My reasons for doing Whole30:
- I've always wanted to do a cleanse but wasn't brave enough to do it
- I heard that it changes your relationship with food
- A friend told me she ran her fastest times while doing whole30
- I felt like I was addicted to sugar and wanted to break that
- I wanted to focus on eating healthier
- I felt like it was do-able because I knew oils, potato, sweet potato, eggs and meats were allowed.
- And the promises in this 2nd paragraph below sounded good to me!
Authors Melissa and Dallas Hartwig:
"This is not a diet--we eat as much as we need to maintain strength, energy, and a healthy body weight. We aim for well-balanced nutrition, so we eat both plants and animals. We get all the carbohydrates we need from vegetables and fruits, while healthy fats like avocado, coconut, and olive oil provide us with another excellent source of energy.
Eating like this allows us to maintain a healthy metabolism and keeps our immune system in balance. It's good for body composition, energy levels, sleep quality, mood, attention span, and quality of life. It helps eliminate sugar cravings and reestablishes a healthy relationship with food. It also works to minimize our risk for most lifestyle-related diseases and conditions, like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke and autoimmune conditions. "
The big question about whole30 is why cut out Grains and Dairy? The reasons are quite complex, and I'm not sure I can summarize it succinctly.
Dairy--"Cow's milk is the perfect food...if you are a calf. Milk is a blend of bioactive substances that not only promote aggressive growth of a very young mammal, but also ensure the complete development of the young one's immune system." An adult, and even children, don't need those energy-dense hormones any more. Dairy consumption has also been linked to a variety of medical conditions in children, including acne, asthma, juvenile myopia, insulin resistance, and type 1 diabetes. What about calcium? Bone health is not all about calcium. If the intake of calcium is all that matters for bone health, then why does the U.S. have one of the highest rates of osteoporosis in the world despite having one of the highest calcium intakes? "The calcium in vegetable sources may prove more bioavailable than the stuff you get from milk" according to recent studies.
Grains--Refined grains bear little resemblance to the natural structure of the grain. "The bran and germ are removed, and so are the fiber, vitamins, and minerals present in those two layers. Refined grains lack most of the original nutrients but still contain almost all of the calories." What about whole grains? The authors explain that whole grains are not as nutrient-dense when compared with fruits and vegetables and have a chart comparing different whole grains to lots of different veggies/fruit. The minerals present in whole grains are not actually available to you. "Grains contain a compound called phytic acid, or phytate, found mostly in the bran portion of the seed. These phytates, often referred to as 'anti-nutrients,' grab hold of the minerals like calcium, iron, zinc and magnesium found in the whole grain, crating an insoluble and indigestible complex. This means that when these nutrients get to your small intestine, they are not in a usable form--and therefore are not absorbed into the body. In other words,
eating a nutrient is not the same as being able to
use that nutrient."
Things I learned while doing whole30:
- Whole30 foods are expensive. I knew it wasn't going to be cheap. Fortunately Matt was a pretty good sport and made a joke of it all. "So how much was this cashew butter?" "How much did this almond flour set me back?"
- I gained a new appreciation for sweet potatoes.
- Almond butter is disgusting. Period.
- Though clarified butter/ghee has a nuttier flavor than butter, I appreciated it on a baked potato.
- 30 days of mostly eggs for breakfast gets old. Fast.
- I actually missed carbs more than I missed sugar, which surprised me.
- Meal prep and planning took a lot of time. I spent hours looking for recipes that sounded appealing to me.
The foods that helped me get through my 30 days:
- RX bars- Chocolate Sea Salt flavor; made out of 3 egg whites, 6 almonds, 4 cashews, 2 dates, which sounds disgusting but tasted like a candy bar when you haven't had sugar in two weeks. When I was craving sweets so bad, I would have a half of a bar (Because they're so dang expensive! I was trying to make them last longer.)
- Sweet potato fries- I missed something to dip them in so bad but still so yummy and would help fill me up.
- Cashew butter and honey crips apples- Seriously YUM! This was such a treat. The apples tasted like candy and paired with the cashew butter was delicious. I had this for lunch like 5 days in a row. I packed this as a snack to eat at the airport on my layover in Denver and was panicking that for some reason they wouldn't let me take my small container of cashew butter with me in my luggage. Throwing it away would have been like throwing away $3! When I got pulled over at the Houston airport to have an officer physically look through my bag, I thought, "Oh no! It's the cashew butter!"
- Chocolate/Banana ice cream- technically this is against the rules. You're not supposed to drink your foods and the fact that this was ice cream, even though whole30 compliant ingredients, is discouraged. Anyway, after 20 days, I didn't care! The ingredients are frozen bananas, a tablespoon of cocoa and 2 T almond butter. (Great way to use my $11 jar of almond butter that I hated!) This saved me when I wanted to quit, so I didn't think it was a bad thing. I was constantly keeping frozen bananas in the freezer and fighting Caleb for them, who loves to eat frozen bananas as a snack when he gets home from school. Out of the last 10 days of whole30, I probably made this 7 times. I wish I would have discovered the recipe sooner. [Side note, I made this a few weeks after whole30 was over and thought it was disgusting.]
- Fabulous chicken pot pie soup that my kids didn't like because it has coconut cream in it and therefore a slight coconut flavor. It bothered me some, but the soup was so delicious I didn't let it stop me. I plan to make this on occasion even after.
- There are lots of yummy ways to cook potatoes whole30 compliant.
- I made a recipe called Zesty Chicken Bites and The Best Chicken You Will Ever Eat 3 times each during the 30 days. They were some of my favorites.
So what were the results of my whole30 and would I do it again? The authors of the whole30 book say, "For some, a Whole45 or even a Whole60 is necessary to get the job done, and we believe that the results you are hoping for will appear if you can be patient for just a little bit longer. Your body is slowly reverting to a healthy hunger cycle and metabolism and to having a happy (intact) gut, reduced systemic inflammation and a balanced immune system. And as this happens, you will notice a reduction in cravings, a shift in body composition, an improvement in energy, and a reduction in symptoms--but it takes longer for some people than for others."
I apparently fall into the whole45 or whole60 camp, but I didn't have the patience to continue doing it to see the results I was hoping for. For the most part, it was absolute torture doing whole30. I really enjoy cooking, baking, and trying new foods and doing whole30 sucked out that joy in my life. Cooking/eating was a chore, especially trying to balance making dinner for me that my family would actually eat too. [Mexican cauliflower rice did NOT go over well with my family.] Some days I resorted to making two meals for dinner, which was an absolute pain. Mostly I resorted to feeding my family things for dinner that I've never done before because I knew they wouldn't touch what I was eating like cereal, pancakes, and boxed macaroni.
Of the 5 of us doing whole30 together of my church friends, another friend was having the same experience as me...not seeing the promised results after patiently waiting and so then what was the point? We commiserated together and both admitted that we were finishing because "My mom didn't raise me to be a quitter!" I'm glad it went better for my other friends, but I was grateful to have this friend who was having a similar experience.
My results:
- No increase of energy levels--I was still tired every day and took a nap when the day allowed. (I get up really early every day to exercise/read my scriptures.)
- Running didn't improve. It was so hard to push myself and I averaged 20 seconds slower per mile. It really put a wrench in my preparations for my next race when I was hoping it to have the opposite effect.
- Weight loss- 4 lbs. (I put 2 of those back on quickly after going back to my normal eating.)
- I have been having acne problems ever since starting a new birth control pill. I was hopeful that whole30 would help clear up this problem and that maybe the acne was more food-related. That didn't happen.
- No noticeable improvement in my sleep habits.
- My mood was definitely worse though I tried not to let it affect my family since I was putting myself through this torture!
- I didn't feel like my relationship with food changed. Halfway through, I was still craving sweets and planning my day 31 foods for when it was over.
- I do feel like it helped clean out my gut and helped with my digestive system. (Around day 12, for about 3 days I had the worst flatulence in my life!)
On day 18 when I was continuing to run slower and lacking energy, my attitude went from 'frustration but still having patience' to anger and resentment. What was the point? Granted, I still realize that choosing fruits and vegetables to satiate hunger is a good thing as opposed to carbs. Although whole30 was one of the hardest things I've done (like marathon hard and birthing-a-baby hard), I can see myself being talked into it again in the future simply because eating healthier and having rules to do it is helpful for me. Though I didn't get the results I was hoping for, reading the book is very persuasive about how to fuel your body and give it the nutrition it needs while also safe-guarding yourself from potential health problems in the future.
What did I take away and how is my eating now? I still have a sweet every day and have added everything back into my diet that I took out. But doing whole30 made me more aware of my sugar intake and the experience helps me make better food choices. I've done better about not eating when I'm not hungry and realizing that it's okay to throw food away. [This has always been hard on me due to the way I was raised--you know, starving children in Africa. I have a tendency to finish off the last bite of my childrens' dinner that they leave on their plate that isn't worth saving.]
