The Whole 30 - An Overview

This week I am going to start my first ever round of the Whole 30.  The Whole 30 is basically 30 days of whole foods -- a brief stint of super strict Paleo.  But more specifically, the program eliminates foods that can often cause issues with people's health.  After eliminating the foods for 30 days, you slowly add the eliminated foods back in to see how you feel and determine which foods your body might react negatively to.

I just ended a sentence with a preposition.  Oops.

Since the Whole 30 is a specific (short-term) program, it does come with RULES.  *gasp*  When I hear the word "rules" I automatically start to think of ways I can break them.  Here are the rules:

(1) no added sugar or artificial sweeteners
(2) no alcohol
(3) no grains
(4) no legumes
(5) no dairy

Since I've been eating a Paleo/Primal template for the last few years, and I hate the taste of alcohol, numbers 2, 3, & 4 will be easy peasy for me.  Numbers 1 and 5, however... will be... challenging.  Especially considering I just bought a giant block of delicious extra sharpe cheddar.  I was totally not thinking ahead when I bought that...

So this weekend, I purged the cabinets of all chocolate.  And by "purge the cabinets," I mean ate chocolate chips until they disgusted me, and then threw the remainder away before I started craving them again.  Viciuos cycle, isn't it?  Blood sugar... what goes up, must come down!

Sadness.  Bye bye, chocolate chips.

Now, I have never had the urge to do a Whole 30 before.    A few years ago when the book first came out, everyone was doing it.  I never jumped on the bandwagon though because quite frankly, I'm not a fan of challenges.  External challenges... someone else's goals and rules... do not motivate me at all.  I have to be motivated internally, by my own desire to do something or achieve a goal.  In other words, if someone else dangles a carrot on a stick for me, I could care less about pursuing that carrot.  I have to dangle my own carrot.  Hmmm.  That's a weird phrase.  Now I'm picturing a carrot on the end of a fishing pole with a bunny rabbit holding the fishing pole.  Cute!

This is me with my carrot-dangling apparatus.

I don't typically like challenges for a few reasons.  First, my personality is naturally rebellious.  If someone tells me to do something or gives me a suggestion/advice, my immediate gut reaction is to do the opposite. Oh.  That's exactly what my 4 year old does.  I guess it's genetic.  This has gotten me into a lot of trouble.  And I have had to learn most life lessons the hard way because of it.  I feel like as I get older, I can force myself to be more open-minded and take others' advice.  But it is something I have to consciously force myself to do.  So needless to say, anytime I see an eating plan with hard and fast RULES... I turn away from it.

Another reason I dislike challenges is because they seem to be temporary in nature.  Though I love that so many people have done the Whole 30 and therefore have been exposed to eating real unprocessed foods... I fear that many times people view it as a 30 day experiment, after which they go back to their old way of eating.  With the Whole 30, it is designed to be a temporary thing.  The authors don't expect anyone to eat this was exclusively for the rest of their lives.  But I think their goal is that people adopt a long term healthy relationship with food, rather than treat the Whole 30 like a DIET that they "do" for a month and then forget about.  The authors want us to learn how foods affect us and how GREAT we can feel when we only eat foods that our bodies process well.

So I am excited to start tomorrow.  The last 2 months, I have had sugar every day except for 1 week when I did a mini sugar detox.  Mostly little handfulls of chocolate chips throughout the day.

By the way -- what is the plural of handfull? Is it handfulls?  Or is it hands full, like how culs-de-sac is the plural of cul-de-sac??

The Whole 30 book has tons of recipes and meal planning tips and tricks.  Meal planning is a weak point for me.  Well actually, meal planning is awesome and I'm great at it becuase I'm super Type A and LOVE to formulate plans.  Following through on the plan... that's another story.

So I'm starting with no meal plan for this week, just winging it!  I have some shredded chicken in the fridge.  Tons of fresh eggs.  Some fruit and veggies.  That's about it.

Hopefully I will post every day what I ate that day, how I felt, etc.