...so far.
It's day 16 of Whole 30.
Let me start from the beginning.
is a 30 day eating plan that excludes artificial sugar, processed food, alcohol, grains and legumes for 30 days. You can eat eggs, meat, fruit and veg. At first it sounds bat shit crazy but it's actually one of the healthiest meal plans I've been on in years (2 years) and I'm loving it. The hardest part of Whole 30 is making a concious effort with remembering what you can and can't eat. It's harder than it seems. But once you master that, it becomes pretty easy. At the end of the day, it's only for 30 days.
I haven't had a perfect whole 30 experience. For one thing, I've weighed myself twice (on day 4 and day 11). You're not supposed to weigh yourself or take measurements because one of the biggest points of the Whole 30 is to break unhealthy relationships with food- but hey- 2 out of 15 days is not bad. Also on day 4, I had dinner with the lovely
and drank some zobo which contained sugar. Now, on the rules of the Whole 30, you're supposed to start again if you cheat or make a mistake, but I'm an adult that made a choice and I'll be damned if I start again.
You're also not really supposed to snack and my Lord, I'm a snacker. Eating actual meals is generally really overwhelming for me. I haven't eaten a real meal since day 13. I'm just so bored of everything I'm allowed to eat, so I've been eating nuts and drinking coffee and orange juice (fresh) and zobo (unsweetened). I don't think snacking is really a habit I even want to break to be honest, but I actually need to learn to eat more food and to eat more food at mealtimes. However, I've massively improved from the first few days when all I did was eat bananas. Bananas and yam (which strangely is allowed).
On the first day of whole 30, my entire focus was on weight loss. I mean, we all tell love stories about health but weight loss always hides underneath those stories and I straight up wanted to lose like 10kg in 1 month, I specifically researched weight loss stories of whole 30. 3 days in, my goals shifted more towards my other goal- giving up sugar forever and it's been on that ever since. It feels really different to be one of 'those people' that cares more about health than aesthetics. Don't get me wrong, I still want to lose 10kg, but I'm okay about not losing it right now.
What else? I'm finding it pretty easy but read what I said earlier. I haven't really deprived myself so I have no reason to feel deprived. I've given up sugar 2 years in a row for lent, so it helps. There was a time in my life where I used to dream of chocolate bars in bed but lent changed that so now I have the ability to stick to whole 30 which I'm pretty sure I didn't have before.
I'm waiting for my skin to glow though, but I'm not sure that will happen in 30 days. When it happened during lent, it was towards the end, but ah well.