Day 31: Reflections on a Month of Whole 30!

It’s January 31st — which means, my friends, this round of Whole 30 is officially complete! Crazy.

I can’t really put my finger on how I’m feeling about it yet. I’m feeling a mix of things — but I’ll explain in a moment.

First: Did I wake up and immediately start trying to reintroduce things? No. This morning began uneventfully: I had coffee, scrambled eggs, and a grapefruit. I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry, and we didn’t have any veggies prepped, so I didn’t fill my plate with vegetables as I’ve tried to do throughout the month.

I’m currently at my parents house in Arkansas for the week, and I’ll admit that I did search their pantry for some dark chocolate, but found nothing — no doubt because my mom is also doing Whole 30 right now and has cleaned out their fridge, pantry, and freezer. So instead, I made a cup of herbal tea and sat down to write this post.

Revisiting (Expressed) Goals

Although Whole 30 is not intended to be a weight loss “diet”, I think nearly everybody goes into it with the expectation that they will lose weight. When all you’re eating is meats, veggies, nuts, and fruits (especially if you’re used to eating a Standard American Diet) — I think it would only make sense to lose a few, even if this was not your intention.

For many people, this is the primary motivator for doing Whole 30. It was not mine — at least, I didn’t tell myself that it was. I’ve maintained a healthy weight for the past few years and knew that even if I really tried to lose weight, I probably wouldn’t lose that much. My body has seemed to find its natural place of equilibrium, and generally, I respect that.

But I’m getting ahead of myself — before we go into the weight loss discussion, I want to revisit the goals I actually expressed at the very beginning. These were the goals I listed in my first post of this diary:

• To rediscover my love of cooking and eating beautiful plates of real, colorful food.
• To gain the momentum and motivation I’ll need to have a successful, healthy recovery after surgery.
• To reduce my dependency on sugar and regain balance in my diet.
• To eliminate the symptoms that have been creeping up again, for good!
• To have the energy to fuel my one-armed workouts.

If realized, each of these goals would fall under what Melissa Hartwig calls “Non-Scale Victories.”

My NSVs (Non-Scale Victories)

To rediscover my love of cooking and eating beautiful plates of real, colorful food.

This, I am happy to say, did happen. Alex and I really dove into cooking this month, and had a lot of fun preparing healthy, balanced meals. We made nearly everything from scratch, learned how to replace standard ingredients with healthier alternatives, and spent a lot of quality time in the kitchen. For all these things, I’m super grateful.

I think I can still do a better job of filling my plate with vegetables — and actually finishing the vegetables on my plate. More meals than not, I left about a third of the vegetables I had intended to eat untouched. I’ve learned from years of blood sugar issues and related headaches/migraines that I have to eat a lot of protein, so I always finished my proteins, just not the veggies. When I did feel the need to snack between meals, I knew that it was because I wasn’t eating enough during meals — and yet, quite often, I would feel uncomfortably full before the meal was over and wouldn’t finish my whole plate.

But I will say that my palate has adjusted to the point where I actually enjoy eating vegetables and enjoy them as they are. I don’t know if I’d say that I crave them, but I do see them as a critical component of every meal — which is much more than I could say at the beginning of the month.

To gain the momentum and motivation I’ll need to have a successful, healthy recovery after surgery.

This is really what made it all worth it — the first few days of my surgery recovery was, by most standards, easy. In the past, my body has really struggled to bounce back from even the smallest of dental procedures. I worried (a lot) about what major surgery, anesthesia, and potentially weeks of pain meds would do to my body.

And yet — within a few days, I was going on 2–3 mile walks. I was cooking myself (basic) meals. I DIDN’T HAVE ANY MIGRAINES. Even though I did spend a lot of the first week watching Netflix and icing my shoulder, I also had the energy to do light housework, see friends, and be somewhat of a person. I stopped taking pain meds after about 5 days, with plenty left in my prescription. I have no doubts that eating real, whole foods contributed to such a speedy recovery, and I’m really glad it worked out this way.

To reduce my dependency on sugar and regain balance in my diet.

Not going to lie, the first few days of this month were rough. Getting all the sugar out of my system was rough. I think day 3 was the worst — when I had a migraine and a panic attack all within a few hours of each other. But over time, it got easier. I stopped feeling the urge to eat something sweet after every meal. If I did, I reached for a piece of fruit, and felt genuinely satisfied by it. I didn’t binge fruit, either (something I used to do a lot) — I’d have just one apple or one blood orange and feel satisfied.

To eliminate the symptoms that have been creeping up again, for good!

I think I was talking about migraines here — and after that first episode, I really can’t remember having a migraine throughout the month. I had a few headaches early on, but nothing like what I’m used to having — the lights out, day is over, sit in the bathtub in darkness kind. These were minor headaches, signs that my body was still adjusting to the lack of sugar (and reduced caffeine) in my diet.

To have the energy to fuel my one-armed workouts.

For this one… it depends on what we’d consider a workout. I had one actual, blood pumping workout before my surgery, which I planned to continue doing as soon as I had the energy to. So far, I haven’t done it — but I have been getting over 11,000 steps nearly every day! I’ve been going on walks and making an intentional effort to not ever sit for too long. Unfortunately, because of all the walking, my left knee has been flaring up again. I injured it skiing a few years ago, and it’s gone in and out of pain since then. I’m trying not to get disheartened by this, and know that building my leg muscles up will help alleviate some of the pain. (I’ll also talk to my PT about it just to be safe.)

Now that I’ve regained some balance in my diet, I do plan to dive more deeply into working out. 🏋 January was the month of regaining balance in my diet, and I plan to make February the month of rediscovering my love of exercise.

Okay, Now Let’s Talk About Weight Loss

I said it before, and I’ll say it again here for my own sake: My goal was not to lose weight. Also, I had major surgery just 12 days ago, after which I needed to rest in order to promote healing. Also, pain pills make you constipated and bloated, and many people do report weight gain while taking them.

All that to say: After a month of eating Whole 30, I lost 2 pounds. I feel like I look a little leaner, and obviously I’m feeling good in many ways — but I won’t tell you that I’m not a little disappointed. When I did the paleo autoimmune protocol this summer (also not a weight loss thing), I lost over 12 pounds. I remember feeling weak and fatigued a lot then (and was also still struggling with headaches and migraines) — but I guess I kind of expected similar results (minus the negative side effects), because I’ve been eating similarly, and started out in a healthier place than I was in then.

It goes without saying that I’d rather feel good and weigh a little more than feel like shit and weigh less. I honestly think I might have been a little underweight this summer. All that to say: I love my body and want it to be healthy, above all else — so even though I only lost 2 pounds, I’m so glad to be mostly symptom-free.

My Whole 30 Snafus

There’s no such thing as a perfect Whole 30 — everyone bends or breaks the rules at some point, sometimes even without realizing it. Usually, dining out is where this happens — because hidden sugars and non-compliant oils can creep into seemingly compliant foods.

I actually didn’t eat out that much this month. I haven’t eaten out all that much since I figured out the celiac thing, and these added restrictions made it feel particularly pointless to go to a restaurant and pay a lot for an unbalanced (and potentially non-compliant) meal. I did make one careless error and one intentional choice that broke the rules, and here they are:

• Kombucha with added sugar: I fell in love with a particular kombucha flavor (Townshend’s Clear Mind flavor), and had 3–4 of them before my friend (a Whole 30 alum) pointed out that the ingredients contained added CANE SUGAR. Eek. Because kombucha is brewed with sugar, I guess I didn’t register that this was sugar on top of that sugar — which made it a no-no. Once she pointed this out, I stopped drinking non-compliant flavors. Here’s what Melissa says about kombucha, in case you’re interested.
• Jackson’s Honest Potato Chips: After surgery, when Alex went back to work and I was alone at home, I was craving something salty and crunchy and pistachios just weren’t cutting it, so I reached for a bag of these. The ingredients are totally compliant — potatoes, coconut oil, salt — but because they’re store-bought chips, they’re technically not allowed. I knew that and ate them anyway — 2–3 (single-serving) bags over the course of a week. They satisfied my craving and I didn’t spiral out of control after eating them, so I really don’t feel too bad about it.

What’s Next?

Tbh, my friends, I don’t know. Technically, the next few weeks are supposed to be when I start reintroducing foods, unless I want to continue eating Whole 30.

Short-Term: Super Bowl

I think I need a few days to figure out what I want to do next. The Super Bowl is this Sunday, and I really want to treat myself to a heaping pile of nachos — so I should probably spend the next few days reintroducing dairy (cheese, at least) and corn (for tortilla chips) and see how that goes. I know from my prior elimination diet that my eczema flares when I eat dairy, so I’ll be curious to see if that happens this time. Even if it does…. maybe I’ll just deal with the consequences of my nachos and then go back to eating both gluten- and dairy-free. I don’t have a known issue with corn, but if I figure out that I do, I’ll just use Siete Grain-Free Tortilla Chips (which are made with cassava flour) instead of corn chips.

Long-Term: Paleo, if Not Whole 30 Again

It’d be a real shame to revert back to my days of eating mostly gluten-free toasts and cauliflower crust pizzas and very few vegetables. I want to continue nourishing my body with real, healing foods — so I think that with a few exceptions here and there, I’d like to continue eating a grain-free, dairy-free, low sugar diet.

Alex and I have talked about reintroducing rice, which would help us make quick meals like rice pastas and rice bowls and could also help reduce our grocery bill a bit. So maybe, like many modern-day paleo eaters, we’ll eat what’s called a “paleo plus rice” diet, with planned exceptions here and there (see: Super Bowl nachos).

We shall see!

Cheers to food freedom, and cheers to health,

M