Caribbean Whole30 Week Two

Here we are. We made it through the first week of this Whole30 journey. I am glad you are here and doing this with me. I received the sweetest note from a follower this week. She said, “I never thought that I would get back on track until I started thinking about doing the Caribbean Whole30. Plus you have so many of us doing it that it’s a community (heart emoji).” Thank you all for following along and trying some of the recipes. If you can take away one thing from this journey, I want you to see that Guyanese and Caribbean food can be healthy, some without tweaking the recipes and some with little tweaks.

Week one is in the bag. Check.

I hope your first week was not too terrible. It is hard coming off of sugar, even if you ate relatively healthy. My week was not too bad. I think it’s because all of the foods I ate were not “diet” foods. They were familiar foods. Foods that I am emotionally connected to. They were delicious and all compliant.

Whole30 and My Husband

My husband had a great week too. His whole30 often looks really different from mine. He has a high metabolism and a really active job. He works really long hours and during previous whole30s found that three meals a day were not working from him. Also he is a habitual smoothie drinker and wanted to still have smoothies as part of his whole30. I didn’t fight him on this. I wanted him to do the whole30 with me and chose my battles. So I made him “compliant” smoothies. Loaded with avocado, compliant nut milks, powdered almonds, a little bit of fruits and kale or spinach. I forced him to eat a boil egg or two along with his smoothie.

Table of Contents[Show All]

Week one is in the bag. Check.
Whole30 and My Husband
Week 1 Day 1
Week Two Menu and Shopping List:
Want More Caribbean Whole30 Recipes? Click here for the full list.

Week 1 Day 1

We we were set. Well after the first day he decided he didn’t need the smoothies anymore. I made the porridge pictured above and when paired with The Plantain and Chicken Hash he was not hungry until lunch. His lunches were hearty left over food from dinner and included lots of healthy fat and he was able to make it to dinner. He was shocked. “I don’t need the smoothies,” he said on day two. “The food I’m eating is enough. I don’t think I’ve ever been this full doing a whole30.”

I have never been happier. He later said he didn’t get any headaches during this first round either. Headaches are notorious during this initial detox/reset phase. I’ve suffered with migraines my entire life. They are under control now and I am off of all migraine medications because I figured out that my migraine triggers are foods! Particularly chocolate and gluten and some non gluten grains. So I am always super aware when I start getting headaches. No headaches this time around for me either. Which is a plus plus. So on to week two!

Week Two Menu and Shopping List:

This week I am shifting how we look at meals. Instead of saying breakfast, lunch and dinner we are going to start saying meal 1, 2 and 3. I know this is hard. We’ve been saying breakfast, lunch and dinner all of our lives. Saying meal 1, 2, 3 gets you out of thinking about breakfast type foods for only breakfast time, lunch time type meals for only lunch etc. This frees you up in the kitchen and suddenly eating a piece of chicken with some vegetables as your meal 1 doesn’t seem so strange for you. So I’ll share ideas for meal 1, 2 and 3 and really you can eat them at any time of day you like. You can find the full menu and shopping list for week two here.

This week I am going to prepare a large casserole and have that all week. Whenever I like. Here’s a casserole from PaleOMG I’ve made and love:

I’ll pair my casserole with some Plantain and Sweet Potato Porridge.

I’ll also eat tons of leftovers this week. All of the recipes I’m sharing for this Caribbean Whole30 are large enough for 2 meals for a family of 4. Adjust the ingredient amounts as needed depending on how much you eat.

For week two I’m going to make 4 to 5 dishes that we will eat all week. Here are the recipes I am trying. I may also repeat some things from week one because everything was so yummy.