LOOKING TO START THE WHOLE30? HERE ARE SOME TIPS TO GET YOU GOING

I few weeks ago I decided I was going to do the Whole30. If you don’t know what the Whole30 is, it’s a 30 day program where you eat real food. Certain foods like diary, grains, sugar and legumes could be having a negative impact on your body, without you even knowing it. For 30 days you strip out the inflammatory food groups while you let your body heal and recover. It’s like hitting a reset button for your body. It’s supposed to reset your metabolism, systemic inflammation and help you make better food choices.

I decided to start the Whole30 because everyday around 1 pm I become very tired. So tired I feel like I can barely hold a conversation while at work. So I thought I would give it a go and see if there were certain foods that may be causing this daily midday tiredness.
I’m on my first week of the Whole30 and it’s been pretty eye opening. I didn’t have a very bad diet before but would notice random moments where I would feel very bloated. I haven’t had that issue this past week. I’ve also noticed that I don’t eat just to eat. Before I would graze on food all day just because I was bored. Now I feel like I only eat when I’m hungry, which is about every 4-5 hours.

I did experience some negative effects for the first two days. I wasn’t just getting tired around 1 pm, I was exhausted the moment I woke up from the moment I went to bed. I could barely keep my eyes open I was so tired. I started to get worried, “Is this what it’s going to be like for 30 freaking days!?”, so I naturally Googled it. I was happy to find a Whole30 forum where people had the same issue. I read that it was normal and to not stress. They recommend that if you are very active you probably aren’t getting enough carbs and fat into your diet. So I started adding sweet potatoes to lunch and dinner. This definitely helped my exhaustion.

If you are interested in doing the Whole30 I have one piece of advice – READ YOUR LABELS! Let me tell you what happened to me. The book recommends you shouldn’t eat a piece of fruit on it’s own, so I tried to be good one day at work and eat an apple with another snack. In my office, we have containers with different snacks. I chose to eat cashews. The next day I decided to look at the bag of cashews behind the container, only to learn that it had peanut oil listed as an ingredient! Peanuts are not allowed on the Whole30 because they are a legume. My day 4 quickly turned into Day 1. I was pretty bummed but I learned my lesson,  I really need to read my labels.

If you do decide to do it, here are some tips to make your Whole30 experience a bit easier in the beginning:

• I recommend buying and reading the book before you begin. I wouldn’t have done half the stuff I do daily if I hadn’t read the book
• Meal prep, meal prep, meal prep! It’s essential if you want to last the full 30 days. I prepare breakfast and lunch the night before.
• If you are regularly active load up on sweet potatoes or butternut squash. You need to make sure you are eating carbs and not just veg and protein. I believe that’s why I was getting so exhausted at the start.
• Always have a backup snack on hand, just in case – I go with macadamia nuts or a piece of fruit

I will let you all know how my second week goes. Even though I’ve started over, I’m still going to talk like tomorrow is my Day 7. I plan on just adding on an extra 4 days at the end of my 30 days.