The Whole 30 Series

Part 1- What the heck is the Whole 30 and Why do I do it?

The Whole 30 is 100% my favorite food reset. For me, it’s way more about my mind and my relationship with food than about losing weight and how my body looks. What usually drives me to do a Whole 30 is that I feel uncomfortable in my own body and that I’m making food choices that make me feel mentally sad/down/frustrated with myself. Sometimes my pants are a little tight, but sometimes they fit just like they usually do. I just feel crappy and then I know I need a little reset.

If you aren’t familiar with the Whole 30- I’ll quickly explain it. But honestly the Whole 30 website is an amazing resource and answers any and all of your questions. But down and dirty- the Whole 30 is a food reset program, used mostly to find foods that you feel sensitive to. For 30 days you cut out all grains, dairy, legumes, added sugars, soy. After the 30 days, you reintroduce those foods in groups to see how you feel after eating dairy, how you feel after eat grains, etc. When I did my first Whole 30, this book was a godsend- it told me all of the rules and gave me some quick recipe inspo and easy sauces to make.

My husband and I eat mostly paleo-ish for our meals. So we usually don’t eat tons of dairy or grains. However, when I say paleo-ish, the ish is referencing my sweet tooth. I love all things chocolate, ice cream, dessert. So when we do Whole 30, taking out that added sugar is major for me.

Before COVID started I purchased a bag of mini chocolate chips to do some recipe development for these amazing Oatmeal Energy Balls. The recipe turned out better than I imagined. But after I put the recipe up on the blog, the chocolate chip purchasing didn’t cease.

COVID happened, and I found myself continuing to buy a bag of mini chocolate chips every time I went to the store. Then I was buying dark chocolate chips too. Not for a recipe. I was literally just pouring the chocolate chips out of the bag into my palm and then shoveling them into my mouth. Not ideal, right? 

I bought a pint of ice cream for us to have over the 2 week period before we went out to buy new groceries. It was gone in 4 days. Mostly by me. Oops, sorry Justin.

Enter, my need to do a Whole 30.

I’ve done about 4 Whole 30’s so far. My first and second Whole 30 I did while in my didactic portion (all classroom learning) of PA school. For me studying = lots of sitting and stress eating as I worry if I studied enough and knew all the things.

I did my third Whole 30 while in my clinical rotation of PA school. Relationship breakup + continued school stress + not loving the location I was living = stress eating again. Do we see a pattern here?

My fourth Whole 30 I did after a month long Army training, where I literally ate MRE’s (aka the epitome of processed foods) for 2 weeks and then celebrated doing well in our field training with Pizza Hut. I just wanted to be held accountable for eating real, whole foods. Plus I was having a skin reaction on my legs and had been ongoing for the last 3 years. I had ruled out all medical issues and thought it might be food insensitivity related. I used the Whole 30 as my experiment.

So, I’m not by any means an expert. But I’ve done a few Whole 30’s in the past and have always loved how I feel after. Every time a learn a little bit more about myself, my emotional connection with food, how my food choices link to my sleep, energy, and happiness. I truly think it’s an amazing self experiment.

So when I realized the chocolate chips were going from the bag immediately into my stomach on a daily basis, and the ice cream was too, I decided it was time for a little Whole 30 reset, to reset my mind and my body.

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And so my husband and I started our most recent Whole 30. I cant wait to take you through it with us. The beautiful (but rarely occurring) planned gorgeous meals and the more realistic (and much more frequent) pulling it together on the fly dinners. As I like to call it: the good, and the good enough.

My first few Whole 30’s I really thought all my meals needed to be Whole 30 recipes and I just didn’t know how to put together whole food ingredients into something tasty on my own. Once I learned how to do that- mostly in my 4^th Whole 30- it became immensely easier, less stressful, and also I could see myself actually transitioning some of these habits into my life after Whole 30.

So I’m here to show you that sometimes I recipe is amazing- it brings you new ideas and a new flavor palette you may have never tried. But it’s also ok to put spinach, scrambled eggs, leftover ground beef, and taco seasoning into a bowl and call it a meal.

Once a week for the next 4 weeks, I’ll round up what Whole 30 looked like for us- the meals we eat, how we felt, day by day.

I hope that this inspires you to:

1. Know that the Whole 30 isn’t that scary.
2. Realize that if any veggie will taste good if you roast it.
3. Learn that you don’t always need a plan or a recipe to eat healthy.
4. Appreciate that if you don’t love the “throw it all into the bowl” concoction that you created- adding a good sauce/dressing will fix it all.
5. Breakfast salads are a thing.
6. Try our your own Whole 30/real food reset. You’ll be surprised to know that you learn just as much about your mind as your will your body.

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