And feeling successful!
According to the website, “Think of it as a short-term nutritional reset, designed to help
you put an end to unhealthy cravings and habits, restore a healthy metabolism,
heal your digestive tract, and balance your immune system.”
I did not read any of
the books related to the Whole30 program ~ I read everything on the
website. My chiropractor has done the
program, loved it and I have a cousin who is participating.
Some of the changes
haven’t been too difficult. I already
chose to eliminate soft drinks from my life a decade ago. No milk for about the same amount of time,
although I eat cheese ~ oh yes! Glorious cheese! Gluten went out the door when it seemed to
ease the symptoms of Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.David and tried a detox for reset about two years ago. OH MY GOODNESS! Just bad, bad, bad. It required eating this soup that sounded so lovely on paper, but in reality was rather horrible tasting, gave me a migraine and gave David a painful gut that had him running to the bathroom. IT WAS AWFUL! That detox was off the list after eight hours. It was miserable, but we do laugh about it now.
Since then we’ve been close to eating like the Whole30 program. Buy organic, pasture raised, sustainably sourced food. Very little processed or packaged food if any. Making my own salad dressings. HOWEVER, we do like a couple of glasses of red wine on the weekends, we like to snack on those lovely salty potato chips with ridges and I can’t say that I’ve been good about being gluten-free all the time. The longest stretch was eight months. Ever since our trip to Italy, I have been like a yo-yo about abstaining from gluten. And I can feel it!
The primary goal for doing this was health, to see what foods nourish us and what foods aggravate us. Secondly, as we age and our hormones start acting all crazy on us, we wanted to see what changes we could make to feel at our optimum. And of course, some weight loss would be nice too! For this 30 days, we changed only our eating habits. Workouts are staying the same so we know that any changes we feel come from the change in what we choose to put in our bodies.
I didn’t want to blog about this until we were quite a ways in. So here are some of my musings now that we are half way to our goal.
- We both felt pretty good before. But we now feel even better.
- The program advises to weigh yourself only at the beginning and at the end. The idea is to notice changes in the way you feel and how you function daily. But we have noticed our clothes getting a bit looser and less love handles.
- It really does make you think about your relationship with food. We have both concluded that we don’t eat emotionally, but some things are habitual like those crunchy, salty potato chips. Now that I’ve broken the habit of reaching for those chips, I am pretty sure I could go without. Not sure about David.
- David stopped drinking his favorite diet soda ~ and he didn’t die.
- I was already downing 64~ 72 ounces of water daily. David has been drinking a lot more water. YAY!
- I can always tell when I’ve eaten something that my body doesn’t like because it will affect my sleep. Now I’m sleeping like a baby every night.
- David sleeps like a baby no matter what. Unless he drinks his water too late in the evening then he has to get up three or four times to go to the bathroom. I try to get my water all in by 7:30, if not I would be up two or three times as well. The body adjusts and it feels good to eliminate all those toxins.
- We are proud of our discipline and commitment. Because we share a home with my Dad & he has no desire to give up his fave anything, (at 87, why should he?! Lol), there are chips, cookies, bread and all kinds of things that are off limits to us and we just say no.
- CHEESE! I really miss CHEESE!
- There are lots of recipes in the land of Pinterest to keep things from getting boring. It takes some planning and preparation, but it really isn’t too difficult to modify recipes you already like.
- I hope with all my heart that a moderate intake of cheese will only nourish and satisfy and not aggravate.
- We will be adding back wine.
- I could care less about potato chips ever again.
- I hope that David hates his diet soda now.
- We like to try different restaurants at least once per week for a date night. We opted not to go out for this 30 days to keep things simple and avoid the temptations of the latest gastronomic creations. (Saves money by the way.) I am curious at what choices we will make when we resume going out.
- What the holidays will look like. I bake very little throughout the year, but the holidays are a time to revel in the sentimental traditions of baking my grandmother’s Christmas cake, sugar cookies cut out and decorated in the shapes of Christmas, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie . . . maybe we will have one and give the rest away?
- Although I want to be committed to being gluten-free forever, it is rather difficult when traveling. I’m going to Japan twice next year ~ there will be so much I must pass up. Also, we love Italy and plan to go back ~ do you know how good bread is in Italy? And the cheese? and the wine?
I will write another post about the program at the end of our 30 days! Hugs and smiles!
