’ll quit now and do leg workouts instead.” But I persisted. 0.5 miles; finally half a mile. The numbers on the machine moved ever so slowly. At 0.82 miles I thought, “So close to a full mile. But then I’m only a third of the way to completing my workout.” I began to debate on whether to switch to something else at 1.5 miles. But I persisted. I looked outside at the bare trees and blue skies. I focused on my podcast. I was finished with my usual NPR’s Up First and New York Times’ The Daily, and I should have listened to my usual Marketplace Morning Report, but I allowed myself to enjoy a “fun” one, So Money with Farnoosh Torabi. Once I got past 2 miles, I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. A man who looked to be about my age took the treadmill next to me. I started to feel like he was competing with me. I couldn’t lose. I had to keep going. Unable to keep up with me, he had to stop for a quick break. Ha. But me? I persisted.

After my workout, I cooked a scrambled egg with different colored peppers, cut up half of an apple, and grabbed another handful of blueberries. I knew I should be having more protein, but my body wanted fruits, so I let it have what it wanted. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. There’s so much to choose from – eggs in all shapes and forms, waffles, bagels, French toast. And brunch. I love Sunday brunch. It’s a time to eat what you want, and spend time with good friends over coffee and mimosas. As I write this I realize that I need to stay away from many of these foods through my Whole30 diet. But I’ll survive. Too bad we can’t use our new amazing Balmuda toaster for a while.

Work started off fine. I’m usually less stressed out, well, maybe half checked out, on Fridays since the weekend is so close. When lunch came around, I pulled out leftovers from last night’s dinner, and added half an avocado and a banana to my meal. This time, I actually wanted my banana. I wasn’t quite full and contemplated taking out a piece of frozen salmon from the freezer, but it seemed like too much work.

Just before 4 o’clock in the afternoon, I hopped off my last work call of the day, and wandered into the kitchen. I opened up the food pantry. “I don’t open this as much anymore,” I thought to myself. Now, trips to the fridge were more frequent, as opposed to those times when I would grab cookies or crackers from the food pantry. I took out a bag of walnuts and cashews and put a few pieces into a small bowl. Halfway through eating them, I felt full, but I felt like I had to finish them because I had taken them out. Next time, I’ll take out fewer pieces.

For dinner, my husband and I made the day 2 meal from the 7-day meal plan in the Whole30 book. While we roasted a potato and a sweet potato in the oven, we made our red pepper mayonnaise and green cabbage slaw. The red pepper mayonnaise is a combination of roasted red pepper sauce and basic mayonnaise. The former turned out fine, but the latter didn’t quite turn into mayo and looked more like goo. We weren’t sure what to do with this combined sauce since it didn’t really say in the book, so we put in on our slaw, which turned out to be quite tasty. The chicken turned out fine as well.

I was in a great mood today. I felt happy. I felt positive. I felt stable. I felt calm. Was it because I worked out this morning? Was it because I got some good sunlight walking to the store? Was it because of my Whole30 diet? Or was it because it was Friday!? It could have been any of these things, if not a combination. But I suspect the last one is most likely.

I’m looking forward to planning and prepping our meals this weekend. My husband ended up not eating much throughout the day and just eating nuts at the office for lunch. Hopefully, next week, we’ll have food prepared and ready to go, and he won’t forget to bring it in.

Have a good weekend.