Several people have been asking me about my experience on Whole 30 so far. Now granted I am only 9 days in but I definitely have formed some opinions!
For those of you who don’t know what Whole 30 is I would encourage you to check out their website at www.whole30.com. However, I have gone ahead and put a synopsis in place. Whole 30 is an eating plan where you basically strip out a number of foods from your diet that are believed to be “psychologically unhealthy, hormone-unbalancing, gut-disrupting, inflammatory food groups” for a full 30 days. The idea here is that you are trying to heal your gut and give your body a chance to recover from any damage these foods have done. For this 30-day time period you cut out all dairy, grains, legumes and all sugar (unless naturally occurring in food…ex: fruit), including artificial and low calorie or no calorie sweeteners (which is probably the hardest part of this for me).
There were several reasons I decided to do it. The primary reason is that I had recently had an allergy test and it showed I was supposedly allergic to a whole long list of foods (which I still don’t believe). I decided to do a food elimination diet to get rid of these reported allergens and then see how my body reacted when I brought them back. Whole 30 eliminated most of them except in addition to their plan, I also have to eliminate beef, eggs, and garlic.
By a small miracle, I was able to talk my husband Erik into doing this with me. It has been several years since he has lasted more than a couple of days on any sort of strict eating plan. His idea of a rule is simply a target to break so I wasn’t sure how he was going to do on this. I will share that I have been pleasantly surprised at how well he has done.
There have been a few firsts for me. I think I might finally be considered a grown-up as on day three I had my 1st cup of black coffee while I was traveling in Austin. I’ve drank coffee for several years but I always like it with my favorite cinnamon creamer. If for some reason I’m traveling and can’t have that specific creamer then I might choose to just put cream and Splenda in it. However, I can’t have any dairy and the unsweetened coconut creamer isn’t so easily available in hotels. I was sharing with my husband in a phone call that evening on my way back to Dallas that I thought that I was finally growing up.
He laughed as he has been a black coffee drinker for years and years. He simply replied to me, “Liz… that doesn’t make you a grown-up. I’ve been drinking black coffee for years and look at me.”
He’s right… that was evidence enough for me!
Here are a few other firsts I have experienced in the last 9 days:
• I made my own homemade mayonnaise! I hear it was really good but because I can’t have eggs, I didn’t have any… it was just for my hubby. Stay tuned because over this next week I will be making an eggless mayo.
• I don’t know that I have ever gone more than 2 or 3 days without some sort of artificial or low calorie sweetener, whether it is Stevia, Splenda, Sweet N Low, etc…. This alone is a big leap for me.
• Erik and I ate an entire head of cauliflower over dinner one night. Seriously! Us… who would have thought?
• I have been craving Brussel sprouts. I am slightly convinced there is something wrong with me!
Overall, I have to say that so far it has been a really positive experience for both Erik and I. We aren’t hungry. We aren’t feeling deprived. We simply have to do a little more planning than normal. For now, we are enjoying eating great food and feeling healthy. Again, we are only nine days in and there is plenty of time for my opinion to change so stay tuned and I will give you the scoop when it is all said and done.
