Public Declaration Time: I’m Doing the Whole30!

I’ve been away a few days.  I missed you and blogging!  I’ve been doing some thinking.  I know… dangerous, right? ;)

 

But in all seriousness… I’ve been thinking about food.  Yes, I know that is probably not that surprising either, seeing as how this blog has always been food-content-heavy.  That is not going to change.  But for now, the food is.

If you’ve been following for a while, you know I have been on-and-off of Weight Watchers for the better part of… I don’t know?  8 years?  Weight Watchers has really helped me.  In 2009, I lost over 30 pounds and have kept off most of it.  But for the past 2 years, I’ve just been stuck.  I’ll try really hard for a month, then derail, crash, and burn.  Then I start again.  I am sure there are others out there with similar stories.  But lately, I have been thinking about the food changes I have made. 

The really awesome thing about WW for me was being able to still eat the foods that I enjoy, but by keeping better track of it.  If you run out of points, I had to cut back.  But honestly, I still ate pretty much the same way.  I swapped out regular ingredients for light versions most of the time.  I explored some other new foods… but mostly I tried to find ways to keep my diet the same as it had always been.  Instead of candy, I swapped for Fiber One Bars—because they taste like candy bars.  Instead of ordering pizza, I made my own using healthier ingredients.  Some days I ate fast food… and I used my weekly points allowance for that.  That all worked well for a while.  But I HATE tracking my food.  But if I don’t, I eat like a crazy person.  But I also don’t want to be tracking everything I eat for the rest of my life.  I definitely think that I became more aware of what I was eating.  But recently I have realized that I didn’t really make a lot of changes to the WAY I eat or how I think about food.  I’ve eaten way too much packaged/processed food.  I have boxes and jars of food that I couldn’t begin to tell you what some of the ingredients are.  Scary!

So this week, a group of friends and I decided to embark on a Whole30. 

 You can go here to read all about the Whole30 program, by Whole Nine.  Basically, it is similar to a Paleo Diet, with a few twists.  If you’re not familiar with Paleo, you can click here to read all about it.  It’s going to sound complicated and technical, but honestly, it basically means that you eat lots of fruits, veggies, and proteins, and you cut out foods/ingredients that may be holding you back, health-wise.

I didn’t take this decision lightly.  I read every detail about the Whole30 program, and I Googled testimonials from Bloggers out there (like me!) to see what they thought after completing 30 days of this type of clean eating.  And everything I read was overwhelmingly positive.  I couldn’t find anything negative out there!  After all… it is 30 days of just eating real food—healthy food. 

So what’s hard about it?  Of course, there is always something that you have to leave behind if you make a diet change.  For 30 days, I am giving up grains, dairy, sugar, most legumes, and all the preservatives and junk that no one needs.  It will be a challenge, I know.  But I am hoping that at the end of the 30 days, I will be changed in the ways I think about food and the way that I eat.  I am sure that there will be major cravings for some of these foods that I have ALWAYS eaten.  But I am ready for the challenge!

So… I hope that you will come along for the journey!  Maybe you don’t want to actually DO the Whole30… but I would love for you to keep reading as I post my progress and how it is going over these next 30 days. 

You can expect to see easy  and tasty meals and recipes, just like always… but they’ll be much better for you.  Sound good?

Ok… let’s see what happens!