Thursday, April 14, 2016

Whole30 is COMPLETE!

Today is officially day 31 of our Whole30. We made it! You know what? It wasn't difficult at all. Honestly, once we settled into our routine for daily meals and knew our boundaries, had familiarized ourselves with compliant foods and non-compliant foods...things just happened naturally. We tried out some great new recipes over the past month, which will stay in our normal routine of dinners that we eat. We didn't spend hardly any money on eating out, with the exception of 2 dinners out to Chipotle (salad, carnitas, salsa and guacamole for the win!), and we survived and will in fact KEEP GOING.

So I'm sure you want stats:
Weight loss: 
  Nick thinks he remembers what he weighed the night before we began (why didn't I write it down??), so if his memory is correct then he lost 17 pounds this month. But since he weighed himself that night before we started, and then first thing this morning, I'd say he probably lost more like 13/14 pounds. Either way, he lost a bunch and is pleased.
  I lost 8 pounds in the 30 days, but lost 13 since I began easing myself into Whole30. I started making changes a couple of weeks before our actual start date, because I can't just go cold turkey, so I'm counting those too because I can.
Inches lost: 
  Nick measures to have lost 2.45" overall.
  I lost 4" overall.

Yes we took photos....but I'm not ready to share that yet. I need a bigger change from my before to after before I splatter my picture in a hot pink spandex workout tank top that is way too tight for me at the moment on the internet. So there.

Other important and noteworthy observations:
1- We are both sleeping great. I fall asleep much easier, I stay asleep, and I wake up very rested with the exception of the nights that I don't get my butt in bed in time. (I'm looking at you, 11:00 pm) I am not tired during the day, and my energy level stays very even. I never feel any kind of crash or lag in energy at any point.

2- My allergies have disappeared. Let me repeat that for those of you who live through spring allergies in Texas: MINE HAVE DISAPPEARED. I was a 1-2 Zyrtec a day chic who still had to sneeze multiple times a day. The most that happens now is the occasion drip from my left nostril, which isn't daily and has been random. I got sneezy when we were moving around some dusty stuff at work the other day, but that's it. Do you know how huge this is for me??? Spring allergies and I have never been friends. I'm kind of baffled that this was somehow related to food. I read in the book that it would happen, but I didn't really believe it. Nick has stopped relying on Dayquil so much. He used to always have to have some with him to get through the day. I haven't purchased any in over a month. He's also completely off of Prilosec, which I made him do anyway since it's killing him slowly.

3- Unhealthy food grosses me out. The thought of eating something noncompliant makes me curl up my nose at the moment. A friend posted a picture of a very large slice of pizza from her recent trip to NYC the other day, and I'm sure it was probably "delicious" or something, but just the photo of it made me kind of sick to my stomach. I'm not sure you could've paid me to eat a slice, and I love pizza. I haven't had a single craving, and in fact when people eat sweets around me I mostly feel sorry for them, rather than jealous of them. Now, I will admit that a couple of times over the last month I've had a whiff of chocolate here and there, and honestly just the smell of it was enough to satisfy whatever that trigger in my head was. So I didn't even feel the need to eat it. Weird? Perhaps. Effective? Definitely.

4- I totally judge shopping carts when I'm at the grocery store now. I can't help it. Because you have to read labels like a hawk on Whole30, I understand more what all is in the "Food" that we have available to us to eat and it's sickening. So I can't help but judge the choices people are making. I have to fight the urge to say something sometimes. I totally schooled 3 guys working at GNC the other day when I went to pick up some vitamins. One of them tried to get me to taste some sort of drink that helps you burn fat or something dumb like that and I picked up the bottle and read the ingredients. Sucralose? No thank you - and then proceeded to sing the praises of Whole30. I think they were glad I left.

5- I'm not stopping. Until the end of the month, Nick and I are sort of off-plan. As in, because we are going on a cruise in 9 days (YAY), we won't have as much control over what we eat so we are going to stick to W30 as best we can while traveling, and then as soon as we get back we have both decided we want to jump into round 2. We have 30+ years of bad habits to overcome, so 30 days isn't going to be enough. I have realistic fears about eating off plan, so I don't think I've conquered food yet. Just this morning I dreamed that I was eating oreos, peanut butter and chocolate chip crackers, and caramel candies while driving my car....which I drove off an overpass over a lake and jolted awake as soon as my car went over the edge. So yeah, I'm going to keep going. My hope is to be able to ease Kate into eating more like we do. She eats nothing but processed crap, and I don't want the issues I've had all my life for her. So it's our job to teach her better. This means a LOT of fighting about food in our future, I am sure, but she will either deal with it or starve. We will see which one it is.

6- For subsequent rounds, my plan is to learn to use more kinds of veggies. We stuck to stuff we were pretty much already accustomed to this round, and I want to start branching out a little bit. I also need to not rely so heavily on sweet potatoes, because I notice the bloat after eating them too much. So not every single day. Oh! Speaking of potatoes, I've discovered something: I don't really like white potatoes all that much anymore. I'll eat them, if I have to, but I'd rather have a sweet potato any day. Baked, roasted, steamed....give me coconut oil and some cinnamon - I'm set.

So there you go. My Whole30 in a nutshell. I know many people say this about Whole30, and you might kind of roll your eyes at it, but it's true - Whole30 will change your life. It's pretty darn amazing, actually.

Soapbox: You don't need colored drinks or expensive shakes or pills or low fat chemical laden JUNK to change your body. You need REAL FOOD. Read your labels. Sugar is everywhere. EVen artificial sugars are JUNK. Chemicals that you can't even identify you are willingly putting into your body. Stop it. If you want to change your body, you have to change what goes into it. Try a Whole30. Stop whining about not drinking your frothy coffees and bread and having your required daily diet coke or whatever...and do it. For 30 days. IT'S NOT HARD. Like they say in the book - fighting cancer is hard. Burying a loved one is hard. Eating vegetables and fruits and proteins and healthy fats IS NOT HARD. This is coming from a girl who didn't touch vegetables for over 20 years of her life, seriously. You can do it. You don't even have to count calories or fat or points or carbs or weigh or measure or even WORRY ABOUT NUMBERS for 30 days. You know what, if in 30 days nothing has changed, then go back to eating your chemicals. But I PROMISE you, that won't be the case. Things will change and you will be amazed. Life changed. BOOM.

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