I did it! I have completed the Whole30 and I didn’t cheat once! <—Never, ever did I really think I would be typing this line 30 days after having started the Whole30. Yes, I started it hoping I would complete it but if I’m being totally honest, I wasn’t sure I could manage to stay away from so many things for 30 days, most especially wine & dairy.
What’s this Whole30 Thing?
But let’s backtrack. If you’re a first time visitor to my site or haven’t see my other Whole30 posts, howdy. I’m a cheese-loving, wine-addicted, Girl-Scout-Cookie-Binge-Eater. The Whole30 is an extreme paleo diet where you cut all sorts of foods out of your diet for 30 days including: dairy, gluten, alcohol, peanuts, legumes, sugar and more. What can you eat? Fruit, vegetables, eggs and meat. And nuts that aren’t peanuts. That’s about it.
I don’t know what the FRICK I was thinking. Well I do know – I had been intrigued with the Whole30 for awhile and I had really developed some bad eating habits over the 9 months prior to starting it. It really began last summer and continued through the holidays and my half-hearted attempts at dieting or eating right just weren’t cutting it. I needed something extreme to whip me back into shape and going with something that promotes eating whole, natural foods seemed like the smart way to go.
To read more backstory, here are 3 previous posts I wrote over the course of the last month on my Whole30 experience which included almost daily diaries. These could be helpful if you are going through it as I talk about cravings on certain days:
Whole 30: Week One (with meal plan)
Whole 30: Week Two (with meal plan)
Whole 30 Week Three (with meal plan)
So what can I tell you. Weight. I officially lost 7 pounds! I am thrilled with those results. It’s not easy to lose weight after 40 and I think losing 7 in 30 days is a totally healthy and happy amount for me – not so little that I’m frustrated and not too much that I’m just going to yo-yo back. I truly hope to continue eating as clean as I can as I feel fantastic and the weight loss certainly helped.
Comments About My Experience:
#1. There is sugar in friggin’ EVERYTHING. Read your labels people. You will be AMAZED how many things you wouldn’t think contain sugar do in fact have it. Most salad dressings? Yup. Mayo? Yup. Stuff that totally shouldn’t have sugar in it? Yup. (like bacon. Did you know your regular brand bacon has sugar in it? Why?) So much of it is totally unnecessary and only adding calories to our day and causing us to crave more items with sugar so then you just eat more. It’s a bad cycle, man.
#2. Sleep. I slept well the entire time I was on Whole30. I don’t normally have too much of an issue with this but I typically do wake up once a night. I didn’t wake up much at all while on the Whole30 and always woke up refreshed.
#3. Focus. I felt very focused and got a ton done – both around the house (hello spring cleaning inspiration!) and at work. I tackled a bunch of big projects I had been wanting to do for awhile. I’m usually all over the place but I found myself much sharper while eating clean.
#4. I’m a wino. I got rid of all cravings except for wine. They say you will lose your bad habit cravings eventually, and I did. For sugar and for dairy. Both of which shocked me, especially dairy because I’m kind of a cheese fiend. But all those cravings went away, except wine. I never got rid of the 5:00 desire to pour a glass for myself except for maybe in my last very few days. What can I say? I like my vino.
#5. I was never hungry and I ate a lot. I feel like this is an important fact when it comes to communicating that the Whole30 is NOT a diet. I’m so done with the calorie-counting-starve-yourself diet. This was so much healthier. If I was hungry, I ate whatever the heck I wanted as long as it was on plan. There was something freeing in that for sure. This is about nourishing your body with natural foods that your body was intended to ingest and about fixing more than just your weight. It’s about developing a healthier lifestyle and relationship with wholesome food.
If You’re Just Starting Whole30, my Advice:
Order some of the Whole30 approved dressings from Tessemae’s. You can use these for marinades, salad dressings and more. The mayo is absolutely phenomenal. I will be ordering it after this is over to use from now on.
Plan your meals. Seriously. Plan, plan, plan. Otherwise you end up making scrambled eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner on the day you don’t have a plan and by the end of the day you’re going to be reaaaally sick of eggs.
It doesn’t take too much time, truly. Everyone else has done the work for you – there is an abundance of Whole30 approved delicious recipes all over the Internet. I have a Whole30 Pinterest board you are welcome to follow and snag some recipes from – my favorites were the Spaghetti Squash Fritters, the Banana Almond Butter Muffins and the Salmon Cakes.
Two of those three recipes are from this book – Well Fed 2 – which I also HIGHLY RECOMMEND ordering for yourself. All of her recipes are tasty and you’ll find yourself liking foods that you maybe wouldn’t have even considered before.
Recipes I Made Often:
Spaghetti Squash Fritters
Salmon Cakes
Banana Almond Butter Muffins
Chicken w/Artichokes
Cauliflower & Beef Skillet (I substituted ground chicken or ground turkey each time I made this because I don’t eat beef.)
Lastly – I’m sharing with you guys my before and after photos – which I almost didn’t do because – ack! I’m not sure I actually can see the 7 pound loss in these photos but I promise you guys that’s the truth from the scale.
And I’m not sure why I thought to wear this weird combo of tank top with leggings – it’s not very flattering – but figured I better stick with it for the second photo too for full comparison and the sake of honesty. I also gave you guys the bikini-that-I-never-wear-in-public shot from the side before and after too. Feel free to bleach out your eyes after looking.
Moving on! I hope to continue clean eating because it feels great. Find more info about this eating challenge on Whole30.com.
GIRL. You look AMAZING!!!!!!!!! I know I should do Whole30 but I don’t think I can hack it. The 21 Day Sugar Detox about killed me, haha!
LOL you could do it. If *I* can do it, I know you can. The wine thing was brutal. The rest… I learned to live without. In fact, I don’t really want to try anything new a this point – I sort of want to continue. weird, right?
You look amazing!!!!!! And I am so impressed with you doing Whole 30 – I’m inspired to try although I think I will fail miserably! And I seriously see a difference in your bathing suit photo – you look awesome!
Thanks Col!!! You could totally do it – the hardest part for me was the no wine and you don’t do that much, I think you would be good at it!
You looked amazing before, even healthier and more lovely now! Way to go =)
Whit: you look wonderful- yes, I can definiitely see a difference, not so much in the first pics but in the side bikini pics. Not that you looked like you needed to diet before of course. . but as you say, the best bennies were the feeling energized, focused and all around healthier. This is the priority. Also, you should really pat yourself on the back for sticking with it- indeed not an easy task and you accomplished it with great aplomb(i like that word).
I couldn’t do it without the wine. But the rest doesn’t sound too bad.
You could do it – I swear! The no wine is VERY daunting but it’s all about saying no! It’s kind of empowering to be able to maintain it too since it’s such a feat 😉
You seriously look fantastic and even better you are healthy from the inside out! I am totally checking this out ( dying to sport your bikini bod!)
You stuck with it! Amazing and I totally see the difference!