Yep, I had the exact same setup.
Honestly, though, the new 4-in-one improvement is so much more enjoyable that I find myself doing 4 or even 6 rounds and being happy about it
Sure there's pet food to consider, but so far it's been sustainable and really one option is to do the first 6-9 provinces twice without even using a petfood.
Give it a try next week, go for provinces 1-6 twice without any pet food, then the next day use a petfood for 1-20 a couple times.
Those 6 provinces takes under a minute. Compared to the ONE HUNDRED consecutive battles we used to do it's not even a blip.
It's literally faster than doing your fellowship visits