My Whole 30

Whole 30 is a dietary lifestyle change meant to last over a 30 day period (and beyond) where things like dairy, gluten, sugar, and soy are eliminated from your diet.  This is meant to help your body reset, possibly eliminate physical problems that your body may be having due to foods, to curb unhealthy cravings and habits, and more.

When I first went dairy free for Jonah a few months ago, I spent a lot of time googling dairy free recipes and a lot of them happened to be Whole 30 recipes.  I used a lot of those recipes for my meals, and even after no longer going dairy free, I continued to use the recipes because I knew that they were a lot healthier than how we had been eating.

the sugar crash happened while Luke was out of town and these two were especially crazy.

it was a struggle.

I didn't think I could ever go completely Whole 30 because I wasn't ready to give up my chocolate, ice cream, and coffee creamer.  I followed Whole 30 on Instagram, and some time in August, another friend I follow began doing Whole 30.  When she decided to do the challenge again in September, I decided I would do it as well, but take it week by week.

Whole 30 has affected some people who are nursing their babies, so I wanted to be careful and make sure my milk supply was still efficient.  My friend who was doing it for the second month in a row, is also nursing and hadn't had any problems.  There are certain "rules" you're supposed to follow, such as no snacking, but my friend said she did (on compliant foods) to make sure that she was getting enough calories.

Protein and veggies are supposed to be a part of every meal, which meant I ended up eating a lot of eggs and chicken, and my favorite go to vegetables were probably onions and peppers.  For lunches, I always made a crockpot full of salsa verde chicken to eat with my lunches throughout the week filled with spinach and other things like peppers, spaghetti squash, nuts, pitted dates, and more.  Dinners were a variety of recipes I found on Pinterest or by following Whole 30 participants on Instagram. My favorite dinners were a pesto chicken dish and some kabobs we put on the grill.

jonah's baby food would technically be compliant

It's definitely challenging as it takes a lot of prep to chop and prep things, and I often rushed to do that when Jonah was napping or on the weekends when Luke could help.  It also involved going to three different grocery stores and ordering ingredients on amazon to make sure I had compliant foods.  I'm definitely more aware of what is on the ingredient list of products!

My goal in doing Whole 30 was to eliminate some bloating, and at least some of my post baby gut. In the end, the bloating has been helped, and maybe the gut a tiny bit.  Overall, it's definitely taught me to be more aware of what I'm putting into my body, and that I can have better self control when it comes to food.

I'm sure I didn't follow things perfectly, but I'm glad I did it and would definitely be willing to try again.  For now, I plan on sticking with mostly eating Whole 30 approved meals, but enjoying ice cream and yummy fall drinks from Starbucks on occasion.