Whole30: Round 2

Whole30 seems to be all the rage lately and it's for a good reason.

We did our first round of Whole30 back in October and while it has it challenging moments, it is TOTALLY doable and totally worth it.

As the founder says, cancer is hard...Whole30 is not hard. 

We recently listened to Jen Hatmaker (LOVE her, please go read her books and listen to her podcasts if you aren't already) interview Melissa Hartwig, founder of Whole30 and it was enough to make us want to do it again. 

If you are new to Whole30, in short it is a program that strips away sugar, grains, alcohol, dairy and MSG from your diet in order to get your body in check.  

We originally did Whole30 in the fall as a reset for our bodies and our systems and it worked.  While the program isn't focused on losing weight, I did not hate the fact that I lost 12lbs over the course of the 30 days.  The literature is careful not to call Whole30 a 'diet' and that's true.  Within the approved foods, there is no limit to the amount that you can eat.

I've talked before how I have some (annoying) belly issues (in short, my body is allergic to sugar and can't process it well) and that leads to a lot of bloating and digestive issues.  Unfortunately, sugar is in LITERALLY everything, so many things you wouldn't even think it is.  So while Whole30 can be on the verge of boring, the program works really well for my system.

The founder of Whole30 makes it a point to encourage trying Whole30 for 30 days and then slowly reintroduce the foods you eliminated back in and seeing how your body reacts.  Whole365 should not be a thing...for one, I think you would lose your mind.  Two, mama needs her glass of wine and some cheese every once in a while.  While not on Whole30 I like to employ the 80/20 rule.  Good food in 80% of the time and the not so good stuff 20% of the time.  For me that 20% is usually Diet Coke, red wine, fries and cheese.  Again, all of those things have sugar and my body will surely tell me about it.

Since we've completed one round of Whole30 I thought I would share my favorites with you guys.

I will say, that in general we eat pretty 'clean' so I didn't see an excessive change in our grocery bill or what we were buying.  

The #1 piece of advice I have is to plan and prep.  I usually use Sundays to prep and cook roasted veggies, spaghetti squash and chicken.  I've been doing chicken in our Instant Pot and we also make a big batch of scrambled eggs to have throughout the week. 

Whole30 Favorites:

Rx Bars (any of the fruit ones)

Kind Pressed Bars

Larabars (fruit flavors)

Dried mango, pineapple, banana (Trader Joes has the best)

Roasted potatoes (we slice them thin, season with garlic salt and roast at 425 for 25 minutes)

Apples with almond/cashew butter

Fruit

Roasted veggies

Aidels/Applegate sausages

Creamy sun dried tomatoes + chicken thighs 

EGGS (so many eggs)

Flavored seltzer water (coconut is my favorite)

Pumpkin Turkey Meatballs 

Tessamaes dressings

Nutpod creamer

Lean beef burgers with avocado 

Sweet potatoes

There are TONS of easy and yummy Whole30 recipes out there.  I will say we struggle most with snacks.  We are used to having portable snacks and carrying around half a chicken breast isn't the easiest thing.  Nor is surviving on Rx bars, mostly because we would run out of money.

So here we go again...wish us luck! If you have any questions, just ask! I am no expert but have ton a bit of research and enjoy talking about it!