And just like that…I was done! I first heard of Whole30® a couple of years ago… it’s that 30-day guide to food freedom by Melissa Hartwig and Dallas Hartwig. Its tough love approach to transforming your relationship with food and ultimately your life, I have to admit terrified me a little.
I thought only hardcore raw foodies or vegans would enjoy that kind of dietary restriction. After all, I had lost 100 pounds on my own through sheer determination and discovering the truths about real food, nutrition, and lifestyle. So, I dismissed it.
Fast forward to several months ago, while talking with one of our Daily Superfood Love team members she told me that she did the Whole30 program and loved it. I asked her how she felt after completing it and she said, “It completely transformed my relationship with food.”
Then three months ago, my personal trainer announced she was on the Whole 30 program. Later that weekend I was at a cocktail party, when wine was served one politely refused. She mentioned that along with her husband they were in the middle of a Whole 30.
The next week I had lunch with a friend and I casually mentioned I was thinking about doing Whole 30 and she startled me with the admission she had done two rounds of Whole 30 and lost 17lbs.
Sometimes You Need A BIG Change
This past year was tough – I lost a loved one in death. I found myself depressed. Even if you have a deep knowledge of food, nutrition, and healthy habits – because coping with the grief was so difficult, I slipped into a nightly wine ritual and gained back 15 pounds.
Normally my diet consists of healthy fats, meats, veggies, and very few starches. I’ve known for a very long time that my triggers were wine, sweets, and cheese. Even though I usually limited these to treats – they began to make one too many appearances on my plate.
I needed a breakthrough that would get me back on track not just, in terms of what I ate but in every aspect of my life. Working on Daily Superfood Love enables me to have backstage access to the latest diets, supplements, and wellness programs.
Everywhere I turned someone I knew was on a “Whole 30,” the final straw came when I remarked to my personal trainer that I just needed a reset. She said, “Then just give Whole 30 a try. You can do it.” So simple, yet so profound. You. Can. Do. It.
I decided try Whole 30, because much of support system had already done it. After all it’s only 30 days. You can wear the same yoga pants for 30 days. You may get some strange looks, but you get the idea. I convinced another member of our team to do the 30-day program with me…and from there it was time for a fresh start.
I began to read everything I could get my hands on about the Whole 30 program, the lifestyle, how it’s explicitly NOT A DIET or a weight loss program, but a challenge to yourself to really change your habits in 30 days.
True health isn’t just about training hard, or demonizing potatoes. It’s not about the latest exercise program to create a sculpted six-pack. It’s about whether you have the stamina to play with your children, walk for more than five minutes, or feel vibrant and energized when you get out of bed each morning.
The Idea and Spirit of the Whole 30 Program
Whole 30 is a tool that you can add to your healthcare arsenal.
The basic guidelines to Whole 30 are eat meat, eggs, seafood, vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats, at Daily Superfood Love we agree 100%. EAT REAL FOOD.
Whole 30 takes it a step further in their guidelines – there’s no sugar, alcohol, grains, legumes, or dairy allowed. This means no wheat, rice, corn, soy, or pseudo-grains like quinoa or amaranth.
Stick to three meals a day, no baked goods, or desserts – no “paleo muffins, cookies, cakes, or treats.” Don’t try to make an egg and banana pancake, because it’s still a pancake. Don’t give me that look. These aren’t my rules. Don’t weigh or measure yourself during your Whole 30. Remember, it’s not a diet.
It’s much more than just what you can’t eat. The temporary shunning of all of your favorite foods, no bread, wine, or cake – makes you rethink all of your social interactions. How will you go out to dinner? How will meet a friend for coffee, how will you celebrate with your family?
These questions may seem like no-brainers, but until you actually do a Whole 30 and realize if you didn’t make it you probably can’t eat it…these simple questions are actually downright scary.
How Hard Is Whole 30?
When discovering Whole 30 for myself, I was astounded at the community – the sheer amount of interaction and response on everything from eating out to making whole 30 mayo.
I stayed up in the wee hours looking at Pinterest, I googled whole 30 before and after’s, and the transformations were incredible. Even though it’s clearly not a diet, people were losing massive amounts of weight eating the Whole 30 way. So how hard is it?
I’m here to tell you it’s hard. Seriously, this is no joke. In order to successfully complete a Whole 30, you need to plan, plan some more, and then make a back-up plan.
For me that involved getting a grip on my feelings. I was afraid that I would be deprived and old habits like binging that I worked so hard to overcome would creep back up.
Then I felt annoyed and indignant, like do I really have to give up wine? What about a square of artisan handmade dark chocolate – why can’t I eat that on this program? I lost weight my way, why can’t I do this my way? The simple answer to that question was because it’s not your plan.
Whole 30 works because in order to do the program you simply must follow the Whole 30 rules. If you don’t then you have to restart day one all over again. It doesn’t matter if you are on Day 29, one bite of an unapproved food and you’re out. It’s like Groundhog’s Day the movie, but not in a good funny way.
As you embark on your Whole 30 journey, by week two you may start to see junk food everywhere. I did! It was ridiculous! One night I dreamt I was eating a dozen Cadbury crème eggs. I don’t even like them! The next night I dreamt I ate an entire bag of tortilla chips with a chaser of shredded cheese and tequila.
The junk foods that we’ve eaten are so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that they come out and taunt you in the form of dreams or semi-hallucinogenic thoughts.
One of my friends on Whole 30 told me she swore that her daughter’s animal crackers were teasing her, “Eat me! Eat me!”
Can Whole 30 Work In Your Real Life?
The Whole30 timeline accurately tells you, how you will feel while doing the program and they are right. On day one, I felt smug and uber-confident, by day 5 I just wanted to murder everyone and then go to bed at 5PM.
The first week you’ll feel you got hit by a truck, doing a simple workout had me in tears. I slept a lot, like 10 hours a night.
You may not be able to work out like a beast the first couple of weeks, but understand that your body is detoxing. It’s getting rid of the wallpaper paste of sugar and flour that we usually eat too much of and finally learning how use fat for fuel instead of sugar.
Your social life will suffer at first. Sure, it’s easy to have a mocktail, but when one of your favorite activities revolves around sitting on a couch with wine, you are going to have to change your actions if you want to be successful.
Saying goodbye to stinky delicious cheese for 30 days was one of the hardest things, I personally had to do. I have a big time love affair with cheese.
Then there’s the enormous amount of cooking and prep involved. I love to cook but at halfway point, I seriously had a meltdown and considered throwing myself on the floor as my 2-year-old niece does when she’s having a tantrum. You will cook. A lot. You will use every pot and pan you own twice. Just be prepared for it.
My personal trainer who has 3 children did epic meal preps on Sunday to get ready for the week on her Whole 30 journey. I did the same. Cook, clean-up, and then cook again. Your body will thank you for it. Don’t be lazy, eat a bag of nuts, and call it a day. That’s not giving it your all.
The first week is the hardest.
How to Survive Your First Week of Whole 30
You will survive it! The terrible food dreams will pass and you will start to feel better. As the days roll into weeks, you will turn a corner start to feel your mojo coming back.
You’ll stand taller, you’ll have more energy, your eyes will be brighter – you’ll even start to remember little details and find your attention span increasing.
Here’s a quick Whole 30 cheat sheet of how to survive your first week:
– Before you begin, measure and weigh yourself, for your own recordkeeping. I weighed myself but forgot to measure. You will notice that your body composition will change, which is why I recommend measuring yourself. Use a pair of jeans or a dress that’s a bit too tight and see how fits on day one and then the difference on day 30.
– Plan your Whole 30, when your social and work calendar are clear; don’t go on vacation, move, plan huge projects, or do it during the holidays when you know you will be celebrating with family and friends. Don’t make this harder on yourself.
– Plan all your meals. Click on our recipe section for inspiration. We have plenty of Whole 30 friendly recipes and ones that will work with minor tweaks. You need to plan head to succeed.
– Make a grocery list and check it twice. Shop the edges of your grocery store; get fresh produce, eggs, meat, and seafood.
– Think of your meal as components and interchange them: protein + vegetable + starchy vegetable. Roast 5 sweet potatoes for the week, chop lettuce or use spring mix lettuce with cherry tomatoes, roast two pans of vegetables, cook a pork loin, make a meatloaf, and bake several fish fillets. Then just swap them around depending on what you feel like eating that day:
Protein
Vegetable
Vegetable
Eggs or Chicken sausage
Roasted peppers & onions
Sweet potatoes
Broiled salmon
Green beans with garlic, almonds and raisins
Roasted tomatoes
Steak or braised beef
Mashed cauliflower
Sautéed spinach & caramelized onions
Meatballs (grass-fed beef)
Homemade marinara sauce & Spaghetti squash or zucchini noodles “zoodles”
Roasted or sautéed mushrooms
Roasted chicken
Broccoli
Roasted root vegetables (parsnips, carrots, rutabagas)
Broiled Fish
Homemade guacamole, salsa, and chopped jicama
Grilled romaine or salad
– Make an emergency meal for those crazy days. Mine was a frittata. I made a huge frittata with peppers, onions, spinach, mushrooms, and chicken sausage. That kept in the fridge for several days. If I forgot to cook, I just cut a big wedge of it and chopped up some avocado and breakfast, lunch, or dinner was served.
– Buy seltzer, sparkling water, or club soda. If you have a nightly wine ritual, use your fancy wine glass, replace the wine with seltzer, and throw in some fruit. Sip it slowly and you will get that familiar unwinding feeling that you desire without the alcohol.
– You will need a lot of sleep, plan on going to bed by 10PM at the latest every night. Trust me, you’ll be asleep before your head hits the pillow.
– View it as an elimination food plan. Don’t focus on what you can’t have. Focus on the positives. Think about all the delicious whole foods that you will get to eat. You can blissfully eat a flatiron steak, with mushrooms and spinach sautéed in ghee and side of roasted sweet potatoes. Does that sound like dieter’s hell? Sounds, delicious to me.
– Remember this isn’t a diet. Yes, there are guidelines, but eat until you are satisfied and don’t count calories.
If you’ve been eating refined foods, or tons of “healthy grains” and diary, you probably have inflammation, problems with your gut, and other health conditions that have been exacerbated for the past 20, 30, or 50 years or more…do you think that 30 days is going to heal you?
You Do the Work You Reap the Rewards
It’s not a miracle, but what Whole 30 will do for you is dramatically change your thinking around what you put on your plate, how you feel about food, and help your body start to rebuild itself from the years of damaging food eaten.
I was always food-conscious and I’ve had a long complex and mainly destructive relationship with food from since I was six-years old. For my relationship with food to transform over the years, I had to stop my negative self-talk. I had to silence the negative chatter and body-image hate I inflicted on myself.
I had to tell myself that the cake, the wine, the chocolate, the cheese, would still be there at the end of the 30 days. Only if I wanted to eat it. Only if I chose to eat it.
You see, you can’t just blindly treat your body like a garbage pail, throwing everything it in and expecting it to function at its best. At some point disease, illness, or both will occur – because you haven’t been showing your body the only vessel you have on this earth to accomplish your dreams the kindness and concern you show for your car.
My Whole 30 Results
I strive to live what I preach. I believe that diet is the key to your changing your health and your life. I also know that I’m far from perfect, as I’m sure you are too. I will still drink wine and eat chocolate.
The remarkable thing about Whole 30 is that no matter how much you think you know about food, diet, wellness, and nutrition – you can always learn more.
If you are willing to open your mind, you’ll find the transformational possibilities you can achieve are endless. You can do anything you set your mind to do.
What I loved about my Whole 30 results – is even though it’s not a diet your body changes. I lost 16 lbs., I feel amazing, and my constant anxiety has virtually disappeared. After a lifelong struggle and even losing an enormous amount of weight, I’ve finally won my battle with sugar.
I can confidently say, that I don’t turn to a piece of chocolate or a glass of wine for comfort. I still want wine, but it’s because I enjoy it not that I need it to relax or calm down.
I don’t need coffee to wake up in the morning. When I wake up I’m fully awake. During the day, I may have an espresso or nice cup of hot tea. But, I no longer drink four cups of coffee loaded with half and half. The mid-afternoon slump and brain fog are gone.
I’ve created several new routines that have taken my productivity and my business to the new heights. I act harmoniously with my thoughts and actions and the inner dialogue, conflict, shame, and guilt of “I can’t eat that…I really want a croissant…no don’t eat this”, is gone.
Of course, I’ll treat myself if it’s a special occasion or if I want a perfect pistachio macaroon I’ll eat it. But, I won’t beat myself up about it for the next several days.
I hope that this up close and personal look at my journey helps inspire you to try something new in taking care of your precious health and wellness.
If you aren’t feeling your best in body, mind, or spirit I encourage you to become a part of the Daily Superfood Love community for free and take the first step to total body wellness starting today.
The post My Whole 30 Results & Challenge appeared first on Daily Superfood Love.