Whole 14

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whole30I must tell all of you about this amazing new diet healthy eating plan that my husband and I embarked on a few months ago. You may have heard of the Whole30 plan. Well, it’s EXACTLY that, except you cheat and quit on day 14. It’s fantastic I tell you! Just what we needed!

It took me a long time before I was convinced that my body needed a complete reboot. I had many friends that had gone before me and absolutely only had amazing things to say about the eating plan. Although I have dealt with stomach/digestion issues all my life due to unhealthy eating (i.e. greasy foods, sugar, and soda), I must admit that my motivation to do Whole30 wasn’t to necessarily rid my body of my ailments or even start feeling better, but instead I just wanted to lose weight. I later discovered that this is not a diet eating plan and you may not lose a single pound from eating clean for 30 days. I repeat…no weight may be lost. But I embarked on this journey none the less and was excited to start.

To set myself up for even more success, I decided to get my husband in on this too and to be honest, I was very surprised when he agreed to do this with me. For him, it was more about doing a type of cleanse and not so much losing weight. Before starting Whole30, I scoured the world wide web for all the tips and tricks I could find. I wanted to read about other people’s experiences and set us up for success. But as you may have gathered from the title, yes, I failed at Whole30 and I will tell you all the reasons I didn’t lose weight on Whole30 and what led me to that fateful 14th day.

I love all food.

There really isn’t much I don’t like. Therefore, it was really hard for me to eliminate my favorite foods. But I did it.

Portions.

The thing that’s different about this eating plan from others is that they don’t really teach you about portions. I think for the first week, my husband and I both felt like we should eat as much of this food as we possibly could each meal in fear that we might starve to death otherwise. But that’s not true. Whether it’s healthy food or crap food, moderation is key.

Having a social life leads to failure.

At least for me anyway. I love to go out with my friends and have drinks or enjoy a good meal. But during the time I was on Whole30, it was extremely difficult to comply with all the rules while eating out. But for those 14 days, I was true to the plan and was even known to carry my homemade ranch in my purse and pull it out when my order came.

Don’t rely on another person to keep you accountable.

I desperately held on to this eating plan because I knew it was something my husband and I both wanted to succeed at and not fail. So every morning we woke up, and I saw my husband was committed. I was committed too. But once he decided this wasn’t for him, I soon followed.

Don’t plan to do the Whole30 over your birthday or a major holiday.

I didn’t plan things out so well because it did happen to fall over my birthday and over one of my favorite holidays, Easter. I love to celebrate both of those days with lots of food and fun and that’s pretty much impossible to do on this plan.

So, as you can imagine, although I held strong throughout my birthday, once Easter rolled around it was a recipe for disaster. Or failure in my case. The plan was to go over to my parents’ house and have Easter lunch together. I planned everything out and packed the dinner that my husband and I would eat. I even made some Whole3o ranch to pull out when the time was right. Everything was going so well…until my mom offered my husband some green bean casserole. Now, there isn’t much that can get my husband to cheat at anything or bend the rules. But when it came to green bean casserole, it was his kryptonite. He looked at me, and I looked at him and he looked at my mom and held up his plate. And that quickly, he was done with Whole30. I stayed strong through that Easter dinner but then my mom pulled out a birthday cake for me that she wasn’t able to give me on my actual birthday days before. In my mind, a battle pursued. I called myself rude and inconsiderate if I was to refuse my mom’s cake that she made just for me. Just a little bite. Just a taste wouldn’t hurt anything. But what I realized is once the dam is broken, there’s no turning back. So on Easter, the 14th day of Whole30, I ate some cake and never looked back. 

I decided to weigh myself that next day just to see how much I had lost because after all, I had eaten clean for two whole weeks!!! NO SUGAR for two whole weeks!!! But as I stepped onto that scale, and saw the numbers go up, up, up and surpass my starting weight, I knew that I had been duped. Duped by the popular thought that eating clean would shed the pounds. But it’s not true. What I have found to be true is that I am happier when I don’t put such strict regulations on myself but at the same time have healthy portions and make good decisions as much as possible. I recently started eating in this way, with smaller portions, less sugar, good fat, and exercise. Guess what? I have lost weight AND inches. And I am not miserable. The moral of this story is not to say that Whole30 is horrible, in fact, for the time I was on it, my body felt pretty good and my husband realized that dairy was very, very unkind to him. But for a lifestyle change, my new motto is everything in moderation and find some balance. And that has worked for me. 

Have you tried Whole30? What did it do for you and what tips might you have for someone that would like to make it the full 30 days?