Leaderboard

It's interesting to see what's been going on with my resting heart rate since I've started the Whole30. The only thing I've changed is my diet. I'm on Day 11.

Good plan!

Watch out for teas with chamomile, as that is related to ragweed as well.

In the spirit of W30 elimination / re-intro, sometime in the future, you need to replicate the circumstances to determine if its the soy or the inlaws that affected you that way! Jus sayin'...

Possibly. I'm allergic to soy and have been avoiding it for so long, I forget how I react to it. What's the difference between inlaws and outlaws?... Outlaws are wanted!

Wow! This makes so much sense to me! I’ve had sore throats from cantaloupe in the past, I learned 2 1/2 yrs ago with allergy testing that I’m allergic to ragweed! Thank you for this info!!

I’m am also starting on the 27th. I’m a bit scared because I’ve never stuck to any diet longer than 2 weeks. I’m hoping this program will be different as I really need to stop my stress eating and change my eating habits for good.

No, I didn't. I'm sorry if my answer was a bit terse. I should probably not answer questions at the end of the day when I'm already feeling frazzled and grumpy about other life stuff.

So here I am - on Day 30 of my first Whole30. The sole goal I set was to lower my average blood glucose level (type II diabetic here). That goal has not only been met, but so much more has happened! What worked: - Blood glucose average dropped about 30 points. Still not quite where I'd like it, but an incredible improvement. - 500% increase in energy, from the start of the second week on. - Skin glowing, hair and nail growing like weeds (downside: paying for haircuts more often, lol). - More restful, restorative sleep. - Increased ability to focus at work, particularly through what used to be the "afternoon slump". - Between meal hunger disappeared. - Ankles no longer swell. - Clothes fit much better - in some cases, they no longer fit at all! - Significant weight loss - without really trying, without being hungry all the time, without feeling "deprived". I've not been on the scale :), but I'm guessing about 15 - 20 pounds. Only a couple of downsides: - As a single, I've rarely cooked all three meals a day for more than a couple of days in a row. It's been much too easy to run through a drive through to pick up breakfast or dinner. I'm a good cook, just lazy, lol. Preparing three meals a day for thirty days - yikes, the time it took, especially in the first two weeks as I worked on changing those habits. - Dishpan hands. Seriously. I do have a dishwasher, but don't put the pots and pans and cooking implements in it. Since I generally needed those things again very quickly, a portion of all prep time was immediately washing things so they were ready for the next set of cooking. What I'd do differently: I decided on a Friday to start on Monday, which didn't give a lot of time to prepare. Next time (and I plan to start again the first week of January), I'll be sure to do much more advance cooking and freezing. Compliant soups and burgers, cooked and diced chicken to put on salads, perfect sausage cooked and packaged for breakfast hash. Not to mention hard boiling at least a couple of dozen eggs (thank heaven for InstantPot!). While I'd put the non-compliant pantry food in a box in the back of the pantry, I'd not gone through the spice cupboard to take a look at the ingredients on the blends (ended up mixing my own poultry seasoning at the last minute because my jar had sugar as an ingredient). Time to go through and at least clearly mark which ones are compliant, which are not, and decide whether or not to keep the noncompliant around. So overall... Other than the work involved in planning (and dicing, and cooking, and cleaning...), at which I became more efficient as the days went by, I found the program surprisingly easy. Beginner's luck? The results were certainly worth the work involved. More than that, I think the way I view food, along with my eating habits, have undergone a permanent shift. Here's to healthy eating!

I started the Whole 30 journey on Sept 18th and finished the first part yesterday. Today begins the reintro phase, and I'm ready with a plan. The 30 days were easy or tough, depending on the day, but I learned SO much through this experience. I feel confident as I move forward to "Food Freedom Forever". I would like to say that I had the help of a fantastic group of people online who started W30 on Sept 18th with me. Our group dwindled as time went on, but ended up with a dedicated group at the end that was there for each other. I owe a big part of my success with the program to the accountability, fellowship, encouragement, and humor I found with this terrific group of people. For anyone reading this who hasn't started or finished, I highly suggest your participate in the forums. It keep your mind in the game, and gives a sense of community that can be lacking otherwise in the real world. last, but most importantly, i want to thank my wife who completed this journey with me. We are continuing on this road to health and food freedom together, holding hands. I wouldn't have it any other way! I did not weigh or measure myself before starting W30, so I have nothing concrete to report on that. Some of the highlights, that are not connected to a scale or tape are as follows: I feel my eyes are brighter, my stomach is flatter, my clothes fir MUCH better, I have less bloating and much more "lean" appearance. I have less shoulder/back/and knee pain, as well as less gas, bloating, and diarrhea. I am much more happy day in and day out, more patient, less stressed, have fewer sugar cravings and have much more self confidence in my future of my health and appearance. I am not binging on food anymore, have a healthier relationship with food, have learned how to cook much better, no longer use food as a reward, can identify cravings vs. hunger, and have much more nutrition in my diet. I think more clearly, and am generally more productive. I sleep more soundly, and with less snoring. Overall, my energy levels are higher. Whole 30 was not a "magic pill" for me. I'm not ready to climb Mt. Everest, or become an underwear model. What I DO have is a solid foundation to begin to change my relationship with food and my health for the rest of my life. I now see, how just 30 days of clean eating can change things so quickly for the better. I have a lot more to learn now that I'm in the reintroduction phase, but I'm very happy with the results and learnings I got from my first Whole 30!

I started my whole 30 Challenge after my daughter suggested we give it a go. We started the challenge on the 1st of September. Today is the 1st of October I knew that I had lost a bit of weight as my clothes were getting losser on me. So since the challenge was over I could hop on the scales to weigh myself to my surprise I have lost lost just over 4kg. I found the whole 30 interesting as cooking with whole foods only I have made some really nice dishes it goes to show you you dont need to use all these package or bottle sauce ect to get flavors into your foods. I used mostly garlic cloves, onions and carrots and some of the allowed herbs and spices t o create some amazing meals. So sitting here thinking will i go back to putting milk in my coffee nah I don't think so. So I recommend trying the whole 30 as its not as hard as you think its going to be you just need a bit of willpower.

I started my whole30 on August 3rd because I was perpetually tired and had constant pain in my lower right intestine (which caused many false appendicitis scares) for about a year and a half. I was finally told it might be a reaction to food, that's when my mom bought me It Starts With Food, and now here I am! Was it hard? No. Honestly, not hard. For the amount of sugar I had been eating I was surprised that my cravings didn't last past day 3 (with one really strong one on day 18 for some reason). I found a lot of great recipes and always donated grocery day to prepping so the recipes didn't take to long to make! I don't know how many pounds or inches I lost in total. I don't have a scale and I didn't measure, but I think the pictures speak for themselves. NSV: Loads of energy! After the first week, I got rid of all napping. I can even stay up longer at night! Now I'm doing more things, like going on walks or visiting family. I guess you could say I excercise more now since I don't spend days on the couch. XD My pain disappeared after that first week too! My heartbeat went from 87 to 69, yay! I eat veggies and not homemade sweets all day (discovered a love for sweet potatoes). I'm much happier now with how I feel as a whole and think I'll go on to do a whole90 once I figure out what my food triggers are. I'm certainly staying away from sugar for a very long time!

I second the idea of working to better understand what's happening in your body at this point. You say you feel bloated. Can you pinpoint particular foods that cause bloat? As someone mentioned, looking into FODMAPs might help. Playing with your portions might also help, while also staying within the template recommendations. I know for me, my tastebuds prefer to eat the high end of fats, but my body does better eating the low end of fats. I also needed to get real about how I was using certain compliant foods. Dried fruit and nut butters are as good as candy for me--they make me less, not more, healthy, because of how I tend to eat them. This is one of the things I love and find incredibly valuable about Whole30. It's not one size fits all, and once you start, there are so many ways to take a closer look at ourselves and our behavior. Foods are healthy--or not--not just physically but psychologically. Figuring that out, and how to work with it for myself, has been revolutionary. Taking the longview is paramount. I've been Whole30ing and pursuing a Whole9 life for three years now. My massage therapist says my body composition has completely changed for the better. I know myself so much better. Even when I off road or get off track, I know how to get back. I can love and accept myself and my less-than-healthy behaviors in a new way. I am, ultimately, less fat than when I started, and wearing a smaller size. I am, ultimately, hugely more healthy in every possible way than when I started. And I did not lose dramatic numbers on the scale. In my years of doing WW on and off I could never say any of that, even when at my lowest weight, which I only ever hovered around for a flash. Oh, and one other thing: I think when folks start W30 after years of dieting of various stripes, they have a tendency to go through a re-feed period. Our bodies are clamoring for real nutrition! So, even when we have weight to lose, it comes off slowly at first, and that's actually a good thing. As you ease in and the body grows accustomed to being properly nourished, it won't clamor as much for food. In the meantime, you need to coach yourself to relax your anxiety about weight loss. If you continued to lose two pounds a month you'd be seriously ahead in no time! And those 40 pounds would be gone for good in less than two years, which is probably a shorter amount of time than it took for you to put them on. In the meantime you'll be cementing habits that will make you happier, healthier, and stronger for the rest of your life.