I shared the beginning of my Whole 30 (diet) experiences two months ago from the date of this post, and had said I’d follow up with more stories and learnings through the end of the eating plan commitment. That post was made just before the COVID-19 global pandemic really hit where I am living in the U.S. and most of us began experiencing some major changes in our routines and lives. Now, writing about having to give up sugar, grains, and cheese just doesn’t seem that important. So I hesitated to post the follow-up, but now.. here it is.
In the midst of so many changes, people experiencing the devastating losses of loved ones, health, employment, income, direction, stability, financial security, graduations, weddings, many other important events and many other fallouts I can’t even fathom, it seems a bit tone-deaf to write about a 30-day diet right now. However, the rapidly-changing landscape can also elicit a craving for more benign topics– things that seemed normal before so much of our “normal” changed. And, we’ll get back to much of it. I’d bet you or someone you know is going to embark on a special eating plan of some kind within the next 6 months.
Maybe you are now. For me, working from home means my office is now the living room, which is conveniently located next to the kitchen, which conveniently provides me with ample opportunity for snack breaks. Ones where I can eat right out of the container, not having had to pack a reasonable portion to take to my office. And if I feel like making cookies at any hour of the day, I can work at my laptop while the comforting aroma of butter, sugar, and flour mingle in the oven. The access to food while working from home is very… dangerous. I have considered putting myself back on Whole 30 while I’m sheltering-in-place, but with all the other stressors I, unfortunately, have leaned heavily into my food comforts and put no-sugar on the back burner once again.
So now you know the end of the movie: The Whole 30 didn’t “cure” me. It made a noticeable difference in lowering my tolerance to sugar, and brought awareness of how I tend to use food as reward and comfort. I think it was completely worth the practice, and I’ll do it again. But not during a global pandemic. Making sure my pantry and fridge are well-stocked with a variety of food is challenge enough without worrying about “compliant” foods right now.
Ok, justification over for why I’m still going to talk about my January 2020 W-30 journey. If you’re not into it, you can check out here and tune into some other more worldly-relevant topic, then pick back up with me in a couple months.
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Whitney’s Whole Thirty WEEK 2
Day 8: Going into week 2 I knew I was committed to being almost completely committed. Like, if I wasn’t a total purist I was ok with that. But I was definitely sticking to the no-sugar. And I’ll admit I felt physically really good. I also have to say, nothing had changed dramatically. I didn’t feel thinner (Oh, btw that is actually a rule of Whole 30 not to weigh oneself). I hadn’t had any health issues before I began that have now resolved. I didn’t feel less bloated or sleep better, because generally those things weren’t problems before. Pease feel free to roll your eyes, I’m not trying to brag. I’m super grateful to the good health and basically good habits I’ve cultivated over the years. I really like exercise. I do! And thankfully that makes a lot of things easier, including keeping weight down and sleeping well.
Lesson: Celebrate the times you feel like you’re winning, knowing that when you’re in something for the long haul, there will be challenges just around the corner. Going into them having banked energy and courage to fight on will help stay the course through the rough patches.
Day 10: I read that it’s most common for people to quit the W30 on Day 10 or 11. There are some great questions to ask yourself and tips on this page https://whole30.com/do-you-really-want-to-quit/
So I’m rolling into Day 10 like nobody gonna derail me today. Or tomorrow. Day 12…I just may want to dive face-first into a Costco sheet cake but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Day 11: I took the recycling out and had a little bit of a realization… I was doing really well with no sugar, pretty surprised that my cravings were fewer and farther between than I’d feared, and my desire to beat the habit that had gotten out of control was too strong to give in at this point. Buuuut, I definitely have some behavioral habits surrounding dessert. Pretty immediately after dinner, which is late at night because I’m a night owl, I have a tendency to break out a bag of chocolate chips, or whip up a mug brownie (or two. Or three. You know. I already told you I was loco for baked goods). So I switched to eating fruit with nut butter instead. Peanuts are legumes and aren’t allowed in W30, but almond butter and cashew butters are, and they are divine. I love them. So I subbed my mug brownies for spoonfuls of almond butter. Not low-cal, I realized, and I wasn’t too concerned about that. But the behavior of limiting myself in the evening hours hadn’t quite changed… Back to the recycling. I looked into the bin and saw a Costco-sized jar of almond butter and a regular size jar of cashew butter. It was Day 11. That’s a week and a half in which I had consumed that much nut butter. Plus a few tablespoons from the recently-opened new jar in the pantry. Maybe I need to put the brakes on there. Uggh
Hey Whit, you’re doing great! It’s like Day 24 now, isn’t it? Way to knock off these no-sugar days! Day 23? Wait.. My consciousness pinched me and my brain woke up, it had been like 3 minutes since I last thought about some kind of food, and it was still Day 13. Argghh, 18 more days is going to take a long time.
WEEKS 3-4
Day 15: When I woke up I realized I had been dreaming about eating other people’s partially-eaten desserts. In the dream I was sneaking around cleaning up the guests’ plates as they left the room! Then it happened again the next night. Not kidding. My subconscious was either testing me, or mocking me.
Day 20: I made a pizza out of cauliflower/almond meal crust, mashed sweet potatoes, pesto made with cashew “cheese”, olives, and sausage. It truly tasted delicious, but it was not pizza. Damn I miss real crust, and cheese.
Day 27: Super Bowl. The event that revolves around sitting, eating, and drinking. I would probably have tried to avoid it except I had a cute boy in my life who loves football, and some good friends who invited us over. So I made some delicious Whole 30 sweet potato curry with chicken as my contribution. As I placed it on the table filled with guacamole and chips, dips and bread bowls and cookies, I didn’t even feel tempted. (And for the record, at this point I am quite happy eating guac with a spoon instead of chips. I’ve come that far.) But then the homemade margaritas came out. “We’ve perfected the recipe!”, chirped the hostess. It was only polite to give it a try. No, ok, I won’t make that excuse. I very mindfully broke the alcohol rule again. And later in the evening I ate corn, a grain that’s prohibited in the Whole 30. I was getting tired of all the limitations, and glad the month of mostly-staying on course was almost complete.
Lesson: Disciple-fatigue is real. As you’ve read, I hadn’t been the model student but I felt really good about how much I stuck to it and especially the no-desserts and almost-no-sugar (those margaritas definitely had some kind of sweetener in them). As in Ironman, around mile 22, with 4.2 more to go, it’s not uncommon to be thinking “F- this and get me to the finish line”. …“I’m not giving up but I’m not smiling right now”.
Day 29: It snowed. It had been a month since Boulder got any moisture but on Day 29 the flakes were falling steadily, covering the trees and ground with a heavy coating of powered sugar. I mean, cream cheese icing. I mean, vanilla bean ice cream. A well-meaning friend of mine sent her husband over to my workplace with a treat for me. She had discovered a recipe for “brownie waffles” and of course thought of me and how happy it’d make me to receive some during a snowy workday. I waved a thank-you to her hubby, and as he left I opened the bag and tortured myself with a big whiff of chocolate. I clasped the bag to my chest and closed my eyes. I know, so dramatic. Two more days. For a minute I really wanted to just eat them, what’s two days, I’ve made it this far! And then of course realizing that’s exactly it– I’ve made it THIS FAR. No one in their right mind stops 2 miles before the finish line just because they’ve “made it this far”.
Lesson: When I really let the value of a commitment sink in, it feels like power. In a good way, emPOWERing. I set a goal, an unmoving finish line, and I was going to make it. I’d cheated a bit here and there, I know, but I wasn’t blatantly eating a BROWNIE WAFFLE and then lying about it in this blog. So I put them in the freezer and I baked myself some cauliflower/almond flour “biscuits” with soup for dinner. Oh. So. Satisfying. (Insert huge eye roll here). Ps, even as lame as they sound, these rolls/biscuits are really delicious and quite satisfying for someone who is craving the texture of something baked or “bread-like”. You can season them in a variety of ways, and they go great with soups, and alongside eggs in the morning. Check out the recipe here.
Here are a few more resources I found helpful, out of a million other Whole 30 tips and websites and blogposts.
- “The W30 is not hard”. Program Rules
- W30 on a Budget
Lesson: Modifying foods and drinks to have less sugar, or none, showed me that it’s not only possible, it’s ok. It may taste different at first, but many things I ate or baked in the past could be dramatically lowered in sugar content and would still be delicious. A majority of why I think I wouldn’t like something is due to the habit of eating overly-sweet things.
Right after I was finished with the thirty days, I was very excited to eat my favorite desserts again, but I didn’t want to go full-bore back into my old routine. It prompted some recipe-searching for new, lower-sugar/healthier desserts that I would have never considered before.
- Whole 30 inspired desserts
- Black Bean Brownies by Chocolate Covered Katie (she is one of my favorites)
- Healthy bean-based “cookie dough” I know this sounds super weird but it tastes amazingly similar to real cookie dough! I’ve made it multiple times since the Whole 30 as a much-healthier indulgent treat.
- Overnight oats – not on the Whole30 plan, as oats are a prohibited grain on that diet, but it’s now a newfound dessert for me as it uses minimal sugar, is satiating, and boasts a great texture!
If you decide to challenge your eating habits, behavior habits, 5th mid-afternoon fridge checks while working from your living room, consider all your motivations and be mindful of the patterns you see emerging even when making healthy choices. This strange season of pandemic-driven changes has highlighted all the more that health and behavior habits play crucial roles in our well-being. It could be that making mindful, intentional choices to refrain from things is more powerful that you have ever considered.
May you and your loved ones stay healthy and well, more filled with peace than fear.
