Laura B

In soft drinks containing ascorbic acid and sodium benzoate, EDTA mitigates formation of benzene (a carcinogen).[10] Scary indeed! It makes sodium benzoate a lot more scary, too...... BTW...once you have gotten into the Whole 30...5 hour energy is NOT necessary! I seldom get tired in the afternoon, but DAMN am I ready for bed at night. Thank you, cortisol, for working properly!

F&%# no. edit: also, WTF is EDTA?!

Clemency, I would like to touch on the CrossFit connection. Before my first Whole 30 in July of this year, I was working out like your average chick. I would go to the gym very regularly to lift weights and do cardio. Sometimes I would go twice in a day to get fasted cardio in the AM and do weights at night. I was meeting with a personal trainer once a week for 30 minutes. I did all of this to change my appearance. I was trying hard to lose something like 7 pounds. THat is a lot of effort for 7 pounds of vanity. I was also doing some weird things with my diet to get rid of the 7 pounds including: weighing, measuring and calorie counting every bite of food in my body, drinking like a gallon of water a day (seriously unnecessary), even doing "carb cycling" and generally obsessing about my body image. I really thought I was healthy because I was active and ate "right". Then came my Whole 30 where I began to see the harm in what I was doing day in and day out. It was almost an out of body experience, I was up in the sky looking down at myself and had an "Aha!" moment. Everything I was doing was in vain. I took a break from the gym and slowly started leaning towards CrossFit. The reason is that CF is about fitness not vanity. There are no mirrors. The gym is dirty. It's in a warehouse. Nobody gives a shit what you look like or how much you lift, just as long as you put in the effort. I saw in a CF video not long ago where someone walked into a CF gym and said "Where are all the machines?"..."We are the machines." I went from trying to have the cutest workout clothes to wearing T-shirts again. I don't want to worry about what I look like when I am trying to move a bunch of weight in a short period of time. Basically...the ideas behind the Whole30 and CrossFit kind of go together, but not purposefully so. They are both geared towards optimal health in an inordinate way. I thought I would also mention that I stopped counting, measuring and worrying about how much I was eating and focused on what I was eating. The pounds and bloat melted off my body while I took a break from working out, slept more and ate real foods. I actually didn't start CrossFIt until after my Whole 30 was over because, like you, I wanted to focus on one thing at a time. There is nothing more special then being the very last person to finish a workout and have 8 other people cheer you on. No one would ever do that in a regular gym.

I would have LOLed in their faces. The volume of food my BF & I eat is crazy! Sometimes I think I'm making too much but then I remind myself that they are vegetables!

I posted an image on my facebook and a friend commented: R: I refuse to believe that if I brought a caveman a pizza he wouldnt eat it. you know he would eat it. therefore pizza=paleo Laura: considering the possibility of that happening, pizza is not paleo and will never make you more healthy. R: well until you start hunting mammoth youre failing at paleo Laura: I don't consider myself paleo, I just eat real food. That makes me a winner. R hahaha winning The funny thing is I made no comment about it, and don't really consider myself necessarily "paleo" although it is the most generic term for how I eat. I am not one of those who considers herself a "cavegirl", although living the CF + "paleo" life certainly feels that way sometimes.

My uncle said to my grandma "I don't know why Laura's on a diet--she doesn't need to lost any weight!"

lol my boyfriend asked me if I could have brownies like 3 weeks into my W30. I was like "um....no"

I bought the sweet lemon flavor to help the BF get some sleep and it has stevia. I didn't even look at the label!! I still use it nightly...he doesn't use it so much (I think it freaks him out that magnesium is a firestarter LOL). I was so disappointed with myself and of course I didn't see it until after I opened it. I am post W30 so no biggie, and it was expensive so I kept it!

"You're so healthy" like I'm growing a hand out of my head...

Nitrates aren't really of issue, but I believe sulfates are. Hopefully a Mod can come clear this one up.

Right now I have the Super Enzymes and it says it clearly across the bottle. The label is bright orange (all Now Foods labels are, though). I got these at Whole Foods. I did use a different kind and I don't recall the name, but I got them at a health shop. I don't know if GNC would have them, but you could call and ask. If there are any small health food stores they will probably have them. There are some shops around here called "Good Nutrition" that are stockpiled with different dietary supplements. You could also order them from Amazon. Good luck! I hope it gets better, I hate gas.

My gas/bloating issues have severely subsided since going whole30 and I credit that to cutting out artificial sweetners, dairy and STRESS! Sorry to hear yours has picked up, it's really annoying! I have been taking digestive enzymes, so maybe that is what is helping me a lot. I would cut down some of the fruit as well.