This morning I had my first cup of black coffee. Well, not completely black. It had some coconut milk in it, but if you have ever had plain, unsweetened coconut milk then you know my coffee was basically black! It has very little flavor and you would have to add a lot of it to make your coffee a creamy caramel color. Honestly, I probably would not notice the difference without the coconut milk. But…baby steps.
I had my coffee black because I am gearing up to start my first Whole30. What is Whole30? Well it’s a diet. As in–
/di∙et/ noun : the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
It’s not a restrictive-fadish-gimicky diet. It’s a change-the-way-you-eat-and-view-food diet. But don’t get me wrong, it is restrictive. Just not in the same way that an Atkins diet is restrictive.
I have done many diets through my life and I always end up with the same result…once I get off the diet I go back to normal eating and gain the weight back. One of my biggest problems with most diets out there is that it teaches you nothing! It restricts food groups to help you loose some weight, but the diets themselves are not sustainable. You inevitably go back to normal eating and put the weight back on. The Whole30 is a change in diet. The same way that going vegetarian would be a change in diet.
For a while now, we have been trying to eat “closer to the source.” That just means cutting out the artificial garbage and eating more whole, natural food. But it is so difficult to do on your own! It’s a lot of researching whether low-fat yogurt is better than non-fat yogurt (non-fat foods add sodium to make up for the lack of fat, so the low-fat is actually better. Same for cheese, sour cream, and well…most things). Should I stick with margarin or switch to full fat butter (butter is better). Which are the healthy good fats and which are the bad fats, and which foods have which? It’s a lot to learn! Luckily, I took some nutrition classes in my past so I have a good base to go off of, but it’s still tough trying to switch to a whole diet from a not-so-clean diet.
J and I eat about 70-80% clean right now. Depending on what your definition of “clean” is I suppose. A super-health nut would say that clean means bacon with no nitrates, nitrites or sugar. A regular person would say any bacon is clean. I eat regular person version of clean. The Whole30 teaches you the health-nut version of clean. But that’s not all it does.
I’m sure there are other books and other programs out there that are designed to help you learn to eat better, but the reason I chose this one is because it does not focus on weight loss like the others. It’s focus is on health. It’s focus is on alleviating some health concerns that are food related. It’s focus is getting you to listen to your body to determine which foods affect you in a negative way. It cuts out all inflammatory foods for 30 days. 30 days is enough time to let your body heal, to break loose from your cravings, to get your hormones and metabolism back in prime working order, and to train your body to operate without all the added sugar and carbs that American diets are full of. It is your diet “reset.” After 30 days, you slowly add in those foods that you just can’t live with out, one-by-one, to determine how they make you feel. The best part of this diet is, it’s sustainable. It doesn’t restrict anything your body needs. It restricts sugar, grains, legumes, dairy, and artificial additives. But your body doesn’t need any of that to be operating at it’s optimum level anyway. So if you wanted to continue the 30-day diet forever, you could.
I have a laundry list of medical issues, most of them autoimmune, so I have been looking into cutting inflammatory foods from my diet. But as I said, learning which foods, and how to do it without going crazy is tough! Having a program that outlines what to do, gives you set rules, and provides recipes and ideas for meals makes this so much easier!
So I am staring my Whole30 August 1st! I have been gearing up for it this past week… picking up grocery items that I will need and getting rid of anything that is not allowed! Not going to lie…I am very nervous! It is going to be tough. I think the toughest parts for me will be eating breakfast (its a requirement!), cutting sweets, and eating set meals instead of grazing. And I am really really going to miss cheese! I have been slowly cutting back the sugar in my coffee for a while now. I had been down to only one stevia packet and some skim milk for months. The milk got changed to coconut milk last week, and yesterday was my last day of stevia. So it wasn’t such a shock to my system.
I’m not writing this to try to recruit anyone to join me (though if you want to, you are welcome! 🙂 ). I just thought I would document my journey on here, and maybe find a little more motivation and support! I will be developing some new recipes, and working to make some of my old ones Whole30 compliant. So stay-tuned! Come the end of August I will hopefully be cured of my sugar dragon and on my way to a healthier me!
If you want more information on the program, here is a brief synopsis- Program Rules
And here is the whole shebang- Whole30
🙂
Tuck & Sundry 
I think that trying to cut out all of the unnecessary foods are definitely the hardest because they are so dang addicting…and yummy! But, without them, the body does seem to react better. Good luck on your new journey! 🙂
LikeLike
I think that trying to cut out all of the unnecessary foods are definitely the hardest because they are so dang addicting…and yummy! But, without them, the body does seem to react better. Good luck on your new journey! 🙂
LikeLike