For those unfamiliar, the Whole30 is a clean eating challenge for 30 days. No added sugar, no dairy, no soy, no grains, no legumes, no artificial preservatives (MSG, carrageenan, sulfites, etc) .
If you've done the math you realize that leaves us with eggs, meat, seafood, vegetables, fruit, and healthy fats (avocado, extra virgin olive oil, clarified butter, coconut oil, macadamia nuts, etc). Nothing processed.
That's a lot of cooking/ preparing.
The Whole30 is also super into grass-fed beef, cage free chickens, wild caught fish, and all that good stuff. Which is great.
If you have a bottomless pit of money.
SO
I have put together this post to try and capture our experience (well, mostly my experience since I'm writing this post and Joshua had a little bit of a different journey than I did).
I'll start off by saying that the Whole30 website has this timeline that matched my experience pretty well for the first five days. I went through the whole "What's the big deal?" phase and then the "Hangover" phase when not eating sugar for a few days started to catch up and then the "Kill all the Things" phase when my body realized this 'no sugar' kick may be permanent and launched it's full scale rebellion (although I attribute some of my bad mood to the frigid weather and stressful events at work).
During my "Kill all the Things" phase I was at the gym talking to one of our CF buddies, Creston. Nice guy, young engineer like us, works for GE. Anyways, I was asking him if he was doing the Whole30 challenge with our gym (because our crossfit gym decided to do it together for the month of January). He just looks at me, shrugs sheepishly, and says all nonchalant, "I already eat that way normally. So I don't have anything to change or cut out."
I have never wanted to punch somebody in the face so much in my life.
I'm serious, I was ready to tackle him.
After that phase, I deviated from the timeline. I was never THAT exhausted and my pants never felt tighter, but my cravings did get pretty intense at some points. I didn't miss bread, or pasta, or Asian food, or milk as much as I thought I would, but MAN, I craved sweets (ESPECIALLY chocolate) more than I ever had in my life.
Well. That, and cornbread. Which I am still trying to figure out what the heck happened there.
When it came down to the last two weeks I expected to feel amazing, like a million bucks, "Tiger Blood" as the Whole30 people call it (do not ask me where that name came from I have no idea).
And I did feel that way, sometimes.
But sometimes, I didn't. I just felt....normal?
It was confusing. But we stuck to the 30 days. Dutifully stayed off the scale until the end (Well I did anyways). Handed over our paychecks to Whole Foods. And ate.
Outcomes
Benefits we observed:
- Skin cleared up (but definitely got worse before it got better)
- I slept better at night
- I didn't get hungry between meals
- My nails got stronger
- I lost ~8lbs and 4% body fat,
- Joshua lost ~4lbs and 1% body fat
Benefits we hoped we see but really didn't:
- Waking up easier
- Boundless energy all the time
Some negatives:
- I had some crazy mood swings as my hormones settled
- The skin breaking out before it cleared
I journaled often during the process and Joshua and I discussed the program as went went along. Here, I have tried to summarize some of our thoughts on the Whole30:
Before I even get into the other stuff, I just want to mention that I am incredibly grateful that my husband did this with me. Being completely honest, had it been just me, I don't know if I would have made it past the first week. It was, at times, awkward to make so many new things and use ingredients and cooking techniques that we'd never tried before and I could never have made it work without Joshua's can-do attitude, his laid back manner, and his skills in the kitchen.
Things about the Whole30 that I love: The Eating Parts
During the 30 days we ate some seriously good food. I don't know if it was because we were eating everything organic (which I had always thought was a bit of a scam), if it was because we cut out sugar and so other muted flavors became more vibrant, or if we were just so hungry that anything was bound to be awesome, but everything we ate was SO SO delicious.
I always thought I was a bit weird because I just didn't like food as much as other people. But I seriously fell in love with eating this past month. I was worried, going into it all, that we would get worn out by certain things (likely eggs or chicken) and that eating would be boring. This was one area that completely blew me out of the water. We loved the recipes in "It Starts with Food" and we LOVE this girl. We even bought her cookbook, too.
I also took the opportunity to try some things that I thought I didn't like again and found that they were really delicious! Things like:
- Ground meat (beef, turkey, pork, etc)
- Tomatoes
- Mushrooms
- Peppers (green and red)
- Curry Powder
- Coconut
- Pineapple
- Almonds
- Pecans
We also tried some things that we'd never had before that we found delicious. Like:
- Turnips
- Parsnips
- Sweet Potatoes
- Coconut Milk
Some of our favorite dishes were:
Breakfast- Sweet potato hash browns and friend eggs.
Lunch- Chicken salad with apples and almonds, creamy thai soup
Dinner- Coconut shrimp and spaghetti squash (with remoulade sauce); lemon thyme chicken thighs with roasted root veggies; pecan crusted salmon; spaghetti squash with tomato meat sauce (man, typing this is making me hungry)
Anytime- Berries of any kind; almond butter.
Things about the Whole30 we didn't love but weren't awful either: The Cooking and Cleaning Parts
It was challenging to prepare all the food we would need for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We certainly got our money's worth out of every kitchen gadget, pot, pan, and appliance we own. And of course, using all the things also means cleaning all the things.
Kitchen gadgets that were the most helpful:
- Peeler
- Crockpot
- Food processor (which we purchased during our Whole30)
- Juicer (not the appliance, the manual kind)
It was a real challenge, especially at first.Our dishwasher ran every single night (for just the two of us!) There were times when I would look at the chaos of our kitchen and wonder if it was ever going to be clean again.
But, eventually, we found something of a rhythm. It became a discipline to keep our kitchen functioning, which was good for us I think. We learned tricks and shortcuts and did a lot of cooking at once so we only had to reheat later on.
We learned some new recipes and techniques and some things because almost fun.
I discovered I really like making my own paleo mayonnaise. I never have cared for mayonnaise that much before, but the paleo stuff is so good as a dipping sauce (I'm sure it sounds really gross). I also enjoy making my own dressings and condiments. I found a ranch recipe that I like better than the real stuff and super delicious remoulade sauce that is really great with fish (or chicken, or beef, or....okay I use it on everything).
I also learned how to make bone broth, which made me feel super awesome and grown up. There's a odd excitement in making everything you're eating yourself.
Things about the Whole30 that I HATE: The Paying Part
This eating style is not cheap.
I had a small idea about how much it would cost and so I suggested we save up some extra money for January's groceries.
We spent all of that by day 17, a little over halfway there.
When I think about how much we spent on groceries, it makes me want to cry. We spent more in January on groceries than on rent.
Rent! Let that sink in.
Sure, the winter time makes produce and stuff more expensive. And sure, we committed 100% to grass fed, cage free, wild caught, organic, we sing our cows/chickens/fish to sleep at night and everything. But MAN. Eating well should never be that much. I don't know, maybe we did something wrong. Thank God for my number-crunching husband who did some budget magic and balanced out all of our expenses.
My eyes have been opened to this whole wonderful idea of responsible farming for produce and animals and the Whole30 people encourage you to 'Vote with your Dollar' but we don't have that many dollars to vote with.
This was probably the most stressful thing about the whole30. Because, like I said, the food was delicious we were feeling better (and losing body fat) but it was simply unsustainable for the future.
But what can we do? Go back?
Post Whole30: Reintroduction
Right now we're on day 33. Or what we call 'The Reintroduction Phase'.
Basically, for the next week, we reintroduce a food group (i.e. dairy, soy, etc) one day, keeping everything thing else Whole30, and see how we respond. Then spend the next day Whole 30 compliant. Then reintroduce something else the following day. Rinse and repeat.
On Saturday (day 31) we reintroduced dairy. I've read about people having mucus or digestive issues when doing a milk reintroduction but neither of us responded negatively to dairy. Well, my skin broke out just a tiny bit, but nothing crazy.
Today (day 33) we're reintroducing gluten-containing grains. Breakfast (french toast!) was fine but we'll see how the rest of the day goes.
Basically, past this Friday, we don't really know what eating in the Harkey house looks like. We definitely have some ideas of what we want to limit or leave out of our regular diet altogether but we're trying to find a happy medium between BiLo and Whole Foods (we're currently exploring Publix).
So wish us luck and, if you think about it, pray for us because we have a sincere but ignorant desire to treat our bodies with respect and honor the temples that God put in our stewardship. Looking in the bible, it's clear that health and nutrition are important to God and that gluttony is a real hindrance to a relationship with Him which is no good for us.
Also, when I planned out this post I dreamed I would take all sorts of pictures of the yummy food we've been eating but I only took two. But you might as well see them, so here they are:
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| Prosciutto Wrapped Frittata 'Muffins' |
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| Chicken Nuggets and Sweet Potato French Fries |
Love you all,
