What I Learned through Whole30 // Monday Musings

A little over a month ago, I began a journey through a month of completely clean eating. This meant no sugar, dairy, grains, gluten, or legumes (and for those who don't know, peanuts are legumes!). When I first started, the task seemed a little insurmountable. My diet consisted of so many of those things each day, I wasn't sure what to eat, and in no way did I want to go hungry for even a day, let alone a whole month!

What I discovered has profoundly changed the way I think about food, hopefully forever. If you haven't done something like Whole30 yet, I'd encourage you to do it immediately. While it was extreme, I can't imagine what my life and food habits would be like going forward without having learned what I did. Here are some of my major takeaways, with more to come, I'm sure!

1) There is added sugar in EVERYTHING.
I don't know how I didn't notice before, but food manufacturers add sugar everywhere. Chips, lunch meat, rotisserie chicken, crackers...the list goes on. I was dumbfounded. Even without eating a daily dessert, I imagine I was still meeting more than my daily quota of sugar. There are also insane amounts of chemicals in almost all processed foods, but that's a whole different story!

2) I wasn't eating enough fat.
Some of you will cheer at this statement, but a lot of people are still under the misconception that fat is bad. It's not! And if you don't believe me, read these articles: Everyone Was Wrong: Saturated Fat Is Good For You; 7 Reactions to a High Fat Diet; Rethinking Fat; and more!
Either way, I wasn't getting enough because I thought I shouldn't be eating much! I went through a time of getting daily headaches this summer, and I'm realizing that a lot of that, and my general brain fogginess, was due to a lack of fat in my diet. I need fat to feed my brain. So do you. So eat (good) fat!

3) I eat a lot.
I kind of knew this about myself, but one big aspect of my Whole30 was not losing weight. Since I knew I was eating only extremely healthy foods, I didn't worry about portion sizes. I simply ate until I was full at each meal. And you know what? I eat a lot. I eat more than most of my friends. Sometimes, after a hard workout day, I can eat as much as my husband. That used to bother me, but I've realized that's just how I am - and I'm ok with that!

4) I can't do Whole30 forever.
Well, maybe I could, but I shouldn't. Once you get the hang of it, Whole30 feels like a security blanket. You know exactly what you can and can't eat, no guessing! It's restrictive, but so freeing to know that you don't have to worry about making good choices or not. But even though I can't stay in it forever, I do know that from here on out, I'll be eating a much more Whole30-like diet. And when I do choose to grab a dessert, I am going to enjoy it SO much - because it's going to be way fewer and further between!

What about you? Have you ever tried Whole30 (or something similar)? What's keeping you from trying it out?

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My Whole30 Journey // Personal

I know that there is a huge crowd of people who started going to the gym this month, and began a new diet. If that's you, good for you! I find it incredibly inspiring to see people working out, getting back into working out, or trying it for the first time. It's easy to keep doing something you've always done. It's a lot harder to change your lifestyle, your habits, and your daily routine. I'm not usually one for New Years resolutions, but seeing that I began my efforts to quit caffeine last year, and now with the start of the next thing, maybe I just like the sense of hope and freshness that a new year and new goals bring.

While I'm not starting a diet this January, I am trying something a little different. Over the holidays, I read the book It Starts with Food. The Whole30 concept is that there are many large food groups that could be making you feel tired, draggy, irritable, or just sick in general, and it's impossible to find out what (if anything) is affecting you unless you eliminate them completely, then slowly add them back in. While I don't have any food allergies (besides mangoes), and I don't necessarily feel sluggish or drowsy during the day, I like the concept of cleaning up what I'm eating to see if there's something that affects me negatively.

So with that, I began my own Whole30 Journey on January 1st. I waited until then because I didn't want to be a drag on the holidays and not be able to join in on all of our Christmas dinners. Since I have overall good health, I thought I would enjoy the month of December without making a big deal about what I eat.

Whole30 is, honestly, both restrictive and freeing. It's restrictive in the sense that you can't have ANY sugar, dairy, legumes (including peanuts), gluten grains, and non-gluten grains (like oats or corn). It is freeing in the sense that the purpose of it is not to go on a diet or lose weight - it's to be clean and healthy from the inside out - and within those boundaries, you can enjoy the food that's there without worrying about what you're eating. Of course it's always unhealthy to overeat any kind of food, but the approved Whole30 foods are very hard to overeat.

I'm excited for these 30 days, and for how my mind will (hopefully) change in regards to food. If you have gone on the Whole30 program before (or Paleo, which is pretty close), then send some recipes my way! And comment below if you've tried it - did you like it? Was it awful? Did it help you think differently about food? Let me know what you thought!