Sorry, I'm a little excited, if you can't tell! We have officially done it; we officially completed an entire 30 days of clean, wholesome, dairy/grain/soy/legume/sugar-free eating. We succumbed to precisely ZERO cravings, we did not cave or whimper and stomp our feet to get our way. We put our mind to it and told ourselves (and the entire intarwebz) that we were going to do it, and by dammit, we did. WE DID IT. I, who have never ever ever completed any kind of healthy eating program in my life, completed this. I did it. I was successful. There are not enough ways to say this: I FUCKING DID IT (sorry for my language, mommy.)!!!!
I'm going to do this a little bass-ackwards today (because why the hell not), and start with this:
What I Ate:
Breakfast: two hardboiled eggs, carrots, orange, nuts
Lunch: egg salad and hot dogs (I know, lovely combo), cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and watermelon. I was hungry.
Dinner: homemade stir-fry that we made without a recipe because are awesome and survived eating it without rice, which is a major deal for us.
How I Feel:
FANTASTIC. You know, because it's the last day and I made it and I am awesome. Otherwise... crampy, headachy, and tired. But... well. We can't win them all. I'm confident that my energy will come back once Aunt Flo gets the hell out of town.
So, yesterday I mentioned that Whole30 gave me an assignment that I am going to complete tonight in this post. I told Derek I wanted him to do it too, but he probably won't share it here on my blog. The assignment is two-fold: Part 1) an "after action report", and Part 2) my success story. So without further ado... (warning: this is probably going to get long)
What Went Well:
Well, first things first, we were both 110% on board from the get go. The day that I said to Derek, "I think we should try a Whole30" (which, incidentally, was discussed over lunch at Chick-Fil-A), Derek said "Let's do it!". There was instant talk of how we would make it work, what we would try to implement to stay on track, and why we thought this would be a great thing to try. There was no hesitation, and honestly, no real need to convince either of us. Derek was receptive to it right away and was eager to hear more about it and what it meant. Secondly, we very quickly and easily developed a plan to keep us away from our biggest terrible habit, which was eating out. We essentially agreed that the only way we would be able to not only succeed at Whole30, but kick the demons of overeating, eating out, and making poor, lazy food choices, was to plan everything out (which we had already been trying, unsuccessfully), prep everything in advance, and take away every other option we had. It really, truly, made all the difference. As I've mentioned several times, we've shaved a significant amount of money off our food bill, since "groceries + eating out" essentially became just "groceries", and I am absolutely amazed at how little food we have to throw away at the end of the week. Blows my mind, really. Also, we tried new things (like tapioca flour and coconut aminos) and found that while, yes, there are some things you just can't replace on Whole30, in most cases, we were able to make things we actually wanted to eat. There are probably some other things that went well, but those are definitely the highlights.
What Could Have Gone Better:
Despite us trying some new things and discovering there were substitutes for some of our prior staples... our meal plans got kind of boring. We both got frustrated early on with finding recipes that sounded like things we actually wanted to eat, and were having trouble coming up with things we already knew/liked that were worth adapting to make them compliant. At first, we tried several things, and I ended up hating most of them (sorry, Derek). So we found a few things that we both enjoyed and ate them. A lot. For 30 days. On one hand, there's kind of an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality -- we liked it and it was compliant, so who cares, right? But on the other hand... I had initially hoped that this would open us up to wider variety of food and break us out of the ruts we had been in prior to Whole30 that were partly to blame for us being lazy. I'm just a really picky eater. I'm confident, though, that lifting some of the restrictions (a la Paleo), will open some doors for us to be more creative and for me to actually enjoy eating. Aside from that, while I think Derek has noticed some improvement in his energy levels, mine haven't budged too much. There were some days were I was feeling better, but the drowsy days have kind of come back, and I was hoping for that to be one of the first things gone while on Whole30.
What We'll Do Next Time:
We will be trying to do a Whole30 at least once a year, but probably closer to every six months or so. Looking back, it really wasn't as difficult as we initially expected it to be so we are confident that we can do it again (and again, and again, as necessary) as a way to kick any bad habits that have sprouted back up, or to just reset our insides as needed. Next time, I think we will do more research before we start and find meal ideas in advance, so we're not scrambling the night before our grocery trip to come up with a meal plan, then getting frustrated and just throwing something mundane on the list. I'd also like to try to step out of our box a little and learn to be less picky. Both of us struggle with it, honestly, and it's not really doing us any favors.
And now...
My Success Story!
As you all know, I am very overweight. I have been for the vast majority of my life. I've tried a million and five things, but my motive was always mostly cosmetic. I hated the way I looked, I hated the way people treated me, and I wanted people to stop making fun of me. However, I didn't always have the support network I needed, and I didn't have the personal willpower to stick with something. But, as the years have progressed, and specifically within the past couple years to within the past several months, the motive has slowly changed from a superficial one to a deeply personal, emotional, and physical one. I felt like crap. As I've grown older, I've (mostly) moved past the phase of people teasing me (to my face, anyway), but I still feel judged everywhere I go. But, more importantly, my clothes don't fit well and I hate buying more because it's so hard to find things I can fit into; and even more importantly, I feel like shit. Despite the fact that by most accounts I'm healthy (normal BP, blood sugar, and relatively normal cholesterol), I've had a couple health scares and just in general know that I am not doing myself any favors. My motive has been that I want to live longer, not necessarily that I want to look better doing it (although the two come hand in hand). It's funny -- several years ago, one of my main reasons to lose weight is that I thought no one would ever love me if I was the size of a house; I was lucky enough that that wasn't true and I'm now married to my best friend and the only man who has every really accepted me for exactly what I am and not an ounce of what I've not, and my motive is that I want more time to be with him. I want there to be more years of wedded bliss, and that won't happen if I'm stuck in this body forever. So, after trying a myriad different things, including Whole30, and either failing at them or shutting them down, I decided to revisit the Whole30 idea, and Derek jumped on board.
A couple of friends of mine had tried or completed Whole30 before. One friend started doing it and I told her she was nuts; I didn't research it much but from what she had showed me, my opinion was that it was entirely too restrictive and that NO human being could live like that healthily. She ended up not completing the 30 days, and I didn't give it another thought. Later, though, one of my coworkers, who has some food sensitivities, mentioned that she was doing it and explained it -- how it was meant to weed everything out and get you back to a real "normal", and then help you pinpoint what the sensitivities are. When it was put that way, it sounded smart. I looked more into it and realized it was about even more than just that; it was about getting rid of the horrible relationships we have with food and eating to live. That really hit home, and so I printed out all the materials I could find on the matter and presented it to Derek. As I mentioned, he was on board almost immediately, and our journey began.
The Whole30 experience overall wasn't extremely hard or complicated, which I've enjoyed about it. There were a few times we had to call up our dear friend Mr. Google to find out if something we were going to buy/make was compliant, but for the most part, it's extremely clear cut. For someone like me who loves to find ways to game the system (ahem: "Well, I have 24 points left for the day, and an entire box of macaroni and cheese is 21 points, so it's okay!"), this was very, very helpful. It wasn't all sunshine and roses, of course, especially in the first week-ish, with caffeine withdrawals and cravings wanting to kick us in the face at every turn, but for me, I guess in general it went better than expected. I didn't really ever get to a "Kill All The Things" day, and while I did have some cravings, they were more just fun to talk about and less that I actually wanted the bad food. Or, rather, I wanted Whole30 success more. It got better and easier as the time went on, and by the end it was just... normal. I've come to realize that it really isn't going to be that hard to keep this up. It'll be nice to have a few more options, and treat ourselves to the food we actually miss once in a while, but at this moment I can honestly say that I don't care if I ever eat Taco Bell again. Does it mean I never will? Probably not, but I don't want it. I don't care about it. I don't miss it. And that's a whole hell of a lot of progress.
There has been some radical progress in the Hackley house in the past 30 days, and I am really excited about how far we've come. My veggie-hating husband now willingly eats carrots and cucumbers as side dishes; and I've learned that I don't need to soak things in ketchup or barbecue sauce or teriyaki sauce to make them palatable (but not gonna lie -- it sure helps). Even though I'm still tired a lot, I FEEL better. Most importantly, I'm happier. This alone almost makes everything worth it. I don't know yet how much weight I've lost, but having the energy to laugh and jump around and just... enjoy life is... well... it's fucking amazing. I kind of forgot how much I was missing out on when I was sore and worn out and frustrated and sad and depressed and angry and anxious about my health situation. Case in point: Remember a couple weeks ago I mentioned that I pulled a muscle or something in my back and it was really painful to turn or do, well, much of anything? Because the pain started around my chest wall (but was not chest pain, per se), Old Sarah would've flipped out and spent hours upon hours being anxious about what was CERTAINLY a looming heart attack. New Sarah took it for exactly what it was -- stretching wrong or sleeping funny -- and focused her energy elsewhere. It's so heartwarming to see my husband smile at me and hear him tell me that he missed "this" Sarah, and heartbreaking to realize that I had been in a place where "this" Sarah was incredibly rare. I don't want to waste any more of my life being "that" Sarah. Even if I don't lose another pound, if I can stay "this" Sarah, I'll be okay.
And that, my friends, is a wrap. (Stay tuned tomorrow for the final weigh-in results, and maybe some before and after photos if I feel ballsy enough to share them!)
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