What Is Whole30?

Whole30 is a month-long hard reset for the body. Kind of like paleo on steriods. No sugar (even honey or stevia), grains, dairy or legumes. Just whole, natural foods – like meats, veggies and fruits. Nothing in a package. No soy. No extra crap. Read all labels.

This program is designed to break the back of sugar and carb cravings and give your body a balanced place from which to build healthy habits. It seeks to reset your metabolism, knock out systemic inflammation (that you may not even know you have) and zero out other gut health issues. Have random stomach pain like I used to? This may help balance that. Irregular? IBS? Feel like crap all the time? Can’t lose weight? Well .. this crazybananas plan might work for you.

My favorite part of the plan, aside from the reset, is the tough love.

From the W30 site: This is not hard – not like quitting heroin or beating cancer. Don’t even think about slipping – what you put into your mouth is always a choice. You don’t have to eat anything you don’t want to eat – learn to stick up for yourself, peer pressure is for elementary school students. This will take effort but you will be better for it – especially if you’re a first-timer to cutting out grains and legumes. But … you can do this.

You know what? They’re right. In the grand scheme of things, 30 days is a small amount of time to deal with a little inconvenience. Unless there are roving bands of rapist donuts in your neighborhood; in that case, maybe stay inside and eat what you’re supposed to anyways. Rapist donuts are the worst.

You’ve Done This Twice Before … Why Are You Torturing Yourself Again?

I don’t look at Whole30 as torture, I look at it more as a chance to re-set my mealtime thinking away from whatever bad-for-me thing has clawed its way back into my diet (helllooooo, Holiday Season Indulgences – and that dream about a freaking sandwich I had last night) and a great way to kick-start my motivation to keep on track. A reminder, if you will, of how much better my body feels when I’m eating like I should be. As an added bonus, Whole30 is the best way I’ve found to light a fire under my butt and re-ignite my passion for food. W30 sparks my creativity and reminds me that by eating right, I’m not actually missing out on anything – I’m making conscious choices that will amount to a whole lot of good down the road. And you know what? I need that right now. These past few months have been less than stellar and I have big goals in 2015 – like huge, looming 12-mile OCR goals. I need to be at peak performance to be able to accomplish my goals and fueling my body mindlessly with crap is not how I’m going to get there.

Let’s see what I learned during this third go ’round.

I swear. I learn something different every time I do Whole30. The first time, I learned to not fear going out to dinner; the second time that things I eat out of habit have no real control over me. This third time I learned that a: I shouldn’t be cocky (helllooooo delivery dinner of disappointment), that eating W30 really isn’t that hard, and that it also makes my brain do crazy things like crave cigarettes.

I’m glad I went down this path again, and will mostly continue on repeating W30 every once in awhile. For now, I’ll go back to my (mostly) paleo lifestyle, and hope to remain mindful about my meals (especially when eating out).

Now on to the food!

What I Ate

I ate great on Whole30 – check out the day-by-day rundowns.

Day 1 started off rough. My DH and I were up half the night cleaning up after our sick pup, I’m deep into battling some intense leg DOMs, and I woke up with a possible baby hangover. We also didn’t get up for real until Noon – hours after my stomach first made it known that it was empty. This is generally a recipe for hangry disaster.

Day 2 Breakfast was pretty normal today – my DH’s green smoothie (avocado, apple, kale & spinach with ginger, coconut water, a splash of orange juice, and hemp protein powder) and coffee with homemade almond milk.

Day 3 Today was good, despite the beginnings of a breakfast meltdown. Not as veggie laden as I’d hoped, but such is life.

Day 4 Today wasn’t so bad until I hit Target in the early afternoon and got overwhelmingly hungry. It’s a good thing I’m doing Whole30 – that 50% off Holiday snacks aisle was looking pretty darn tasty.

Day 5 Oh hi there, nicotine fit, I’d almost forgotten about you. It is *now* that I remember Whole30 makes me want a damn cigarette. I don’t know what it is – it’s not like I eat that far off of W30 the rest of the year – but something about it just kicks my infrequent cigarette wanting into overdrive. Like, as I’m sitting here my lungs are tight and I can barely get a full breath (which is exactly what a nicotine fit felt like). For perspective, I quit 6 years ago and haven’t had even a drag since – and I know I don’t actually *want* one; my lungs just think they might. And they want to tell me about it. What’s next? Reese’s Nutrageous cravings? Those used to go hand-in-hand with wanting a smoke.

Day 6 Yum. Dinner was great and lunch was a no-brainer.

Day 7 Today was good. My chicken worked out for dinner and lunch was tasty. Score!

Day 8 Today’s food was light, bright, and flavorful.

Day 9 Today was an unexpected dinner in day – luckily, I had just enough extra chicken to make a meal and a small sweet potato I could repurpose.

Day 10 Lunch was frustrating. I thought the chicken was going to be a no-brainier, but it wasn’t. But I made do and didn’t starve. Dinner was also not exactly what I wanted.

Day 11 Today’s food was much more satisfying.

Day 12 Back to the grind and starting Week 2 strong.

Day 13 I’d been looking forward to playing with this dinner recipe for weeks – and then it was less stellar than I’d planned. Not bad, but not stellar.

Day 14 Despite a minor dinner snafu, today was good. A little light on calories, but good.

Day 15 Lunch was bright and flavorful and dinner was ridiculously easy.

Day 16 Today wasn’t bad. Lunch was good and dinner out was only a little stressful.

Day 17 Today was good, despite going to a bar where the only thing I could safely eat or drink was kombucha.

Day 18 Another successful day. While I didn’t get to order my first choice of dishes at breakfast, I still managed to have a very delicious meal. And I was happy to get back to burger night. Much better than takeout.

Day 19 Tonight’s dinner was nearly a disaster. I had intended on serving pulled pork, but miscalculated the cooking time. Luckily, we didn’t have to resort to takeout – I was able to thaw some beef to make Meatza.

Day 20 Today was good. And slam full of pork. No complaints there.

Day 21 Today was a struggle. I had another of those ‘I can’t get a full breath and need a cigarette’ days and it was causing me to want to snack needlessly. About half an hour after lunch, I felt like I couldn’t take deep enough breaths, really wanted a cigarette, and my brain decided to also throw strong compulsions to get up and get a snack my way (mostly for things we didn’t have in the house – fruit and strangely cinnamon). This was a less-than-fun afternoon. I ended up white-knuckling the cravings until about 3, when I took the dog out. After the change of scenery, I felt much better and was able to wait until I was legitimately hungry before grabbing a snack.

Day 22 Today was better, mentally and physically, than yesterday.

Day 23 Today was good, though dinner left me a little hungry.

Day 24 Today was delicious. Fantastic brunch and then out on the town to celebrate my husband’s birthday.

Day 25 Dinner was disappointing, but my own damn fault for being cocky.

Day 26 Today was good.

Day 27 I think I might be in love with the pork I had for lunch, and I’m going to be sad when it runs out. Dinner wasn’t too shabby, either.

Day 28 Temptation, thy name is unexpected tickets to a weeknight show – and themed cocktails.

Day 29 Today was good – dinner was delicious and lunch was a great repeat.

Day 30 – I feel like I should have eaten something more exciting – gone out of Whole30 with a bang, somehow. Of course, I didn’t think about adding flash or sparkle to my day until *after* I’d heated lunch and sat down to scarf leftovers before completing a few rows of knitting.

I wasn’t alone on my Whole30 journey this go round – I had reinforcements in the form of Nerd Fitness friends Fonzico and kweber05. Here’s a peek at our weeks.

Week 1 was a success all around – everyone feels lighter and on the right track nutrition-wise, and aside from some crazy food dreams, general anxieties about mindless eating, and cigarette cravings, we are all faring well and on track for Week 2.

Week 2 was good. The W30 hive mind delved into zoodles, and we each found our own ways to be creative with flavor combinations. We all had strange food-related dreams (mine featuring The Doctor, cheesesteak, Kool-Aid and disappointment that no salad was forthcoming), but we worked through our issues and remained on target. Whoo hoo!

Week 3 turned out pretty good. One of us braved travel, another braved a Birthday, and the third dealt with being sick. And we all succeeded. Win-Win-Win. All the Win.

And my compatriots crapped out on the picture sending during week 4. One was sick (she stuck with Whole30 despite wanting to do nothing but crawl into a big carb comfort food cocoon, just didn’t eat anything good enough to share); the other was a no-show on Nerd Fitness all week.

The Good Stuff

Whole30 usually gives me a boost in mealtime creativity, and I’m happy to report that this time was no different. Check out the weekly W30 recipes I posted:

Sesame Ginger Chicken Zoodles – This dish is quick to throw together, uses minimal ingredients I usually have on hand anyways, and is waaaaay better than takeout. A win/win/win situation.

Caramelized Onion Meatballs – This is based on a recipe posted by one of my Nerd Fitness Whole 30 partners in crime – Fonzico. Her version adds cauliflower and egg as a meatball binder (think breadcrumbs and egg in “regular” meatballs) and sounds delicious as well. I couldn’t find cauliflower at the store this week, so made these balls using my general method.

Instant Pot Green Curry Chicken – This is the second meal I made with my new Instant Pot, and I’ve got to say I’m digging it. I’m still not sure where it will fit in with my beloved crock pot (I think it can replace it), but I’m liking it. This dinner came together quickly, the broth was flavorful, and the flavors married a bit.

Instant Pot Pulled Pork – My DH bought me a new toy this Christmas: the Instant Pot. So far, I’m a fan. I’ve made bone broth, which was as delicious as it was quick; this pork, which was really good and way quicker than my slow-cooker method; and a tasty little Thai curry dish I’ll be sharing soon.

And there you go … Whole 30 The Third! Check out my first Whole30, and second Whole30 trips for more inspiration.