So the new year is a good time to hit the reset button health wise. After the overindulgence of Christmas and vacation, it seemed like the appropriate thing to do. Plus I’m not getting any younger. It was a classic “seemed like a good idea at the time” type of thing. Honestly, I was really curious to try it, and happy to do it along with my wife.
Turns out that when you’re trying to do Whole30 while in Southeast Asia, there’s not a ton of pre-packaged options. I can’t just have Amazon deliver any one of a thousand Whole30-approved items to my door. In Southeast Asia it is assumed that every meal should include white rice (not allowed), most meals include soy-based products (not allowed) and sugar (not allowed) is ubiquitous. MSG is everywhere (also not allowed).
But here are the benefits of Whole30 in Southeast Asia:
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People here think I’m weird already, so eating weird food is just par for the course.
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Eggs are extremely cheap
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Fruit is fresh and also cheap, including:
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Bananas
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Mango
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Lychee
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Pineapple
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Avocados (did you know that avocados are a fruit??? I certainly didn’t.)
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Dates
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Strawberries
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Dried, unsweetened fruit is also cheap
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Raw Nuts are relatively cheap and available
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Hot Weather makes sweet coffee-based drinks unappealing, even in January
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The lack of availability of processed snack food that tempts my western palette is definitely an advantage.
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The taxes on imported unhealthy food makes it much less attractive.
Also the fact that my wife makes a lot of our food from scratch really helps a ton. Home-made almond butter is amazing on bananas (my standard breakfast at this point). Home-made salad dressings. Home-made chicken sausage – also incredible. Home-made energy balls (dates + ground nuts). Tons of scrambles, lots of almonds, walnuts, cashews. Chia pudding. Also, the presence of big online retailers like Tokopedia make finding specialty items a lot easier than it would have been even five years ago.
At this point I’m at about day 23 of 30. And to be honest, Whole30 hasn’t changed my life. I thought I’d lose a ton of weight, but I’ve been pretty stable, especially after adding in more avocados. Cauliflower has become my rice replacement. I’ve seriously eaten more cauliflower in the last three weeks then in my entire life before now. I do feel like I have more energy, and that was a big part of why I wanted to try this diet. Pulling long, meeting-intensive days and keeping a consistent level of energy is really important to me, and the diet has really seemed to help with that.
The other thing is that going on Whole30 has made me way more aware of how many treats I was eating normally. Living near a great bakery is not always a good thing, nor is living within walking distance of a half-dozen coffee shops. To be honest, I’ve got a New York-style Cheesecake waiting for me at the end of the month. No, I’m not eating the whole thing, but I do like the fact that special foods actually seem special at this point. Make you appreciate them a whole lot more.