Whole30 for August
The Snook and I haven’t been eating well for the past few months. Winter arrived, and the best of intentions go out the window in the face of cold and stress. We were drinking too much wine, and we were eating too many carbs. Then my family arrived for a two week visit, and of course we went a little crazy with food then. Cookies, bread, ice cream, you name it. By the time August arrived, we both agreed we needed a change.

Enter the Whole30. The idea is that you commit to a month of clean, primal eating: no alcohol, no grains, no sugar, no dairy, no legumes. You eat good protein, good fats, and plenty of fruit and veg. If it sounds hardcore, that’s because it is. I actually like that part. I especially like the “tough love” section from the website:

It is not hard. Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. Quitting heroin is hard. Beating cancer is hard. Drinking your coffee black. Is. Not. Hard. You won’t get any coddling, and you won’t get any sympathy for your “struggles”. YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE not to complete the program as written. It’s only thirty days, and it’s for the most important health cause on earth – the only physical body you will ever have in this lifetime.

So the day after the family left, we started. It’s been two weeks now and we’re both staying strong. We’ve given up grains and sugar before, but never to this extreme. The biggest changes have been using ghee to scramble our eggs for breakfast, and switching to coconut milk in my coffee. Other than that we just build our meals around good protein and whatever vegetables are in season. This week we’re having stuffed chicken breasts, pork belly, prawns, steak, and lamb curry. It’s not hippie food and it’s not faked-up, pre-prepared “low-carb” crap either. It feels good. I don’t wake up hungry, and I don’t get the 3pm slump at work anymore. We both took a few days for our digestive system to adjust to the change, but I think we’re on track now. I even managed to make cookies for work last week and neither of us were tempted to have one!

Our only “cheat” has been in weighing ourselves. Yes, I know we’re not supposed to, but I was dying to quantify the results. We were definitely both looking and feeling less bloated. Turns out the Snook has dropped over 4kg, and I’ve lost about 3kg! (Granted, a lot of that was water we’d retained from the vacation carb-fest.) All without feeling hungry, and without doing any extra exercise either. You know, when this month is over I don’t think we’re going to change much. This is the kind of food that makes us both feel healthy.