I’ve been meaning to write a review of my experience with the Whole30 and my thoughts about it for a little over a month (ha, make that 2), and simply haven’t been able to do it for one reason or another. Actually, I’ve been noshing on large loaves of Italian bread while lounging in pillows of mozzarella cheese as powdered sugar is blown lovingly towards my only slightly rotund body while I sip from vats of freshly opened Old Vine Zin and dip my bread into large bowls of mashed beans… Sorry. #Priorities. I’ve finally arisen from my carb ridden stupor, shaken off the coating of sugar and I’m ready to make an honest assessment of having given all of this yumminess up for the last 30 days.
Will my answers surprise you? Quite possibly.
Will you want to try it for yourself? I sure hope so.
Will you walk away a changed human? Maybe so – I think I did.
For my friends on Facebook I’m sure you got an earful, or should I say “eyeful,” of the multitude of posts I published on an almost daily basis showing 
my progress, meal pics, emotions, thoughts and excitement with the experience. And it was probably quite the range, now that I think about it. I certainly had my good days and bad. I veered from being extremely joyous and proud, to throwing in the towel on an important, and crucial part of my beloved diet, to drunkenly flirting with being kicked off some of the Whole30 forums I had joined as I toyed with the idea of pissing everyone off while loudly and viciously preaching about how the rules were stupid and petty and people had taken it way too far. Now, looking back, I think my “Kill all the Things” days simply got delayed a bit more than the 5 day mark, as predicted. 
But I thought I’d share more publicly in what I hope becomes a semi-signature style of providing a list, of sorts, of the lessons I learned and some random thoughts that occurred to me during this time. Please note: I am not a dietician, though I wish I was. I am not a nutritionist, though I play one on TV. But I do this and share because I love this stuff. Really. And I have spent way too much time reading, thinking, researching and experiencing this stuff to keep it all to myself. So… Enjoy! I hope…
Before I discuss my thoughts on Whole30, I should explain how I got here (the nutshell version, I promise, and not a peanut shell – it’s a legume, you know and they aren’t allowed!). So here goes: I had a baby and I got old and I got fat. I’d like to believe there’s a lot more to it than that, and I’m sure there is. And sure, I ate rotisserie chicken for lunch at work one day, almost the whole thing, while I was prego. And if my boyfriend was sitting here he’d say, “AND what about all those times when I called to find out what you wanted me to bring to dinner while you were pregnant, or after you had the baby, and you said ‘Pie’ about a dozen times?” And I would promptly say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
But here’s the rub (and not the yummy, bbq meat kind), I started exercising like no one’s business as soon as I could once that little baby was drooling all over us and we were cooing all over her. And I started running. A lot. And I started training for races, and then running races. 5ks, 10Ks, 15Ks, and then finally a half marathon. You see – having a baby made me kick cigarettes and after 20 years of lovingly smoking a pack a day, quitting gave me the lung capacity to run. To really and truly run! Maybe not super fast. Admittedly, I’m not an Olympian. Okay, I’m actually pretty slow. I kind of reluctantly post my running routes on Facebook because though my mileage is there for everyone to see, and I’m as proud as a kid who finally used the potty, so is my pace and that, my friends, is a very SAD thing to behold. I am friends with people who would probably lap me several times in the course of any given race. But I don’t care. I don’t have a need for speed.
What I cared about, what I needed, aside from the amazing rush that long runs can provide (which kick nicotine’s ass, by the way), and a little “me” time, was to see some of the weight start to drop off… After 9 months of pregnancy, and another year of being a first-time mom who works full time, I needed to feel like me again.
But running didn’t work… Guess how much weight I lost after pregnancy? 10 lbs. A freaking sack of potatoes. Yay me! My formerly lean-ish frame was gone. I was now CHUNKY. I tried almost everything I could but nothing seemed to work… But I ran on… and I started feeling pretty good. I tried to ignore the scale. And when I did get on it and I didn’t see the numbers I felt I had worked so hard for, I came up with good reasons for why it wasn’t. There were days I felt really sad and wanted to stop caring altogether… It was extremely discouraging! But thankfully I realized that whether my weight changed or not, I enjoyed running too much to just quit. It wasn’t just about weight. 
It was about where it brought me and what I saw and how I felt and the dozens of times I finished a long run and felt amazing…
And then it all came crashing down around me when I spied myself in a photo completing my 1/2 marathon – a moment I should have found myself beyond proud – my heart sank.
After all the training, and all the work that had brought me to that point and there I was – just as chunky as I was not a day after having Sky. And that sad and negative thought colored the pride and excitement and relief and accomplishment I had been working towards and hoping for… My weight and my appearance became my focus. What a waste!
And in a moment of weakness and dismay, I posted that frustration and sadness on Facebook and shortly got my answer. It was an answer I had been hoping for and it was an answer I had been avoiding for a very long time. 4 Dreaded Letters. They didn’t start with an “F” but they may as well have… and they didn’t start with an “L,” but maybe they should have…
DIET
You do realize the word “die” is contained within it. No wonder we hate this word. And how many of us would rather die than change the way we’re doing things… Why give up what little pleasure we might get from this life?
But I must admit. The answer had been there all along. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to hear it. But it was becoming abundantly clear. Weight loss would only come with a severe change to my diet. Exercise wasn’t going to do it, especially not with my slow runs. It was going to be what I ate that changed that pudgy profile. Damn IT!!!!!
Raising Sky
I don’t know about you but raising a toddler is like a joyful prance through heaven where rainbows and birds float about and glitter is always in the air and the sun makes you glow like a supermodel and each day is like a beautiful encounter with mermaids and fairies. Oh wait, I’m sorry, I must have had too many glasses of wine. Those rainbows are the markers that have left long lines on the wall and the birds are the marker caps that have flown off behind the couch and the glitter is the greasy food that’s been thrown into the air to hover ever so slowly in front of your face before it lands on your nose and cheeks leaving long grease stains on your cheeks to make them glow like greased piggies. And those mermaids and fairies are only in the stories you read over and over again even though it’s waaaay too late for bedtime on the end of yet another excruciatingly long day. And after you put that damn kid to bed you might have a minute to read a paragraph of your book before you’re drooling into your chest.
The part about reading that paragraph in bed? I made that up.
Okay fine. I love my sweet little crazy life, warts and all. And if you spend any time with me and my little rascal you’d see how much I love her from here to the sun and back which she now has memorized because I say it so much. She’s freakin’ adorable!!!!! But she’s still 3.
And when things get frustrating, and chaotic and busy and stress builds and you only have those 10 minutes at the end of the day, it’s pretty damn hard to eat well. I have a full time job, and not the “Mom” kind, and time is extremely limited for preparing good meals and snacks and such. And sometimes I just don’t have the energy or motivation or desire to do it. I think that’s what happens as a parent. We get complacent but not because we don’t really care or want to try but because life becomes about priorities and we simply don’t prioritize the way we should all the time. We make sure the kid is clean and fed and the house isn’t always a disaster. We drive the kid to school or daycare or Nonna’s and we get our ass to work so we can make a difference, or make a paycheck, or both, and then we prioritize family time. Eating and cooking right isn’t always at the top of that list…
And here’s the other thing about the difficulty with “trying to eat right and healthy…” And I’m going to look around me in this cute little coffee/wine shop before I type this to make sure no one sees me typing it…. Okay, clear. Here goes. Here’s a little secret about me… If you don’t spell it out for me in no uncertain way, I probably won’t get it. This stuff has to be black and white. There is no try. This is a COLD TURKEY situation. I need…. rules.
I know. Seriously, it’s kinda sick. But honestly, I don’t think I’m alone.
So, you’d think I’d like the idea of a DIET. Aren’t those a bunch of rules? But the older I get the more driven I am towards hard and fast rules. I’m thrown off by nuances or the possibility of nuances. Or the smallest sliver of a nuance or an option or an alternative. Here’s the other problem: There are SOOOOOOO many diets out there. It’s really hard to know what might be the best one to try, and frankly I feel like I’ve tried a bunch already. Atkins. South Beach. The Frozen-Lean-Cuisine-Daily diet. The Slim Fast (or Slim Slow) diet. The Fasting Diet (this was mostly in my head). The Skip-Every-Other-Meal diet. And if you haven’t heard of some of these, you don’t visit my brain too often do you? And it was easy to cheat or find ways to cheat and if potatoes are okay then I guess chips and fries are too, right?? They’re all potatoes. Yah, exactly. Some of these diets just aren’t clear enough or easy to follow. And frankly, some just don’t work. Oh and trust me, that pie diet was the worst.
And then came the Whole30. Like an army creeping up on the enemy in the wee hours of the morning. It was stealthy. I started hearing bits and pieces and whispers, and I think I might have accidentally eavesdropped on a conversation about it, and then suddenly I found myself in a conversation with someone who was doing it. And this is what she said, and I quote, “This is really hard.”
I say this in jest because here is one of the first things you hear in Whole30:
- This is not hard. Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. Beating cancer is hard. Birthing a baby is hard. Losing a parent is hard. Drinking your coffee black. Is. Not. Hard. You’ve done harder things than this, and you have no excuse not to complete the program as written. It’s only thirty days, and it’s for the most important health cause on earth—the only physical body you will ever have in this lifetime.
Kinda hard to argue with, right? Here’s my edited version of what they might have conveyed but probably wouldn’t have garnered the same attention if they had:
- This is kinda hard. We get it, it’s kinda hard. Stop telling us it’s hard. We heard you the first 5,000,000 times. Beating cancer is REALLY hard. Birthing a baby is REALLY hard (trust me). Losing a parent is REALLY hard. (POO) Drinking your coffee black. Is. Kinda. Sucky. You might have done stuff harder than this, we think, and you might come up with a million excuses not to complete the program in the most anal retentive of ways in which this program was written. It’s thirty days (we get it, that sucks, try finding a month without an alcohol event in your life, I dare you), and it’s for the most important health cause on your quiet street, potentially—the only physical body you will ever have in this lifetime, unless science and technology are able to get their shit together in combination with some of those stem cells of yours and they just grow you another one. It’s possible, right?
Back to that stealthy business. All of a sudden the Whole30 talk was everywhere. So I decided to check it out. And the more rules I read, and the more specific it got, the more I was hooked. HOOKED. Sick I know. But this is what I mean when I say I like…..shhhh….. rules. My mom would flip out if she heard this. My father would think I was abducted. But I don’t think I’m alone. I actually think this is a pretty common idea amongst us humans. When you give us rules, we know where we stand. We know what’s okay and what’s not. What’s legal and what’s not. It allows us to keep jobs, and allows us to fire poor sods. It allows us to legally declare someone drunk, or just simply buzzed. Or stoned, as the case may be here in Colorado. And it allows us to call someone overweight or obese. Rules are our guiding principals. You can call them laws. You can call them commandments. You can call them values. But don’t call me Shirley. And don’t be mistaken if you think you don’t somehow live in a world of rules that you obey daily. You do. And secretly, you probably like them. Just like that one thing you like in bed that you’ll never tell anyone…. Sorry, it was getting too serious there.
So there we are, Rules. The Whole30 is full of them and I realize most diets are, but these rules are specific. And when I say specific, I mean you-better-buy-some-reading-glasses-so-you-can-start-reading-labels specific. And stark. And nakedly vulnerable in their simplicity. And then the rules had babies. And the babies had kids. And those grandbaby rules were sons of bitches. And those sons of bitches have exceptions. And the exceptions have rules. And if you think you’re reading the latest excerpt of those rules, think again. official-whole30-program-rules
And if you think the latest update about chips is a good, positive, inclusive exception, THINK AGAIN SOLDIER… Chips are NOT OKAY in any form. And here’s why, and this is just my slightly nuanced version of the answer in a Jeopardy version where the answer is in the form of a question:
- If you gorge yourself on plantain chips, Chuck, are you still compliant?
- If I stuff my pie hole with potatoes, in the form of fried finger lovers, Chuck, can I still say I’m following the rules?
- If I buy a vat of vegetable chips, and then happen to fall in, and then I get locked in the factory overnight and I’m forced to eat all the chips to make sure I don’t starve, you know… just in case, Chuckie, have I strayed from the “spirit of the Whole30?”
The answers are: No, No, and YES
I can’t tell you how psyched I was to find out that maybe the rules had changed and that I could have some precious potato chips only to find out they had been outlawed along with all the other nasty chips I wasn’t eating anyway. waaaaaaaaaaaa Obviously you probably need to read the rules to understand that vegetables, including potatoes, are okay on this diet. But that doesn’t mean chips are, and understandably the reason is that chips are essentially…. don’t hit me… “junk food.” And this is the case whether those chips are sweet kale, taro or banana. Those crunchy slices of goodness are designed to do one thing. Addict you! And the Whole30 knows this. There are LOTS of ways to disguise food (and sugar) in things that look healthy. But if it looks like a duck, shits like a duck, and generally annoys you like a quacking duck does eventually, it probably is one. So, long story short and in the reverse order of what I planned here, that’s how I learned about the “new” chip guidelines.
But then I said to myself, “Self, you don’t need chips and this is a hard and fast rule and it’s black and white and basic. No chips. Even YOU can figure this one out. And maybe that little chip rule will save you some ounces on the ol’ scale… when you eventually get to weigh yourself, at the end of those looooooooong 30 days.”
Okay, so… I think I might have digressed, and then my digression got off on a tangent.
Oh yes, what did I learn from Whole30. No Chips. Really. That’s all I remember.
Okay, sorry… Here goes:
- It’s not that hard. It feels like it at first, but then it gets better. Then it becomes a challenge. But initially, yes, it seemed hard. And it was slightly emotional. And there are good days and bad days. Mostly good.
- I was a bit terrified about giving everything up. To some that may seem crazy and to others it may seem totally on point. For many of us, food is emotional and eating is like a visit with a shrink. It’s true. For many of us, stuffing your face is the physical act of shoving your emotions back inside and then down your throat. I didn’t believe I had any emotional ties to food. And yet here I was afraid of starting this diet. Like REALLY REALLY nervous. It was like right before you run a race. Even if you’re not that good and you know it, you get nervous. Fear can be irrational. This was the beginning of my recognition that I was an emotional eater. Now I say that even though I am not obese, and look very average when it comes to weight. I’m not slender and I’m not entirely fat… I’m somewhere in the middle. And yet I discovered on this plan that I have emotional ties to food. When I’m bored, I eat. When I’m sad and tired, I tend to eat. When I’m nervous or freaked out, or stressed, I eat. And these emotions boil up to the surface during the Whole30 when you can’t push them back with a snack or a piece of cheese or candy, or salty chips…… You’re forced to manage them and consider other choices.. to find something healthy to eat or do. After 30 days, you find yourself better able to juggle random emotions and in fact, they seem to come up less and less. So did eating healthy make me more emotionally stable in some ways….? Maybe. If you consider that all that sugar takes your blood glucose on a rollercoaster of extreme highs and lows and creates a vicious cycle of high and low energy, you could see how eliminating this would probably help.
- I made a dietary exception. I allowed myself to have wine. You’re not supposed to have wine. This is an official rule. No alcohol for 30 days. So what did I do? I decided that if I was going to make it 30 days, I needed wine. (My mom will see the old me under there) There are die-hards out there, I know it. And I salute them with a full glass of cabernet. But I didn’t think that making this exception made me a sinner. Not exactly. And I talked about it publicly on my Facebook page, cause I have a MILLION friends, and everyone was quietly accepting. I jest. But in the end, I didn’t really care what anyone thought. If I could make it 30 days without anything on the list except wine, I knew I would still feel accomplished. In the end, my lesson was this. “If you must make an exception to survive the 30 days, to somehow accomplish the larger feat, do it.” Sometimes the means justifies the end… you must consider the larger picture, and the goal of a smaller, healthier you. But if your exception is sugar then I’d say don’t bother. Sorry.
- And if you don’t think you’re addicted to sugar, I’m going to call Bullshit! What might floor you is how many products use sugar. It’s in almost everything! And it’s disguised in every capacity possible. It’s like slowly being drugged with the hope that you’ll eventually get hooked. And guess what? You are. Give it up and you’ll see.
- You will miss certain things like you miss your youth. (Or not?) You will miss things that you took for granted. Now there’s an expression seldom used. And you might not miss things you thought you couldn’t live without. This might teach you something about what you really crave in life and what you don’t. Or not. This might be profound. Or not. The idea is, you might be surprised by what comes out or up, after eliminating so much. I had headaches from eliminating sugar and I wanted to sleep a lot. That was the first week. What I found, ultimately, is that my sugar tooth, although relatively strong, is nothing compared to my addiction to salt.
- I have never been more satisfied or more excited, or more amazed, or more free than I was after sitting on the toilet for 10 glorious minutes. And I saved some toilet paper in the making of this diet. Clean. Robust. Healthy. Fulfilling. Whole. These are just a few words to describe my bathroom experience. Another word: Awesome. I almost wanted to bring people into the bathroom to say, “look what I did!!!!!!!!!”
- My energy levels waned incredibly. Forget running, or going to the gym. I was sort of a zombie. It’s amazing how much our bodies are accustomed to and reliant on cheap carbs to get us by. Sugar has become our fuel. And without it, the body goes into a bit of shock. It’s addictive. Incredibly addictive. And for good reason. The body uses it to manage the stresses of daily life and to provide us crucial energy. So by cutting it out and cutting out refined carbs, I was zapped of my mojo. Temporarily!
- Tiger Blood is real. The energy I ultimately ended up with is hard to describe. I tried explaining it by saying that it’s like being sick for a very long time, and then slowly feeling better. You gradually find yourself feeling a certain level of energy you’re not sure what to do with… and it comes on slowly but suddenly… And then you find yourself running up stairs… and once you feel it, you’re hooked. Suddenly you know why you’re doing what you’re doing and all those stupid rules? They matter.
- People will doubt you every step of the way. People might mock you or question you or just quietly judge you. I can’t tell you how many times I saw people post about their experience with family and friends who made these Whole30rs feel dumb, ashamed, ridiculous, and you name it. When these people needed the most support, backs were turned. I’m being dramatic but it was hard to witness at times. In the end you have to stick to your guns, Soldier, and decide why you’re doing this and for who. And arm yourself with information – read the books, read the rules through and make sure you understand why this is important. Because it is, but you have to know it to live it.
- Put together a plan for when it’s over – I didn’t. Will you continue if it seems worth it? If you decide that you’ll do a version of it, you still need a plan. What version? What will be okay and what won’t? If you don’t line it out for yourself, you’ll fail. Take it from me. I had no plan and I failed to maintain the diet, in any capacity, and I regret it. Don’t be like me. Plan ahead. It’s a critical component of the diet and eating healthy as a whole.
- Prepare, shop, prep, plan and cook!!!! It will make all the difference with your level of success.
Tell me your thoughts, share your experience, and if you’re curious, check it out for yourself! https://whole30.com/ One day I’ll go back to some version of it… and I plan to cut out sugar again almost entirely … but in the meantime I wanted to share this with all of you. And if you’ve read this far, I commend you. You could do Whole30 no problem!!!
Dandelion 