Our Whole 30 is over. And shockingly, I learned a few things.
First things first. I lost 11 pounds, putting me just shy of being under 200 again. I also went down a pants size, so I was able to add several pairs of pants back to my wardrobe. Jesse lost 17 pounds. Part of why we wanted to do this was to lose weight. So it was nice to be successful with that.
I got Jesse to drink coffee! Even though he still doesn’t love the taste of it, he wanted something besides water, so I started making extra. I like sharing this with him. I discovered I don’t really miss cream and sugar in my coffee. I noticed this right away (like day 2 right away), which was weird, because I thought it would take awhile.
I can go without sugar, dairy, and grains. I can do it, because I did. I missed them occasionally, and that’s okay, but I can make it and function without them. Adding them back in, I don’t have any dietary issues, which is helpful to find out as well. I didn’t expect to have any issues, but it’s still good to know.
I’m an abstainer, so this kind of eating works for me. (If you’ve read Better Than Before, by Gretchen Rubin, she talks about abstainers vs. moderators). It’s a lot easier for me to have strict rules in place than to have freedom to sometimes have a bit of something, because I’m not the best at only having a bit. Case in point: we ordered Chinese food a couple days after we finished. I ate the same portion I would have eaten before the Whole 30, but I shouldn’t have, because it was too. much. food. So the plan is to not eat sugar and not have Chinese food or pizza (my food weaknesses), because it’s easier to just say no for now. I will put cheese on my salads. I will bake muffins for breakfast. I will do the things I can keep under control.
We went over budget. By a lot. We spent one and a half times our normal budget for food and household items. We kind of saw that coming. I tried really hard to keep us on budget for the first half of the month. Then I was really hitting food boredom, so I stopped looking for meals that were cheaper and just picked what sounded good for the second half of the month. We snacked a lot, and it was on meats and nuts and Larabars, none of which are inexpensive. Also, apparently you’re not supposed to snack much on Whole 30, and I totally missed that the first time around.
So what now? After a day or two of eating a few things that are definitely NOT Whole 30, we’re still eating mostly Whole 30 style, with a few modifications:
- occasional brown rice, dried beans, and cheese
- muffins (for me, at least as I work on my muffin cookbook, and I was already making them for the kids)
- less meat, more veggies: I’ll look for more veggie-centered meals rather than a hunk of meat and a side dish
- less snacking, slightly bigger meals: I’ll add a bit more protein or another side dish to a meal to round it out more, eliminating the need for a bigger snack
Our Whole 30 wasn’t anything earth shattering. We didn’t discover any surprising food intolerances or come to any big realizations. But it made us more mindful of what we were eating, we cut off some bad habits, and we lost some weight, all of which make it a success.
photo credit from pixabay.com
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