The "Return of the Dirty Thirty" 12 January start date

[MeadowLily]

“You’re not designed to do Whole30 for the rest of your life, it’s a short-term learning process, a short-term intervention. It’s a gateway into knowing how foods affect you so you can make more informed choices going forward,” Dallas, a physical therapist and certified strength and conditioning specialist, says...

“We’re trying to figure out how the foods you’ve been eating impact how you look, and feel and impact your quality of life,” Melissa says. “You have to 100 percent eliminate those foods from your diet in order to do that.” ‪#‎Whole30‬

[MeadowLily]

WHY DALLAS NO LONGER NEEDS THE WHOLE30

30 March, 2015

From Dallas Hartwig, Whole30 co-creator, professional Science-English translator, motorcycle aficionado, and part-time hooligan. Photo credit: Stephanie Gaudreau

I haven’t done a Whole30 in four years. In fact, I’ve only done two since we created the Whole30 back in April 2009. I’ve found a really great balance with eating nutritious food the majority of the time, and going “off plan” occasionally with a glass of scotch or some Jeni’s ice cream. Corn tortillas and sushi rice also make regular appearances, but they don’t seem to have any immediate consequences for me.

 

Back to the Start

Let’s go back to 2009. I had been researching nutrition in the context of evolutionary biology for two years, and had learned a great deal about food, our immune system, our digestive tract, and our psychological response to food. I’d been changing my day-to-day eating habits towards a Paleo-ish template, but I still had some minor health issues. At that time, I was playing competitive volleyball and experimenting with Olympic weightlifting to improve my sport performance. I was lean and muscular and… my shoulder hurt all the time. I had some pretty significant inflammation, and I couldn’t even sleep on my left side. I tried resting it, icing it, physical therapy (I myself have been a licensed PT since 2001), and eating ibuprofen like candy (I didn’t know yet that non-steroidal drugs increased gut permeability and actually slowed healing of connective tissues). I went so far as to get cortisone injections in my shoulder before playing at USVBA Nationals just so I could continue to function. Nothing worked.

 

After coming across a research paper that discussed the immunology of certain proteins found in food, and something clicked. I thought, “If food components can directly cause inflammation in certain populations (like people with autoimmune disease), I wonder whether it could also be contributing to the chronic inflammation in my shoulder.” Unbeknownst to me at the time, that was the thought that ultimately led us to create and share the Whole30 program.

 

I experimented with some dietary changes (eliminating the large amount of beans and grains that I was eating for a few weeks). And… magic. My shoulder stopped hurting altogether, and I’ve had zero shoulder pain since then. Incredible, I thought.

Fast forward a couple years, and Melissa and I were doing some weightlifting training at a gym in Boston, and I sprung the idea of a super-strict, no-cheats elimination diet (based on the Paleo template outlined by our friend Robb Wolf) on Melissa when she was exhausted (and probably cognitively compromised). She agreed, and that was the prototype for the Whole30, even though we weren’t calling it that back then.

 

My Whole30 Lessons

I learned a lot about myself through that first “round.” I learned that there is sugar in everything. I learned that, without the convenience of protein bars and shakes, I had to plan ahead a lot more to have good food around when I was hungry (which was often). I learned – through the systematic reintroductionprocess – that wheat makes me sad. Like, actually sad and apathetic for 48 hours or so. Other grains (like rice and corn) seem to not have that effect, which is why I still eat sushi rice at a good restaurant and street tacos with corn tortillas when I’m in Mexico. I also learned that milk and ice cream are Not Okay (for me, it’s the lactose).

 

But notice this: even though the Whole30 often helps people address their unhealthy emotional relationship with food, none of the things I mentioned about me really fit into that category. And that’s okay. We’re not trying to convince everyone that they have messed-up relationship with food. I simply didn’t. I used to eat unhealthy foods basically every day, but I didn’t have any guilt, and I didn’t use food as reward or punishment. It just wasn’t how it worked for me. Of course, that’s not to say that those food choices were good for me, because I’ve since learned that they are definitely not. There are direct and indirect consequences of my choices, but they affect my mood, sleep, digestive tract, and skin instead of an inner-voice-that-scolds-me.

 

Over the last five-plus years, I’ve gotten stronger, stayed leaner, slept better, and felt mentally sharper than ever before. And that makes it easier to stay on track with my dietary choices, although with travel and a toddler and personal stressors, I still find myself gravitating towards sweets when I’m notably stressed. That, too, is normal, though obviously not a healthy choice.

 

So I don’t do Whole30’s anymore. Through the program, I figured out what foods are not my friends, and I only hang out with my friends. I have also learned that I have some leeway with some non-Whole30 options. During my hard training at Gym Jones, I use SFH’s whey protein as a fast and easy source of protein. I can keep large amounts of amazing single-origin chocolate in the house for weeks and only eat a little here and there. I make a conscious effort to “clean it up” if I’ve found that I’m drinking more than once a week, or that all the Jeni’s ice cream in the freezer has magically disappeared.

 

Beyond that, food is not complicated for me, and the Whole30 gave me the self-awareness to easily make good food choices consistently without ever (!) feeling deprived. And if I want a dram of Glenfarclas 25, I just have one.

- See more at: http://whole30.com/2015/03/dallas-whole30/#sthash.fiY6nGHN.dpuf

[MeadowLily]

"I learned – through the systematic reintroduction process – that wheat makes me sad. Like, actually sad and apathetic for 48 hours or so."

 

I've been talking this over with Lady Shanny.  I've been telling her this is exactly how I feel from eating wheat.   When my lil Soph is sick, she hangs her head and her tail is hanging down.   She stands frozen.  This is how wheat makes me feel.  Sad and apathetic for hours.  My energy is low and my desire to swim and walk the ridge is gone.  I tried wheat reintro and it does not work for me.

 

I had no idea before the Whole 30 that the reaction would be so obvious.  So it's not just me. It's not imaginary.   It's a real reaction.   

 

Not only does wheat make me sad, my heart pounds.  Peanuts make my heart race, too.   Pound.  I thought I could try a lil off-roading but it made me feel so crummy.  I'm not done and I'm not there and it's not because I don't know the rules.

 

There are foods that my ancestry does not agree with....at all.  Grains, alcohol and peanuts. 

 

 

I

[MeadowLily]

Without the WD30,  I would be nuttier than a fruitcake.     My family doesn't care about the new rules  or the suspense of how to make homemade mayo turn out just right.   They want me to let the pressure off, take my foot off of the gas and just fall back into bowls of pasta, pizza and whatever else they're doing.   I'm not going to.

 

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but Lady Shanny understands about long term weight release.  She really gets it.

 

After the big weight release is the most dangerous time.  It's that mushy brain time...when the brains wants to get all lazy   and lay down like the Tennessee Mule.  The brain has grooves and neural pathways. It will do almost anything to get you back into that comfortable mode.    The brain does not want change.  Nuh uh.

 

You can even sense when you're in the mushy brain phase.  It's like working out and going through the motions and you're not giving it your all.    Doing your jumping jacks and lollygagging, barely flinging your arms....doin' the mess around.  You know darned well you didn't get anything out of it.  The lazy brain time.   You go to the pool to swim and float around, spin in circles, look at the ceiling.  

 

This is the time when rebound weight gain danger zone starts picking up some speed - it's headed your way and you have to push back with your mountain of momentum.  You've gotta let it work for you. 

 

I so believe in the Slow Roll Reintro for those of us with the big solar flaring.   Weekend splurges become daily splurges and daily puts you further in the hole.  The hole becomes a large crater on the moon and you might as well just lay up against a moonrock like Tommy Lee Jones.  

 

There are all kinds of gateway drugs to fall back into full sugar bluesville with...   They're deceptively easy to latch onto.  Whole 30 calls them sugar SWYPO's.   Buyer beware if you can't handle sugar SWYPO's.....your mountain of momentum will be gone. I believe in momentum....it's been my true friend when your buddies are out there at the yogurt shop.

[jmcbn]

I'm of Irish ancestory so if I was to say alcohol didn't agree with me I may be burned at the stake       

I already know that grains don't agree with me, I eliminated them a long time ago and immediately felt better. On the few occasions I made bad food choices and indulged on my 'cheat day' I woke up with a food hangover - I felt apathy, anxiety, short-fused, bloated and almost dazed. They won't be coming back.

A little while after the grains went I was still having some digestive distress, tracked my food via a food diary & was able to pinpoint legumes (both peanuts & kidney beans) as the trigger, so for me legumes will remain in my history book too.

I'm not hopeful for dairy..... The constant need to blow my nose & nasal/sinus congestion has now completely gone. It took about 40 days, but I imagine a good serving of greek yoghurt & walnuts will bring it back in a matter of hours. I plan on trying it at some point, just to be sure, but I've learned that I can live without it so it's no longer a big deal for me.

Sugar I don't plan on reintroducing in the form of sweets, chocolates, candy, sodas, or actual granulated sugar. I have some pre-whole30 paleo foods in my freezer, along with a couple packs of smoked salmon that have sugar listed as the last ingredient (salmon, salt, sugar), and since I have a bugbear about food wastage I'll loosen the whole30 ties just to get through those, and in future I'll not fret if I eat something & notice it had sugar added,  but I won't be actively seeking it out.

Sulphites/sulphates/carageenan, MSG, and all the other crap are things I've actively avoided for a long time, and will continue to actively do so.

So post whole30 for me will be pretty much whole30 anyways - with some tweaking of my veg intake to see exactly what it is that causes me digestive distress - peppers I know for sure from today, but I need to re-try cauliflower, broccoli & my beloved sprouts.

I *will* off-road. But I have no plan to schedule that. I'll make the decision as and when the situations arrive - and given all of the above, and the fact that I'm not exactly a social butterfly outside of the gym it can only really be in an alcohol infused SWYPO dates/nuts/chocolate kind of way - which is about the closest I'm getting to an *actual* date these days which means it ain't gonna happen often...!!     

So in summary - Looks like I'm a 'Lifer'!!

[ladyshanny]

I already know that grains don't agree with me, I eliminated them a long time ago and immediately felt better. On the few occasions I made bad food choices and indulged on my 'cheat day' I woke up with a food hangover - I felt apathy, anxiety, short-fused, bloated and almost dazed. They won't be coming back.

 

At the risk of getting in trouble again for generalizing, () I find it very interesting how many people are reporting anxiety and some form of mild depression coming from eating grains.  

[jmcbn]

At the risk of getting in trouble again for generalizing, ( ) I find it very interesting how many people are reporting anxiety and some form of mild depression coming from eating grains.  

I've spoken about this with a friend who's post whole 30 and occasionally off-roads with grains & she says exactly the same thing - we always refer to it as a food hangover. Obviously if you're eating that way all the time you're not going to notice, but you just have to think about the research (& results) into treating kids on the autistic spectrum disorder via their diet and you have to wonder what our SAD (& also SUKD because it's exactly the same here) diet is doing to us....

[MeadowLily]

[ladyshanny]

I've spoken about this with a friend who's post whole 30 and occasionally off-roads with grains & she says exactly the same thing - we always refer to it as a food hangover. Obviously if you're eating that way all the time you're not going to notice, but you just have to think about the research (& results) into treating kids on the autistic spectrum disorder via their diet and you have to wonder what our SAD (& also SUKD because it's exactly the same here) diet is doing to us....

Anxiety and depressiveness and lethargy in adults is not a lot different than a behavioural disorder in a child.  It's just that most adults can control themselves while children generally cannot to the same extent. 

[MeadowLily]

At the risk of getting in trouble again for generalizing, ( ) I find it very interesting how many people are reporting anxiety and some form of mild depression coming from eating grains.  

Yes.   You are correct once again.  I'm noticing it, too.    Why are we all on the same wave length right now?

 

I guess you could say it's just another copasinki coinkydink.....but I don't think so.   We're all tuned into the same station.

[jmcbn]

Anxiety and depressiveness and lethargy in adults is not a lot different than a behavioural disorder in a child.  It's just that most adults can control themselves while children generally cannot to the same extent. 

And ASD kids & depressed adults all get routinely handed out the meds without a second thought.....

[MeadowLily]

I'm headed out for that Ridge.   I'm taking Soph and I'll carry her if she gets tired.  We're going..NOW.

 

[jmcbn]

I'm headed out for that Ridge.   I'm taking Soph and I'll carry her if she gets tired.  We're going..NOW.

 

Don't jump!     Enjoy.................

I'm off to rest my head on a rock like your astronaut up there. NOW.

 

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

We made it.   Don't jump....    There's nothing to jump off...it's a mountain.  There's only one angle in which we can remain standing,  all other angles we fall down.

 

Beginning well is a momentary thing, finishing well is a lifelong thing.

 

Can I stick the landing?  That's what counts.  Four or five years is like waaay in the future but that's what will bring true health stability.    As we've seen, it can all come unwound in the blink of an eye.

 

We should all applaud someone's victory but be careful what we celebrate.  When it comes to food addictions, a wise Irish woman,  jmcbn once told me, after a large weight release there's the tendency to "want to celebrate with a quick blow-out... but it's never quick."   

 

 

Progress.   Not Perfection.

[MeadowLily]

Tom Denham

Whole9 Moderator/First Whole30 May 2010

• 
• Moderators
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• 5991 posts

• LocationAlpharetta, Georgia, USA

Posted Today, 06:11 PM

There are no short-cuts with fitness. You have to build up over time or you will pay consequences. The danger of pushing harder and longer than you are ready to push is injuries or hormonal issues like adrenal fatigue, sleep disturbances, digestive disturbances, etc. 

 

You should feel energized at the end of most workouts, not zapped. If you are walking out of the gym feeling depleted, you are training above your level of conditioning. It is not a question of how long you exercise or how hard you train, it is how tired you feel at the end. Our culture encourages you to workout until you are depleted, but our culture (and lots of trainers) are wrong about how to achieve maximum success over time.

 

Personally, I train in three segments - 30 minutes of kettlebells and pull-ups in the morning, 30 minutes of brisk walking with a 36-pound backpack in the afternoon, and 30 minutes of rocking, rolling, crawling, and breathing exercises at night. I could easily double my volume of work at each workout and complete three hours of training per day instead of 90 minutes, but I would not feel strong and confident at the end of my sessions after a week or two of such behavior. I used to train 90 minutes at a stretch and sometimes completed two workouts per day, but I got injured a lot and felt like crap. Nowadays I am able to maintain high levels of fitness and strength and feel great at the same time. 

 

[MeadowLily]

Injuries can last a lifetime.   It's like young kids in junior/high school being pushed to the point of injury for sports.  Who wants to finish life out like that because of a junior high football game?

 

"Build up over time or pay the consequences".  

[MeadowLily]

 

Building new neural pathways by going off the beaten path

 

"An analogy to consider how this function might take place is if you grew up in the woods. Everyday you took the same few paths to get the things you needed to sustain yourself. You never strayed from those paths at all. Then one day as you walk down your normal path that is heavily worn from years of use down to the river you notice a little building way off the trail you're on. You think wow I'd like to check that out, but you've never been off the trail. You decide to go check it out. You leave the worn path that you were on to ground that you've never stepped foot on before. You approach the door of the building then walk inside to notice that there is a large volume of books on the subject of building log cabins.

You are looking around the room and notice a note on a table that states you are welcome to use the place anytime you want but please never take the books from the building with you.

 

So you begin to come and go everyday to read and focus on learning how to build new log cabins.

Everyday as you come and go you begin to develop two fresh paths that diverge off of the worn river path that you use to get to the building. When walk to the cabin everyday these fresh paths begin to become worn and easily noticeable. Even though the paths never become as ingrained and worn as your original paths they are still distinct and worn. This is similar to how neuroplasticity occurs in our brains as we learn something new. The more we repeat something and use that portion of the brain in a focused way new neural pathways might develop in your brain."

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyfNHlqymP8

[jmcbn]

Those are some BEAUTIFUL log cabins up there Meadow... I fancy wearing away a pathway to one of those myself...

When I'm out with my boys on a little day long road trip we always have an end destination in mind, but we like to go off the beaten track on our way there - sometimes that's where you find the most interesting places, the most stunning views, the best spots to sit down & take a look around at nature. Sometimes those roads/paths we take are all grown over & forgotten about, but once upon a time somebody went there.... and the more we take those forgotten paths the more we want to take them, time after time, after time....

Life is about the journey, not the destination.

[MeadowLily]

I have only ever had 1 (one) larabar ever, and it was shortly after I was diagnosed with diabetes and trying to get things under control. I took too much insulin one morning before I went out running errands. Well, you guessed it, my blood sugar dropped and I needed something and I grabbed a larabar. I was in an old non superstore walmart so they didn't have a grocery section and I grabbed what I thought was best. Yep, I choked that icky thing down and I took the cure for sure right there! I would have been better off with a straight up candy bar! Needless to say, I make sure I am prepared just in case when I am out and about.  

I had a Cherry one to see what all of the fuss was about. I agree with Lady Shanny, every store has compliant items...real food proteins and good dietary fats.

 

SpinSpin - how's your blood sugar doing Whole 30 style?

[MeadowLily]

Those are some BEAUTIFUL log cabins up there Meadow... I fancy wearing away a pathway to one of those myself...

When I'm out with my boys on a little day long road trip we always have an end destination in mind, but we like to go off the beaten track on our way there - sometimes that's where you find the most interesting places, the most stunning views, the best spots to sit down & take a look around at nature. Sometimes those roads/paths we take are all grown over & forgotten about, but once upon a time somebody went there.... and the more we take those forgotten paths the more we want to take them, time after time, after time....

Life is about the journey, not the destination.

You can be our trainer.   Thanks a million for breathing life back into these slow burning embers.  I hope you're writing your sayings down in a book.  I want to remember them....like waaaaaay in the future.

[MeadowLily]

jmcbn -  do you share these golden nuggets with your family... if so, how does your family respond? My family..."I have my eyes on you".  They say things like  "are you still watching your diet?"  I can't stand that saying.  

 

Lady Shanny - bikini bridge, thigh gap. I love music. Maw and I have waterproof radios for the pool. She can only listen to so much of those lyrics and she tunes it out. Some of them are so embarrassing. They're all about women's body parts.  Like you said, we have become headless selfies and young girls/women are learning it's only their body parts that mean anything to anyone.  Ahhhhh, heck-a-toot Nooooooooo.  That ain't no way to gooooooo.