My Whole 30 Results & Experience

I finished it! I did Whole 30! I am feeling accomplished. Today I want to talk about my before and after, my Whole 30 results, and some thoughts about my experience.

Let’s just cut straight to the Whole 30 results, because that’s probably what you’re most interested in, right?

Here’s my before and after photos:

Don’t judge my before face. Greg is a difficult photographer to work with – he is always trying to make me laugh. He also then started taking pics of my boobs. I mean, I guess he keeps life interesting! Anyway, can you guys see a difference?

I had a total loss of 7 pounds! I did measure myself everywhere, and most places I lost 2 inches (thighs, hips, waist). I’m really thrilled with these Whole 30 results and I fit into my clothes so much better.

More importantly, I feel great. I have so much more energy. I don’t feel hungry all of the time like I used to. I feel healthy.

Greg did Whole30 with me and he lost 6 pounds. Not as much as he wanted. He has a little bit of a different opinion on Whole30 than I do. He said to me that it was harder because of his long hours away from the house, and he felt like it was too much meat. But after being off it one day he was pretty tired and foggy brained after he ate some pizza. He was sleeping really well and not super tired until the very end of the work week. He has incredibly long work days paired with a long commute (at this time). In the end, I think he wanted more weight loss results and he felt he could have lost more weight doing other things. But I think he is on board with the idea of doing paleo in the long run.

My last day of Whole30 was Saturday, and yesterday I did a little splurging to celebrate. I had one Girl Scout cookie, and my stomach hurt almost immediately. Then I went to dinner with some friends later that night. I did order a salad that didn’t have any cheese, but I had some queso, quite a few chips/salsa, and a few bites of soapapillas. Later that evening I definitely paid for it… my stomach hurt quite a bit. I immediately felt guilty like I had “undone” all of what I did. No, one mistake isn’t going to undo my healthy eating, but it definitely was an eye opener for me.

I’m glad now that I can really feel the way foods affect my body, another Whole 30 results. It’s quite eye-opening. So this brings me to my next point.

What am I doing from here?

I definitely want to keep eating clean/paleo, with as many Whole30 recipes as we can handle. I planned out dinners for the week this week and they’re all pretty much paleo/Whole30 recipes.  We do want to cut back on meat, and we plan on adding back beans and quinoa probably once a week or so to see how it makes us feel. I’ve said before that we are not big meat eaters, so hopefully adding that back in will not have any adverse effects.

I don’t want to worry about social events, and I do think it’s important to allow yourself splurges and cheats. I know now that I probably cannot handle binge eating like I used to, but a few bites of something is okay every now and then!

I have to admit I pretty much drank the Whole30 kool-aid. And I’m not one to be so easily swayed. Which brings me to my next points.

My overall experience:

I read It Starts With Food and I didn’t start a Whole30 until over a year later. I was not mentally ready for it a year ago, especially since I was nursing Caroline and hungry all the time. Even though it probably would have been safe to start, I didn’t because I was thinking “there is no way I can cut out my creamer,” or “I can’t live without cheese,” or “carbs are bae.”

The thing is, I can live without those things and I ended up not missing them. This is crazy talk. I didn’t have super strong crazy cravings. I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t have to snack all. the. time. I actually really like canned coconut milk in my coffee now.

Whole30 is hard because you are reading so many labels and following so many rules, but at the same time, it’s easy. It’s very simple eating. Meal planning is key, and always keeping your kitchen and pantry stocked is helpful. I would get on Pinterest each week and plan dinners out, and then made sure I had enough things for lunches (salads, canned tuna, avocados, etc.) and plenty of eggs, veggies, and fruit.

One thing I will say is that I’m not sure that it helped with my migraines. I get one about once a month around my period, and Whole30 didn’t cure them. I do believe these are hormonal related and now that we’ve ruled out my diet, I feel very confident to visit a doctor to try and get to the bottom of this.

My favorite recipes:

If you are interested, you can see my weekly recaps below. I go over almost every single thing I ate. It gives you a pretty good idea:

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3

We ate a lot of chia seed pudding (1/4 cup chia seeds, 1 can coconut milk, stored in the fridge overnight like overnight oats) because it breaks up the eggs and is fulfilling. I made a lot of cauliflower mash. I made homemade mayo a few times. I roasted sweet potatoes a lot. My favorite recipes this month have been:

• Buffalo Chicken Zucchini Boats
• Baba Ganoush
• Buffalo Chicken Soup
• Thai Turkey Meatballs (nix the fish sauce and serve over zoodles)
• Slow Cooker Beef Stew

Bottom Line:

I am really happy with my Whole 30 results and encourage you to give it a look if you are wanting to improve your health and girlish figure. This is coming from someone who took a year to finally do it. I’m kicking myself for waiting so long!