As I’m closing out Day 27 of Whole30, I want to share some tips and tricks that has gotten us to this point of success and lessons learned from our first failed attempt at a Whole30 in January of this year. I’m going to have TONS of content in this post! But let me first digress and share what got me to the point of even wanting to do a Whole30, and then we’ll go from there.

What Brought Me to Whole30

This past December, things in my life were not great. Not bad, definitely could have been much, much worse, but some things were not going as good as one could hope. I’d lost my job, was fervently searching for a new position, had steadily been putting on weight since a surgery I had in September, to the tune of about 30 lbs from mid-September to December.

I didn’t physically feel good, I was constantly sick, and lacked energy, and was in a lot of pain, especially in my upper back/neck, both ankles, and my left hip. I had to hobble up and down stairs and I dreaded getting out of bed in the morning because when my feet hit the floor for the first time each day the pain was excruciating. This was partially brought on by me doing 5 or 6 Orangetheory workouts a week and pushing myself to the extreme. I am quite good at pushing through pain but it is almost always to my detriment.

Anyway, by the end of December I had to take control of something and make a change. I had read about the Whole30 in November and loved the concept and all the success stories. But I was nervous. So many of the recipes either looked very gross to me or very time consuming. I am an extremely picky eater with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), and there are so many things I cannot eat, although with diligence over the years I’ve been able to expand my palette from what it was as a child, but I’m still not anywhere close to being a “normal person” when it comes to what I can and like to eat.

Nevertheless, I was intent on conquering the Whole30. So I searched for recipes I thought I would like, made a binder with laminated pages so they’d be at easy reach in the kitchen, made shopping lists, prepped the house by getting rid of all my temptation foods (by eating it all before starting Whole30, of course), and got my mind in the right space to make a big change.

On January 2, Seth and I started the Whole30. I’ll sum up this first attempt experience for you: it sucked. It totally blew. The first week was horrendous. I had been binging and gorging on junk for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for months at this point, and going cold turkey on this hit me hard. HARD. The carb flew on days 2-3 are real. Being exhausted on days 6-7 is no joke. I couldn’t hold my eyes open. But worst of all, I hated 70% or more of the meals we made in pursuit of a “perfect” Whole30. So I ate what I could tolerate and was starving and miserable most of the day and night. Most nights at dinner were filled with tears and breakdowns both because of my extreme hunger and also because of the rollercoaster my body was experiencing by taking away all my “comfort” foods.

I made it until Day 9 when I broke down and had Campbell’s chicken and rice for lunch. I gave it my best shot. For a little while, I had resigned myself to believe that the Whole30 just wasn’t for me. It was too hard to find Whole30 approved food that I liked and follow the template 100% at every meal. But then as I started a new (awesome!) job and got depressed again about none of my clothes fitting, and seeing so many other people around me living healthy lives both on my work team and especially my BFF who is now a marathon runner and super health-conscious eater, I wanted to change.

I think my “a-ha” moment was sitting in a training for my new job where there were literally piles of candy bars on the table (I work for a candy company), and everyone else at my table went the whole day without having one, and I had three. I couldn’t stop myself, I had zero will power. Seeing everyone else not having this compulsion really made me think that I have a true addiction to sugar especially, and a real problem with willpower.

Melissa Hartwig, one of the co-creators of Whole30, introduced this idea of “Food Freedom” in her book It Starts with Food that I had read in November. Basically, Food Freedom is this concept where you are in control of the food you eat instead of the food controlling you (here’s a great Whole30 post about this). I realized that those candy bars were totally in control as crazy as that is to write. But my brain couldn’t say no, my mind became obsessed with them until I gave in and ate them.

So, I decided that I WILL finish a Whole30. Nothing was going to stop me. The next time, I was going to succeed. So Seth and I decided to give it another shot starting on June 4th. Today is Day 27 and we both feel GREAT. Even though we haven’t reached day 30, I feel like I have enough of a handle on what some critical factors for our success this time around versus our first attempt are, and have some great resources to share that have really helped me out along the way.

First of all, what is Whole30???

Whole30 is a 30-day program created by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig that is focused on committing for 30 days “to eliminate the most common craving-inducing, blood sugar disrupting, gut-damaging, inflammatory food groups” for a full 30 days. She says that the Whole30 can eliminate general aches and pains not explained by overuse or injury, even out your energy levels, help jump start weight loss, get control of your cravings, and reset your palette.

Sounds awesome, right? Well, it’s kinda hard. The food groups you have to take completely out of your diet are wheat, dairy, legumes, alcohol, sugar (both real and artificial), baked goods, junk food, or treats (even if they have approved ingredients).

So what can you have? In the rules, it says “eat moderate portions of meat, seafood, and eggs; lots of vegetables; some fruit; plenty of natural fats; and herbs, spices, and seasonings. Eat foods with very few ingredients, all pronounceable ingredients, or better yet, no ingredients listed at all because they’re whole and unprocessed.”

This may sound easy. But it’s NOT. I never realized just how much crap is in foods I would have assumed to be compliant to the program until I started reading labels. I started reading labels for the ingredient lists and not for the nutritional information. As per the rules, if the ingredients are ok, the item is ok (except for SWYPO food).

Am I going to feel awesome right away?

I’m going to be very honest here. No. Not at all. In fact, the first week, you’re going to feel like crap. To get me through the first 12 days, I read the “what to expect” timeline every day, to reassure me that how I was feeling was normally. Completely normal. Both in January and in June, week 1 was hard, but January was wayyyyy harder. I did keep some of my Whole30 new habits after my January attempt and I think this made June a little easier. But nevertheless, I wouldn’t call it easy.

Here’s a handy little pic I used to do a quick reference on how I was supposed to be feeling on any given day. 

 

Label Reading

Label reading is like an art form. Things like sugar and legumes and grains take on so.many.different. names. The one and only way to successfully complete a Whole30 is to get very, very good at reading labels and knowing what you can and can’t have so you can spot it quickly and not waste money and time buying stuff because you missed it had dextrose in it.

The most shocking label revelation for me is just how many products have added sugar in them. It’s everywhere. There were so many times I grabbed a seemingly compliant product just to find the words “cane sugar” or “dextrose” in the ingredients and had to put it back on the shelf. But now, I am well attuned to know which products/brands have added sugar and which ones don’t, but in the beginning, this was one of the most frustrating parts of shopping for Whole30.

Here’s two must reads to prep you up for label reading. This includes eating out. Don’t assume your steak, grilled chicken, or hamburger is going to be compliant. (Shocker, most aren’t!)

Whole30 Label Reading 101

Whole30 Common Additives

Whole30 Guide to Sneaky Sugars

Whole30 Restaurant Ordering Guide

Meal Planning

Planning for meals is so important for Whole30 success. Plan meals that you know you will enjoy that will also be easy to make, unless you have a day where you know you’ll have extra time to explore a more complex meal in the kitchen.

Consider the meal template when planning for your meals. Your aim should always be to follow the portion size for each component of your meal.

There is a plethora of Whole30 recipes out there. First, there is the Whole30 Cookbook. Then, there is Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search Pinterest for Whole30 recipes, or look for Whole30 recipe groups on Facebook, or search hashtag #whole30recipes on Instagram. I really like Instagram for recipe searching because I can search hashtags #whole30lunch or #whole30breakfast and get lots of great ideas for those meals, because those are the hardest for me for sure.

Tip: I wouldn’t try to plan your whole month, unless you are very accustomed to eating Whole30 type meals, because you are going to try stuff you don’t like. I really recommend prepping the month before your Whole30 and try out recipes so once your Whole30 starts, you have a slew of go-to recipes you know you like.

 

Grocery Shopping

So, the first big Whole30 activity I did was grocery shopping, one or two days in advance of the start of my Whole30. Preparation is key for your Whole30, and getting caught with a meal plan is a sure-fire way to blow your Whole30. I was planning out breakfast, lunch, and dinner on a meal planning template so that I could adequately prepare for the week and didn’t have to think about what meal was next, I just followed the plan.

So take your label reading skills and head to the grocery store!

Whole30 Grocery List

 

Non-Scale Victories

One of the rules of Whole30 is you can not weigh yourself or take measurements. When you start reading posts or stories about Whole30, you’ll see the acronym “NSV” mentioned a lot. NSV’s are all those wonderful things that can happen as a result of doing Whole30 that are not related to how much you weigh at all.

Once you focus on all the NSV’s happening, you start to detach food from your weight. My whole life, my motivation to eat healthy was to lose weight. That was it. It’s the only reason I was ever interested in changing my eating habits. About halfway through the Whole 30 this month, I really started experiencing these NSV’s I had read about. My skin was the first thing I really noticed. It looked awesome. My skin tone had evened out, I didn’t have any breakout at all, and I just looked…healthier. Then, the pain in my hip and ankles evaporated. Months of agony, gone in 18 days of Whole30 eating. On day 24, I checked my blood pressure and had the lowest blood pressure reading I have had in over 3 years. I have many NSV’s, but these are three of my favorites.

More about NSV’s

NSV checklist

 

Round 1 Mistakes/Lessons Learned from Round 2

So, we’ve talked about the basics of the program, now I’ll share how I made it work for me, a vegetable hater with a reheated food repulsion and extremely picky tastes. It hasn’t been easy but it has for sure been worth it. I did take some liberties with a couple of aspects of Whole30 to make it work for me, but I have always stayed within the ingredient guidelines. Always.

• On my first attempt, I tried to follow the program too perfectly and make the recommendations rules, too, but they aren’t. The biggest example for me is that smoothies aren’t recommended, but they also aren’t banned. First round, I tried to follow the meal template every single meal. That proved too hard for me, I was miserable because so many veggies are hard for me to eat. Smoothies realistically the only way I can get leafy greens in my diet. I did ensure the ingredients were 100% compliant and the smoothies weren’t sugar bombs. Daily Harvest smoothies were a HUGE blessing for me.
• There is no such thing as a perfect Whole30. But that doesn’t mean you can cheat, you just have to try your very best.
• We ditched the fancy and unknown recipes for meals we knew would be simple and consistently delicious. Some of our favorite go-to’s that we had a couple times a week were:
  • Grilled or baked chicken with lime juice or Montreal chicken seasoning
  • A treat of filet mignon (my fav protein) once a week with Montreal steak seasoning.
  • Lots of broccoli, spinach, green beans, sweet potatoes, and sliced russet potatoes with rosemary or garlic w/ olive oil a couple times a week (really tried not to overdo on white potatoes).
• Don’t over complicate breakfast and lunch and shed your idea of what your “typical” breakfast or lunch should look like. I am busy. I don’t eat leftovers. I work full time and travel and am always running from activity to activity. I almost always have eggs and spinach or a smoothie w/ spinach, berries, and pineapple for breakfast. For lunch I usually have Whole30 approved deli meat, a small portion of pistachios, baby carrots, and a mandarin orange.

My life saving grocery list always includes:

• Lacroix – lime or coconut
• Wonderful pistachios – always have some in my purse.
• Fresh chicken breast and ground beef always on hand for a quick dinner.
• Canned green beans
• Pre-cut broccoli
• Whole30 approved Boar’s head meats – turkey or roast beef (not all are compliant, check the labels)
• Baby Spinach
• RxBars – blueberry and mixed berry are my favs. I try not to use these as a meal, but I always have one or two in my purse in case I get caught up somewhere and am starving. Eating an RxBar in a pink is 100x better than breaking down and going through a drive thru.
• Baby carrots
• Daily Harvest Smoothies
• Frozen mixed berries & pineapples
• Califia Farms AlmondCoconut Milk
• Hot tea – lots of it. Mostly green tea, and some other Traditional Medicinals teas. Also love the Jade Citrus Mint tea from Starbucks. It’s amazing.

Seth’s must haves are most of the above plus:

• Canned tuna
• Frank’s Red Hot
• Bananas
• Baby Spinach or Spring Mix
• Tessemae’s Zesty Ranch salad dressing (available at some Kroger’s and most Publix stores)
• Montreal Steak and Chicken seasoning (two different ones)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Coconut Oil

 

I hope all this information is helpful as you consider starting your Whole30 journey. If you’re not sure you can do it, try to get there mentally. You won’t regret it. It has undoubtedly changed my life and my relationship with food. Even as I close out this Whole30, I am excited to start my next one in August. I’m going to keep eating to the program for most of July, but we do have a Disney trip where I’ll really work to ride my own bike and enjoy some good Disney food while also making conscious food choices.

Why am I doing another Whole30 so soon in August? For me, it’s a couple things. First of all, my poor eating habits are so deeply engrained in me that I believe it is going to take longer than 30 days to really redirect my mind away from the junk I still honestly crave more than I would like to admit after 27 days of Whole30. My cravings are WAY better and far less frequent, but I don’t feel totally in control of it yet. Without the rigid rules of Whole30, I’m quite sure it would be easy for me to succumb to my sugar dragon.

The second reason is that I have a significant amount of weight to lose. I don’t know exactly what I weigh now, but before Whole30 June started I had 60lbs to lose minimum before (1) my best friend’s wedding and (2) before I would feel comfortable trying for baby #2  – I really want to avoid all the complications that go hand in hand with being obese and pregnant. So I have some major goals to aim toward and Whole30 will help me stay on track with making healthy choices so I can meet my healthy weight goal and continue a lifelong track of healthy eating.

Be determined. Make a commitment. Get out there and thrive – you deserve to live your best life ever, and it starts with food.