I had learned about Whole30 from people I followed on Instagram during the spring of 2014. I was intrigued about it as I was seeing people eat great food during the month and then they would reveal some amazing before and after pictures and stats. I knew I had to look into it more as it seemed like it was something that was really transformative.
Ultimately, Price and I decided to do Whole30 together as a way to transform what and how we eat. We wanted to enjoy the holidays, our cruise in January, and then buckle down in February. I picked for us to start after Super Bowl Sunday as I knew we would want to enjoy some last fun foods and beers before starting. It also gave me time to purge out the cabinets and properly prepare after our cruise.
There were times when Whole30 was a struggle but at other times it was easy and enjoyable. I still craved cookies like crazy throughout the process. And, of course, Price missed beer. But aside from that it was not too difficult. The mornings were the worst as it was hard to cook and eat at home while trying to get ready but it was not the end of the world.
We always planned on stopping with the 30 days as we had some upcoming events that we knew we could not stay compliant for and we just wanted to take a break to test things out and see how we felt afterwards.
Truthfully, we didn’t do a proper reintroduction. We knew we wanted to start things off with dairy as we weren’t really craving anything else so that day we had some cheddar in our eggs for breakfast, a compliant lunch, and then… ice cream. FACE PALM. Not just plain vanilla ice cream, oh no… Ben and Jerry’s new Tonight Dough ice cream. You know, the one with Caramel & Chocolate Ice Creams with Chocolate Cookie Swirls & Gobs of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough & Peanut Butter Cookie Dough. It was downright incredible. We didn’t stuff ourselves but we had some and enjoyed it.
That is how we basically treated reintroduction. Have something naughty, enjoy it. We always took note to see how we felt afterwards to see if that bagel and cream cheese was worth it. Or if that wine was worth it. Or if that cake was. We would take not to see if we enjoyed eating it, how it tasted to us, and how we felt afterwards. I enjoyed the glass of wine we had to toast the season finale of The Bachelor, and had no noticeable affects, however Price noticed that his joints hurt the next day. Hello inflammation!!!
Even as we were still doing that Whole30 in February we were talking about doing another. We were hooked on doing it. We liked the way that we felt and the noticeable changes in our appearances. We were both getting comments at work about our weight loss and we were enjoying how clothes were fitting so much better.
Plus, I know that my relationship with food is a rocky one and I do best with structure and limitations, which is why I did well with Whole30. I had rules to play by. I wasn’t counting calories, like I had done in the past, but I had a strict diet to follow. I like structure. I need rules. I noticed this in my reintroduction period as I did go willy nilly some days and went back to my ‘old ways’ and then usually paid the price for it later by feeling like crap.
We decided that we would do another Whole30 together for the month of April. This way we could both enjoy (with moderation) the month of March and still have time before the wedding to really focus on losing more weight. No, Whole30 is not just about weight loss but we both want to look good in June for our wedding and Whole30 was working for us so we wanted to stick with that.
I did want to do some things differently though…
Neither of us worked out a single time while we did our first Whole30. Price did shovel a lot but there were no real work outs (He has the P90x DVD’s). So I decided that I wanted to work out 15 times during our next Whole30. I gotta make this happen!
Additionally, I wanted to focus on hydration. I didn’t do a very good job of properly hydrating myself. The winter is often hard for me as I don’t find a cold glass of water refreshing so I’d just sip on tea while at work. I’d notice how thirsty I felt at night so I’d try to catch up but I’d have flashbacks of my long nights of getting up to go to the bathroom while pregnant, so I’d stop guzzling seltzer then. And back to the blah feeling. I have to change that.
So this brings us to our Whole30 #1 recap…
I lost 11.7 pounds and Price lost 15.3 pounds. We were both very happy with those results. But aside from losing weight, we were happy with how we felt and how we approached food. It was worth the effort to stick to it.
During March…
Like I mentioned, we (mostly me) didn’t do a proper reintroduction. I enjoyed some bagels, a donut, some salad dressings, French fries (no ketchup.) But still didn’t have any peanut butter (aside from the ice I mentioned), beans, pasta (I did have some mac & cheese> meh). I only put some (a tablespoon?) of whole milk in my coffees at work, no sugar. Didn’t have any honey. So while I went off the rails for some things I tried to stay pretty complaint with a lot of things. I only baked cookies once too. noms…
For everything that was a ‘splurge’ we took note of how we felt. Some things were worth the blah-ness or the bloated-ness, but for a lot of it we were starting to put more distance between us and some foods. The Whole30 experience had really opened our eyes to what mattered to us.
I weighed myself a few times during the break and it fluctuated a bit, but I fully expect that with the extra goodies I was eating. Plus, I had done to visit my best friend in Seattle and our visit was basically a food fest. Eat, walk to new place, eat, walk to get more food, eat, repeat. Between the time change and my eating habits I was pretty beat after my trip. I was looking to starting up Whole30 again in April.
When started Whole30 #2 on April 1st I was up 2.7 pounds from when we ended our first Whole30 on March 3rd. Not great, not bad considering my naughty treats and my gluttonous weekend. But it’s time to get back on track to keep losing weight and to continue to feel better as a whole.
Let’s see where we are at the end of April!!
In the mean time stay tuned to my Whole30 food dairy that I will be posting throughout the month. xoxo
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Check out all my previous Whole30 related posts here.
