I was recently telling my husband about a client I saw who had just completed the “Whole 30” diet. He was intrigued. Did they lose weight? What did they have to do? Were they hungry ALL THE TIME?? I explained to him the general rules: no dairy, no added sugar, no grains, no legumes, no alcohol, nothing processed, etc. (for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, you can find the complete rules here). “Great, I want to do it,” he announced.
Ugh…so this is the point that I should probably tell you that when my husband says that he wants to do it, this really means that I am going to be doing it as well, which I wasn’t ready for. I control the food in the house (cooking, groceries) so it would be hard (and not to mention a giant pain the ass) to cook one meal for me and the kids and a separate one for him. I drew the line a few years ago when he announced he was doing the Master Cleanse (read: no food for 14 days, just lemon water, maple syrup and cayenne pepper) but other than that, I am aware that going on any sort of health/weight loss journey is a lot easier and more fruitful if you have a teammate. And for my clients who insist on wanting to do a structured diet, I always push them in the direction of the Whole 30 because it’s all real food-based, which I love. I also like that people can go on it for other reasons than weight loss. Personally, I am not looking to lose weight but I would love to tighten things up in my diet. For example, it’s like muscle memory that every night I eat some chocolate after dinner. Do I always feel like eating it? I have no idea anymore because I just do it. And I always put honey in my tea. When was the last time I had tea without honey? I have no idea because I have a honey problem. Do I need to eat the last half chewed up bit of my kids bagel as I am putting it in the dishwasher? Absolutely not, that’s f%*&@!# disgusting. But I do. Every. Friggin. Time.
So, here I am, day one of the Whole 30. Well, actually day two—I wanted to make sure I could make it through a whole day before writing about it. I am pleased to report that day one went off quite easily. It was eye-opening though when I had to go to the grocery store around lunch time and there was nothing to eat at the hot bar (dairy and soy are in EVERYTHING). I will say that when you are forced to only eat certain things, it makes you really think about every food that you put in your body and takes away from eating foods just because they are convenient as well as any mindless snacking that may occur throughout the day.
One big deal breaker for me is that I won’t take on a way of eating that is going to have the kids eating separately from my husband and I. I make one breakfast a morning and one dinner a night (lunch, we are all on our own) but other than that, I am not looking for something to make life harder. And, I definitely don’t want to put the kids on a way of eating that would make them lose weight. The above pic is from last night’s dinner, where I made stir-fry. My husband and I just ate the vegetables and meat but I made a side of rice for the kids so they could modify. Tonight we are having fish sticks, but instead of breadcrumbs, we are using almond meal. The kids won’t notice the difference (they can still drown out any dislike in the pool of ketchup that will be on their plates) and we will still be “Whole 30 compliant”.
It’s always easy to feel like you’ve conquered Everest after Day One so I’ll keep you posted next week as to how it’s going and whether or not I’ve figuratively (or literally) chewed off a family member’s head due to sugar withdrawals.
