I’ll be honest. I cheated. It happened on Day 11. We took my dad to P.F. Chang’s for his birthday. Now, I should have known better than to try and eat at Chang’s in the middle of a Whole30. I used to work there. I know what’s in the food: no MSG, but a crap ton of salt and sugar. The marinades for all the meats contain corn starch. There was just no way to eat clean. I ended up eating half an order of steamed veggies with a scoop each of Kung Pao Shrimp and Beef a la Sichuan. That doesn’t sound too bad right? Well then, I really screwed up. You see, I figured since I was blowing it anyway, I’d just enjoy myself a little (and by a little, I mean 2 glasses of white wine and 2 banana spring rolls with coconut ice cream for dessert). It wasn’t my most brilliant idea. I awoke the next morning looking puffy and swollen, kind of the the Michelin Man going into anaphylactic shock. It wasn’t pretty. Plus, I had a horrible stomach ache. I spent the majority of the day in a listless daze. It was horrible.
Because I felt so crappy that morning, we decided to go to night church. We ate super clean all day, and the yucky tummy feeling went away. After church, we were starving and decided to try out BRC, a gourmet comfort food joint in the Heights. As we perused the menu, we quickly realized that avoiding another cheat would prove futile. Actually, that’s a lie considering they had Billy’s Paleo #3 on the menu, a bison burger in a lettuce wrap with a special paleo sauce, which is what we should’ve ordered. Instead, we ordered the Dixie Fried Chicken & Biscuits with American cheese, fries, cream gravy, and bacon jam (yes, I said bacon jam). At least we ordered a side of sauteed spinach 🙂 I’m not gonna lie, it was the most epic cheat meal of all cheat meals. The bacon jelly was a glorious combination of savory and sweet, and the biscuits tasted like they came out of Paula Deen’s kitchen. It was heaven in my mouth.
I dealt with copious amounts of guilt over those two cheat meals, one right after the other. I learned a long time ago that the key to assuaging guilt is confession. So, this is my confession: I cheated. To my athletes that are participating in the challenge, I’m sorry I let you down. Please don’t use my bad behavior as an excuse to have your own epic fail. I’ve been perfectly faithful to eating clean ever since and intend to stay faithful for the duration of the challenge. I’m proud of all of you and how hard you’ve been working these last couple of weeks. There are less than two weeks to go; so keep it up and finish strong! You’ll be so proud of yourselves when this is over 🙂
Liani Oistad Fitness 