We just kept going...

[LorieB55]

My husband and I started our Whole30 journey on Feb 7th. A little background about us and why we did Whole30: I'm 53, my husband is 55. I was always a scrawney kid and was still a scrawney adult through my mid 40s. Ate anything, especially desserts! But late 40s hit and whooooaa, weight gain! Since I had never had to "diet" I didn't know how. From 49 to 52, I gained 21 pounds. I tried the calorie restricted/cheat day diet. Horrible! I was terrible at distributing calories throughout the day so I still had enough left for supper. The extra weight was mainly around my belly, a.k.a. heart attack belly. I am always a busy person but I added extra exercise to try to lose the fat belly, but I stayed hungry. I kept feeling like I had a rolled up sock under my right ribs. Dr. diagnosed it as a sluggish gallbladder. Had to buy bigger shirts, and pants just didn't fit because I had a belly but no butt. The wakeup call came when I finally got on the scales. I started cutting down on sugar and lost 5 pounds. Then my older, always been skinny, brother had to have a triple bypass and I knew I needed a big change to get off that family path. I was reading about whole30 when I noticed a friend on Facebook was doing the challenge. She loaned me her book and I stayed up reading, consuming, all the new info on food and eating that I should have known. I told my husband that I was going to do Whole30 and he decided I couldn't do it alone. He has had high blood pressure since his teens, although he's not a big guy. He also was eating tums and not sleeping well due to indigestion.

We are both retired and now we farm and I bake and decorate cakes. We garden and I cook a lot, so there was no problem with the amount of cooking I would do. After 10 days, my husband was not using tums, we were both sleeping solid and waking early and feeling great. By day 25, he had a checkup, and his doctor started weaning him off of the blood pressure medication. People kept commenting on how thin my face looked, after just a few weeks in. We were eating great food, never hungry, trying lots of new veggies and recipes. We realozed we didn't miss all the bread (I would usually have some sort of biscuit, roll, toast, bread, or muffin with every meal), we were fine not smothering everything with cheese or sugary sauces. I could bake all day long and not be tempted to taste any of it. But the best was that I no longer felt stuffed, the sock under my ribs was gone. My blood pressure went down, too.

We weighed this morning. My husband lost 10 1/2 pounds and I lost 12. I can wear smaller shirts and now I can wear the pants I had put in a bag to give away. But feeling great and healthy and full of energy, is the best result. And understanding what my food choices are doing to me and for me is enlightening and empowering. We are slowly introducing just a few things back. There will be times when we'll want a home baked slice of bread, or a bite of good chocolate, but now we know that good food, that's good for us, tastes so good, why should we settle for junk?!

[LadyM]

Bravo!

[Barb Meahan]

Very good!!! Stories I love to hear! Keep it up!

[JanaBrown]

Love that you bake cakes. Holy cow! It does take some strength to do that. I work at a GF, DF \, SF and gum free bakery and I had to make donuts today without tasting. sighhh.

[Rebeccawhyventure]

Great inspiration. It isn't hard, but it's certainly not easy. Thanks for sharing.