It Starts with Food

Last summer I discovered the Whole30 through another blogger and started mine that August. The Whole30 is a program where you only eat certain food for 30 days.  In that time you learn about yourself, your body, and how much the food you eat really affects you.  After I did mine in August I realized that dairy and most gluten hurt my stomach pretty bad so I would rarely eat them. My relationship with food, which had been pretty toxic up until that point, was changed drastically and the things I learned are still with me today.

So why are foods removed from your diet for 30 days?  I will let those who created the program explain it:

Certain food groups (like sugar, grains, dairy and legumes) could be having a negative impact on your health and fitness without you even realizing it.

Strip them from your diet completely. Cut out all the psychologically unhealthy, hormone-unbalancing, gut-disrupting, inflammatory food groups for a full 30 days. Let your body heal and recover from whatever effects those foods may be causing. Push the “reset” button with your metabolism, systemic inflammation, and the downstream effects of the food choices you’ve been making. Learn once and for all how the foods you’ve been eating are actually affecting your day to day life, and your long term health. Source.

After those 30 days you reintroduce the foods you've been avoiding back into your diet to see how your body responds. If you don’t have any negative effects, you can put them back into your diet.  This is a way to listen to your body and give it the nutrition that it needs.  The issue I have with so many “diets” today is that it is all the same. There is no customization, they assume your body acts the same as everyone else, and they have long term constrictions on what you eat.  If I told you not to think of pink elephants, that is the first thing you would think.  That’s how diets work. They tell you don’t you dare eat carbs. And what does your body want? It wants every last thing on the Olive Garden menu.

This is not a program for weight loss, while that may be a side effect. This is a program so you may know what foods your body needs to function properly and stay healthy.  My sister Megan was diagnosed with Hashimoto's recently and it has changed her life. She use to say that she had the energy of an 80 year old but once she realized what foods trigger the negative effects in her body and omitted those, she no longer feels as if she is 60 years older.  

It Starts with Food is the book that goes into the science, the details, and the why they have set the restrictions they have for that 30 day “reset”. As I was reading about hormones and how they react as well as having them explain the psychological effects that food has, it all resonated with me. I hadn’t read the book the first time, but when I read it a few months ago, I become passionate about it and how much sense it makes.  Since finishing the book I convinced Jake to read it to help him understand my crazy talk and my desire to do a Whole30 again, but this time with all of the new information I learned in the book. 

He read it and has agreed to do the Whole30 with me!  We have had a lot of good conversations about health and nutrition and how confusing the industry is today. In midst of the confusion, this program made sense to both of us.  One of my favorite things is that Melissa and Dallas (the authors of the book) provide all the information you need for free. Sure, if you want more details it’s a good idea to buy the book, but it’s all provided in a condensed version on their website, whole30.com. 

Anyway, now that I officially sound like an infomercial, we started today! For the next 30 days we will be taking foods out of our diet that are “psychologically unhealthy, hormone-unbalancing, gut-disrupting, and inflammatory”.  We will be eating meat, seafood, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and good fats. It’s going to be hard because food has been designed to be a drug (uhm, hello candy bowl) and we go through a similar detox process. 

I’ll be posting lots about it on here, but from here on out I promise I’ll steer clear from the “I sponsor this program” language. :)

Until next time.

 I’ll leave you with a picture of my love with his love and last meal—oh Chick-Fil-A.