Logging On for a Whole30

At the beginning of the year, I decided to get my family "clean." I adopted a healthy, clean eating approach for us and honestly, it wasn't that difficult - there's a clean and/or GMO-free version of many icky stuffs found on the grocery store shelves: milk for almond milk, butter & veggie oil for coconut oil, white potatoes for sweet potatoes, boring ol'white pasta for whole grain brown pasta, honey for white sugar, and so on as blogger Chrissy Pollina points out in a (helpful) post in January this year. 

Eating clean was a good start; a start that was prompted after reading Michael Pollan's, "The Omnivore's Dilemma" earlier this year. We jumped on the organic train and started eating organic grass fed/finished beef, humanely sourced chicken, organic vegetables - you get the idea. We actually signed up with a local organization called Healthy Home Foods and purchased 6 months of food (there's a formula to figure this out) - meat, veggies, and fruit - to store in an upright freezer. We felt good about eating happy animals and even better about serving these clean foods to our children, family, and friends. It was a really good choice for us!

Let's fast forward 6 months...

to August. I cannot recall how, but I stumbled upon The Whole30 plan, developed by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig who are responsible also for the original plan, The Whole9. {I realize this is kind of turning into a link party but bear with me, there's so much great information that is unnecessary for me to regurgitate just to get to my point. Yes, there is a point to this post!}

I read their book, "It Starts With Food" and was intrigued by the science behind why whole grain bread was still shitty for my body, why soymilk was still tearing me up inside, and why my other clean foods weren't really solving any problems, save for spending our money with anyone but the mass producers of food (buy local!). Clean eating was a perfect segue into going all-out Paleo - which is what we've decided to implement in our home. As the Hartwigs said, and completely put this change into perspective - "Beating cancer is hard. Eating GOOD FOOD is NOT hard." How can you argue with that tough love?

Rhetorical question; you really can't. 

Husband and I watched the movie Food, Inc. last night and there is a family of 4 that is interviewed that has to choose between medicine for the diabetic (type 2) father or healthy foods. What was so frustrating is that they didn't see that if they DID start spending their money on the foods instead - and not buying medicine and using the leftover for chips and soda (their words/story, not mine) - they would be able to afford for ALL of their health to improve and probably never need his diabetic medicine again. I get it, I've been poor - and being poor AND uninformed is just a damn shame; shame on humans for bringing us this far that people have to choose to be chemically healthy or just healthy. Shame, shame. 

Also, Joel Salatin, a guest star in Food, Inc., is Stephen and my new hero - he is awesome! After I read The Omnivore's Dilemma, Joel had me wanting to start my own farm - the simplicity of the cycle of life (and hard work, of course) is so straightforward! Ugh, maybe one day we'll live on pastures and be able to slice and dice our happy chickens & cows for those that live around us. I still ain't drinkin' their milk though. Sidenote: did you know humans are the only ONLY species that drink the milk of another species? It's like wearing crocs - just cause we can doesn't mean we should! Just kidding, we freaking love crocs. Ok, I love crocs for myself and I make the children wear them. Husband is not on board with supple, bendy, rubberized comfort for your feet I guess.

Back to the Whole30, though. I'm in. Today is day 1. I've gotten rid of all the "healthy" stuff in the fridge and pantry that could go bad or are just no-no's on the paleo diet to follow (yogurt, cheese, crackers, pasta, & we're working on the last of the cow's milk) during this 30 days of healing. 

HOWever, during this 30 days, the Hartwigs have implored each pledge to not weigh or measure themselves or their food. No tracking. No logging. 

I love logging in my food journal and keeping track of my weight (every day, which I already know is a bad habit). Butbutbut my food journal helps me keep track of my calories!! ACCCK!

Here's the funnerest part - they tell me there's no need to count calories. Yeah. Read that again. No calorie counting. 

It's just 30 days of good food and good habits. Learning to tell my brain to F-off when it insists that it needs to be sugared up (because, lezbehonest, we're all even-a-little-bit addicted to sugar - even the clean sugars!) and telling my tummy bedtime stories of days ahead where there is no tummy pains and all those bad guys floating around in my gut are about to get ax murdered - 

HOWever, part II. I kinda want to keep up with my meals and the decisions I make. So I'm dusting off the old blog and setting out to share my journey - sans the numbers' progress report - just how I'm meal planning (and fingers-crossed how it's getting less hassle-y), eaiting, working out, how I feel, and maybe the other usual stuff "that tickles my fancy."

In the words of the great & always battle-ready Mr. Pants:




Standby for post #1 of probably 2 on day #1.