I’ve been seeing posts about Whole30 around the internet and it piqued my interest. After playing around on the site for a while, I purchased the book you’re supposed to read before starting the program. I brought the book on my vacation to Maine this weekend and in two days read the entire thing and was ready to start my Whole30 journey.
It Starts With Food lays out a “clear, balanced, sustainable plan to change the way you eat forever.” The book goes into the science behind our food cravings and why certain things should be eliminated from our diets. The 30 day plan is basically very strict Paleo. While I may claim that I eat “Paleo-ish” i go through phases and I cheat. all. the. time. Whole30 is appealing to me as a way to reset my system, no cheats allowed. In fact, in Whole30 if you cheat once, you go back to day 1. They mean business.
The book is scattered with personal accounts of different Whole30 participants and the drastic and amazing way it has changed their lives. While I don’t have the issues (diabetes, joint pain, obesity, etc) that these people have, I wouldn’t consider my relationship with food the best and I want to take on this challenge and see what 30 days of clean healthy eating would do for me.
This isn’t the first time I’ve taken on a different way of eating but generally I give up and cheat. I’m hoping with 30 days set in front of me, I’ll stick to the plan. If you’re curious about Whole30 I recommend surfing the site and if you’re still interested, buy the book; it gives perspective on all the eating guidelines of the program. Unlike other “diet” books (although this one doesn’t like to be categorized as such), I like that this one has a whole chapter on how to deal with naysayers and people who tell you you’re being crazy (I get told I’m being crazy all the time and I’m still working out how to respond properly to this).
Scheduling when to do the 30 days is tough. There is always something that will come up and will throw your eating off. In the end though, we just need to make the commitment and stick to it.
I’m starting my Whole30 plan on Monday, September 1st. If you’re interested, please join me and we’ll do this thing together! Shoot me a message at ShapinUpFitness@gmail.com and we’ll keep each other on track.
