Lot 10 Linden Grove: Incomplete 1

With every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Not sure the science (or geometry, chemistry or engineering, maybe) of this, but I’m pretty sure Joe does. So in case you want to ask about it further, he’s your go-to Schuster.

What I do know, is that with my following actions, there has been a very equal and opposite reaction.

Action: Two business/personal trips in the past 2+ weeks.
Reaction: No blogging during that same time.

Action: Whole 30 for 30 days.
Reaction: “Incomplete 1” (my term for whatever the opposite of a Whole 30 is) for a day. Or, given my travel schedule, a lot more than just one day.

With that preface, here’s a quick post to bring closure to my Whole 30, or more specifically, going off of it after 30 days of being on it.

Again, I was on the Whole 30 for the month of April. It was great. By the end I was very much looking forward to getting of it. I wanted some DQ, dammit.

And so, on day 31, my first day off the Whole 30, I flew out for a 7 day business trip, which I knew would completely shatter whatever good I’d done for myself the 30 days prior. But before I flew out, Joe and I had a celebratory breakfast out where we got….eggs. Plus some cornmeal pancakes. Neither of us could bring ourselves to completely binge on pancakes, French toast, etc, and decided to stick a little closer to some Whole 30 approved eggs, meat and veggies.

And then, a few hours later, I landed in Texas and didn’t look back. Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the amount of food I can apparently eat in one sitting, in one day, in one week.

For even more contrast to my Whole 30, I was in Texas to ensure our Hamburger Helper Food Truck got up and running and sampling. In addition to eating my way through Texas BBQ, gobs of Tex-Mex and larger.than.frickin.life Texas Steak House filets and red wine, I ate a whole lot of Helper. Every day.

And I almost immediately felt the negative effects of all the things I’d avoided for a month. Through a piercing headache following our first night out (which included a few glasses of wine), I texted Joe letting him know I was going back on a Whole 30 when I got back home. I got a reciprocal note from Joe.

So I ate everything I wanted to in Texas, including a full-size drunken nut pecan pie that I split with my colleague over the course of a couple days.

Once home I hopped back on a mostly Whole 30 diet for a week until heading to Chicago… Too much good food to ignore in Chicago (more on mine and Joe’s fun weekend get-a-way, including eating our way through the Windy City, in my next post), so I ate whatever I wanted there, too.

But now I’m done traveling for a bit and am sticking closer to Whole 30 eating again for the next month. I'm the type of person that needs boundaries defined because my slippery slope towards chocolate and cheese and cookies is more of an avalanche with no recovery. For my health's sake, I'll try to stick mostly to Whole 30. But for my sanity and celebration's sake, I'll be devouring a lot of Incomplete 1 when we head out to camp next weekend, as well as for some other special treats.

Check out what my Incomplete 1 meals look like:

Where there is air travel, there are little bottles of liquor. The credit card machine on board wasn't working, so I kindly asked if I could use the only $8 I had to get two Jack's (that were listed at $6 each). Our kind flight attendant brought myself and my colleague two bottles each. She knew we were celebrating the end of a long, successful business trip.