I can’t talk right now, I’m doing hot, no, HEALTHY girl shit!
But I can blog about it! I decided a few days into 2021 that I wanted to take on Whole30 this year. I have never, ever been a believer in diets or diet culture, so I even surprised myself when Whole30 first piqued my interest a few years ago. One of my favorite fellow bloggers, Rachel of RachMartino.com does a round of Whole30 every January, so I was vaguely familiar with the general idea of the program (her blogs with her journey through each round are a must read if you are interested in trying it!), but this is the first year I felt confident enough in my ability to follow through and finish the program. I won’t sugar coat it – with COVID still on the rise, NYC back under pretty strict lockdown rules, and oh yeah, the fact that I’m currently unemployed, many of my excuses as to why I couldn’t do it are not even factors at the moment.
So if I actively dislike diet culture and think that diets do not work one little bit, how did I possibly get on board with what sounds like just another “fad” diet? The entire philosophy in general pretty simply separates it from being a diet, but specifically for me (everyone goes in with different goals in mind), this is what sold me:
The Whole30 is a reset for your health, habits, and relationship with food. We show you (through elimination and reintroduction) how to determine which foods work best for you, empower you to create new healthy habits, and help you break unhealthy emotional ties to sweets, treats, junk food, and booze.
I was also most interested in doing Whole30 not just for myself, but with my fiancé, Wilmer. He has some pretty significant gastrointestinal issues and I immediately thought that this would be the perfect way to isolate and identify what kinds of foods might be triggering his flare ups.
Full disclosure, he is also the main, and by main I mostly mean the only, chef of the house (I’m working on it!), so I knew that we both needed to be 100% on board if we wanted to set ourselves up for success. Luckily he had similar goals as I did in terms of his gut health, and even others of his own, so he decided to take on this adventure with me!
I wanted to do a quick Q&A with the both of us before we start our Whole30 journey, so I’ll jump right in:
Why are you doing Whole30?
C: I wouldn’t go as far as calling myself a disordered eater, but I do think I have an unhealthy relationship with food. I find myself constantly snacking “just because” or following up full meals with even more in an effort to satisfy a self-invented “craving”. I will gorge on a cheese plate, and then immediately go for ice cream because I “need” something sweet after a salty snack. I also have struggled with acne for most of my adult life, and I’ve never tried eliminating sugar or dairy from my diet to see if that is a significant factor. I currently take Spironolactone which has been life-changing for me, but I do not want to be dependent on medication long-term. I haven’t decided yet if I will go off Spiro for the duration of our Whole30, but I still have some lingering acne, so I may just see how it affects things as is, since my main focus is changing my relationship with food. Better skin will just be an added bonus!
W: I’m doing Whole30 to take advantage of the program’s idea of elimination of certain foods in order to better understand what foods are presenting themselves as harmful to my body specifically, whether it be gluten, dairy, sugar, etc.
What do you think will be the hardest part of doing Whole30?
C: Honestly, the two things that I’m most excited about temporarily eliminating are also going to be the most difficult for me – sugar and dairy. I obviously know I like both and consume a lot of each, but it’s almost embarrassing how significant those groups are to my daily routine. I absolutely am that person that counts dessert as a necessary meal of the day, so it’ll be rough not being able to dig into a pint of ice cream whenever I want! Also, even though I’m no longer working 12+ hour shifts until 5am (yay, bar life!) and my coffee consumption has significantly decreased, I still start almost every morning with a latte! I don’t think I’ve ever had just plain black coffee – so I’m absolutely not looking forward to that change.
W: The mental aspect of it. There is the initial shock of realizing some of your favorite foods are no longer things you can depend on for nourishment or enjoyment, which is what I think will be the hardest. I have to seriously turn that around and go in with the right mental approach of looking at what we can eat versus what we are losing or missing out on. I am also back at work, which will present its own challenges. Working at a bar, I rely on family meal for eating during a shift, but more likely than not, it won’t be things that are compliant, so I have to plan for that. I’m also a bartender, so no alcohol allowed will be interesting to manage.
(Note from Cait: For anyone who isn’t familiar with the term, family meal is a big, usually buffet style, meal that the kitchen team prepares for all the employees every shift. It’s typically made with either foods that will not be used by the kitchen before they would have to be tossed, or with fairly inexpensive ingredients. Think a lot of pasta, rice, potatoes, chicken, etc. And everyone who has worked in a restaurant or bar will tell you, sometimes family meal is absolutely delicious and sometimes it’s… well, definitely not.)
What do you hope to achieve over the course of this round of Whole30?
C: I would very much like to come out on the other side with a different mentality with food. I have a lot of sweet vs. salty cravings, which I feel like are mostly rooted in desire and always easily satiated by “fluff” foods. I want to be able to recognize what my body actually needs instead. I’m also actually pretty excited for the slow reintroduction phase after the initial Whole30 to be able to more easily pinpoint how different foods make me feel on their own. Right now, if I feel sluggish, it’s easy to just say, oh, I ate a heavy meal, or if I feel bloated, that I ate too much. I’m looking forward to changing that thought process and being able to really figure out that no, it’s too much gluten that makes me feel bloated, or it’s cheese that makes me feel sluggish, and make more permanent lifestyle changes to accommodate what my body can and cannot tolerate.
W: Aside from the obvious of a better awareness of how certain foods are affecting my health, I hope to gain clarity of what my body needs versus what my mind wants. Having that knowledge will, I think, help me employ a smarter and healthier approach to what I’m consuming on a daily basis. It’s a good start to undoing almost a year of quarantine pleasure cooking!
So there you have it! If anyone has done Whole30 before and has any recipes that are like, out of the world amazing, let me – well, us (because I am still horrible with the whole cooking thing) know!
Leave a Reply