Food and Fitness for Living Better

One adventure was Whole30. 

Whole30 is an elimination diet. It was challenging to make these adjustments, and it really helped that my partner started it with me, and it’s intended to be just 30 days. Technically there are 10 days of re-introduction of these foods afterward to identify food sensitivities, but I didn’t make it that far. Here are the rules: 

• No grains (flour, rice, oats, quinoa)
• No dairy
• No legumes (peanuts, beans, soy)
• No added sugars
• No alcohol
• Meat was in, recommended to be grass-fed organic meat
• Fruits were in
• Vegetables were in
• Nuts were in

The first challenge was breakfast. What do you eat for breakfast that’s not eggs every day? Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy eggs for breakfast… some days. Not as the only thing you have for breakfast for every single day in a row for 30 days. How do you change up eggs without toast, or cheese, or tortillas. I guess bacon or sausage would have helped, but I don’t like to eat those breakfast meats often. We found some good recipes though, and one that stuck was a veggie roast using smoked paprika. Combination of sweet potatoes, red potatoes, bell peppers, and onions coated with olive oil, salt, and smoked paprika made for a fantastic base after being roasted at ~400F until they’re super soft. Now an over easy egg just makes this breakfast veggie dish pop! Even better is to add some avocado on top; I would pay good money for these breakfast veggies <link>! I just need to work on my plating skills… 

The next challenge was snacking. Most of our go-to snacks like hummus and PB yogurt were off limits now, so we had to find alternatives. The one that sticks around to this day is nuts & dates. Really any dried fruit will do, but dates are my favorite especially when paired with pecans – almost a caramelly taste! This snack is dense on nutritional value, so a little container goes a long way. We often pack up a mini tupperware of nuts & dates (and whatever other dried fruit we have on hand) and it lasts us most of the weekend to take the edge off hunger while we’re on the road. 

Dinner was actually the easiest meal to adjust to Whole30, so this was just more fun to explore the new recipes. Some good ones that I remember: sweet potatoes & steak bites, egg roll in a bowl, Instapot cashew chicken. 

Corey only lasted 19 days if I remember correctly, and his downfall was beer. I don’t blame him, it was definitely better to be social and have some beers since we had just moved when we tried this. I lasted 25 or 26 days, and then bailed. I was working on a capital project startup at work and often working backshifts, so I wasn’t doing much else for social events while on backs anyway. 

One striking thing about this diet was how quickly I leaned out. I was surprised to lose almost 10 pounds (which came back shortly after, and not what the point of doing this was anyway!) because I didn’t think I had that much excess on me to lose. It went to show what the impact of added sugar and alcohol had on my body. Maybe the others like grains and legumes were impacting me more than I realized also, but I chalked it all up to the sugar and alcohol. The abs were what surprised me – once I dropped below 135lb I had much better abdominal definition than I’ve ever seen on my body. So, it was super interesting to see the physical changes on my body after following something like this for just over 3 weeks. 

In the long run though, I am not interested in following this restrictive of a diet. It was a great learning experience though: I have kept huts & dates as a filling snack, I still love my breakfast veggies when I’m in the mood to roast, and I know what it takes to get a 6 pack. However, I don’t see the value in restricting so much of the food you eat, and I enjoy the convenience restaurants and grocery store meals.