Whole30 Words - Round 2 - July 1st

[noelgreen]

Words are powerful. They are energy. They can carry with them a moment of time, an emotion or a value. They have the ability to create and alter reality. Our entire world is made up of the words we carry with us in our minds: representations of facts... and sometimes fiction.

Starting July 1st, 2015 I will begin my 2nd round of Whole30. During these 30 days I endeavor to post one word day, with definition, that carries with it some of the meaning and a bit of the gravitas of what the Whole30 means to me.

I was told my Whole30 haikus were a big inspiration to many so my hope is that these will inspire and reveal as well!

[ShannonM816]

I enjoyed your haikus -- I'm interested to see how the word thing goes!

[Kaatje64]

I'm joining the July1st Whole30. It's my third Whole30. Need to reset myself (again)

Looking forward to your daily inspiration,

[AJ Banks]

I'll try and keep up! I am starting tomorrow. So will be along side any one starting in July. I am thinking of going off facebook for this one, so I want to be on this forum more. 

[noelgreen]

I'm joining the July1st Whole30. It's my third Whole30. Need to reset myself (again)

Looking forward to your daily inspiration,

 

YAY!

Sometimes I don't post them on here the "day of" because I forget... haha But, I'll get them on here. 

They do always appear on my Instagram right away though.

 

I'll try and keep up! I am starting tomorrow. So will be along side any one starting in July. I am thinking of going off facebook for this one, so I want to be on this forum more. 

 

How's it going??

Being off Facebook is a JOY among JOYS!!! I left it completely, in fact, a while back.

[noelgreen]

 

In addition to the way I did Whole30 the first time I plan to:

 

1) not have coffee after 3:00 pm. I am going to be gracious to myself with this one and am making the intent to be that I don't "absent-mindedly" make another coffee.

 

2) not have any cigars. The first round of Whole30 in March/April I allowed myself to have a cigar now and then — I think I had 3. This time I'm "giving them up" for the month.

 

3) not snack on cashews & almonds. Cashews and almonds have become a habit in the life since Whole30 round 1 and I'm determined to break that habit in these 30 days.

 

4) limit “monkey salads”. While these are a great snack they were an (almost) everyday staple my first time through. They will be a treat (sans-cashews) this time.

[noelgreen]

 

"Change" is certainly a word that all people who have done the Whole30 know well and have experienced. The process of that change, however, the journey of the Whole30, is in so many ways a chrysalis. We emerge on the other side of the 30 days as different people. It's something that is clearly visible externally but the internal changes are perhaps even more profound.

 

Are you in a chrysalis now — or have you already emerged? If so, how are you changed?

[noelgreen]

 

 

 

The word "maieutic" comes from the from the Greek word maieutikos which means to act as a midwife. The method of teaching and learning known as the "Socratic method" is also sometimes called the "maieutic method."

This method searches for general, commonly held truths that shape opinion and scrutinizes them to determine their consistency with other beliefs. A series of questions are formulated that test logic and fact and are intended to help a person or group discover their beliefs about some topic, exploring the definitions or logoi, seeking to characterize the general characteristics shared by various particular instances. This method is employed to bring out definitions implicit in the beliefs of those involved and to help them further their understanding. In essence it helps the participants "give birth" to new clarity, ideas and truth.

If the Whole30 is anything it is maieutic. It made me question everything, rethink definitions and, in the end, it helped birth a more clear better version of me.

[noelgreen]

 

 

"Eat right, not less." That's something I noticed people on the Whole30 saying during my 1st round of it. It's something that seems backwards to our [American] mind sets. We have been trained from a young age to believe the "calories in / calories out" myth. (Something the documentary FedUp does a great job of debunking.) So when we hear that Whole30 isn't a "DIET" — meaning you're not restricted to a shake in the morning, or to only X amount of X in a day — our minds have a hard time processing it. It is a paradox and we suddenly hear Doc Emmett Brown's warning that it, "could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space time continuum, and destroy the entire universe!"

Of course that's a worse case scenario: for those of us who have pushed through the paradox of it all we realize that there is no paradox at all but it is actually the thing that sets us free!

[noelgreen]

 

 

Whole30 isn't restrictive like I've heard many people fear. It's not about eliminating things for the sake of eliminating things (i.e. the goal isn't "less food") but it is a deliberate cull of food and diet. With the Whole30 you make a conscious effort to choose certain food & drink over other food & drink and the foods you're selecting from are truly a "large quantity" indeed. The great thing about culling in this manner is that you end up getting more REAL food, REAL enjoyment, REAL satisfaction and REAL results.

 

In a lot of ways it's like moving into a new house (or body if you will)... you pick up things (food) you've held onto for years, look at them and think, "Why do I still have THAT? I don't need that anymore!" Then you chuck it out. So the body you're liv

[noelgreen]

 

Calvin — of Calvin & Hobbes — had the right idea with his "Transmogrifier". It was a cardboard box... er... I mean a special "chamber". All he had to do was set the dials on the outside, step inside and he could turn into whatever he wanted to be. In his case he wanted to be a tiger and was a bit disappointed in the results.

 

The Whole30 doesn't have dials and the box the book comes in isn't big enough (for me) to step into but if you're wanting a  more alert, more fit, more active, overall BETTER version of yourself it certainly has the power to transmogrify in surprising and magical ways.

 

Whole30 may not transform you into a tiger but, then again, when you hit day 16 through 27 you may disagree with me on that.

[noelgreen]

 

Have you seen the meme about shopping while hungry and ending up owning "aisle 4?" Unfortunately that is more true than we'd like to admit. We often think about food AS we're eating it. Eat first... ask questions/feel guilty/deal with bad results later.

 

Steven Covey's old adage of "put first things first" is certainly something that Whole30 teaches. The process of thinking about what you're going to eat BEFORE you're starving... let alone before you're already eating it. Let the though proceed the action. That's backwards from what advertising and big food teaches us. It takes a deliberate reordering.

 

Ah to be people who reorder things as needed so that the "first" things are always truly first.

[noelgreen]

 

 

When most people think of the word 'crucible' it brings up more bad connotations that good. Sure, we know that what comes at the END is a good thing but the 'crucible' is the hard part that no one wants to go through.

 

If you're doing Whole30 July and it's your first Whole30 (or even if it's your 2nd or 3rd) you may have been feeling like you're IN a crucible thus far. You might have had a few days where you wondered, "Why am I doing this again?" Here's the truth — of both the Whole30 and the word crucible — it is all working together to make something NEW!

 

In the case of the Whole30 it's working to make a NEW YOU! There are a lot of different elements in the mix for sure: food, emotions, habits, desires, relationships, schedules and more but it's all interacting together to make a new you.

 

Theodore Roosevelt said, "Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty..." Let it be hard. ENJOY it being hard! Because in that you can know it's WORTHY of something.

[noelgreen]

 

I love unraveling things. Give me a big knotted up mess of cords or Christmas lights and I'll spend all day (or week) meticulously unraveling them. The same applies to problems, riddles and puzzles as well. I love to think about enigmatic ideas and try to unravel their mysteries (probably why I love theology so much.) It's even okay with me if it takes me years to figure it out... OR if I NEVER figure it out! For me it's the process that's the fun part.

 

The Whole30 is an unraveling. It helps us unravel out what foods affect us negatively and positively. It also helps us "unravel" the knotted up mess many of us have created within ourselves from years of eating badly. It "unravels" our minds, our habits, our cravings and, at the end of it all, it 

[noelgreen]

 

If there are a set of words that I would aspire to be called they would be the definition of this word.

 

Well-balanced. Sound mind. Excellence of character. Temperance. Moderation. Prudence. Self-control. Yes, please!

 

The Whole30 may not infuse me with all of those qualities simply by following it for 30 days it certainly does nothing but HELP most of those qualities. I see this truth not only in myself but in the people I follow (and stalk) on Instagram who are also members of the Whole30. People come out of it more balanced, sound, excellent, temperate, and so on and so on. It's why we all say it will change your life! Not just your body but your LIFE!

 

Thanks to @happywifestyle for this word. She gave it to me right after I announced that I was doing this last month. She's got a great account and blog if you're not following her — actually even if you are following her.

[noelgreen]

 

If you begin to search for "essence of" in Google "... life," and "... beauty" come up as a few of the suggestions. The truth is the essence of life or beauty or anything else can't be described, let alone "Googled." You can't put into words what the essence of something is because its essence is — as the definition of the word says — an abstract thing. They are ideas and concepts that have to be visualized because they cannot be illustrated through concrete examples.

 

Ideas like health, fitness and change are in many ways abstract as well. They're things that must be visualized to be understood. When you tell yourself something like, "I want to be more healthy" you are visualizing what that means. You know, internally, what it LOOKS like.

 

The Whole30 succeeds in getting to the essence of so many of these ideas: health, life, change and more. It equips you words and language and gives you the ability to visualize what it means to become a better you: being equipped as such is, in fact, essential to success.

[noelgreen]

 

We, as humans, love to be part of a group. It's why social media is so powerful. It's why we have cliques. It's why there is a magazine publication for almost any interest, no matter how obscure: did you know there's a magazine all about miniature donkeys? Most of these cliques are easy to join. You can just go "sit at their table" and you're part of them. But there are some things you must be initiated into before you're considered a true member. Some of those things are wonderful — parenthood, for example, means that you've had kids.  Some of those things are NOT good — to truly understand grief you've had to experience it yourself.

 

Whole30 is certainly one of those things that you've had to experience to be able to understand it. People who haven't experienced it are welcome to come "sit at the table" but those who get up and walk away on day 4 or day 11 or even day 28 can't really say they did it. They were never really, truly immersed in it.

 

For the Whole30 to work you must be baptized by it. You must be fully immersed — a "sprinkle" of Whole30 won't take.

 

So if you're thinking of Whole30, pull up a chair... you can sit with us.

 

If you're in it and thinking about getting up, please... stay! Remember the reasons why you started it in the first place.  It may seem like a baptism by fire at times but if you leave now you'll only ever be able to speculate what could have been... if you stay you'll be able to KNOW it was worth it.

[noelgreen]

 

Knowledge is a funny thing. The more we know the more we realize we don't know — google, "concentric circles of ignorance." It can become tiring to try and chase after certain knowledge because there's always more to learn, more to read, more to take in. "Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh."

 

There is, however, a different kind of learning. A kind that things like classical education focus on. Not a weariness inducing, overwhelming futileness but a delight. When that sort of learning is in happening it doesn't seem like you're climbing a mountain and having to grope for every nugget of information but, instead, it is like information is pouring down on you. Like a refreshing waterfall — or knowledge-fall — of wonderful learning.

 

That is what the Whole30 has been like to me. It started with a simple question to my wife, Celeste, when she brought up that, "Maybe we should try the Whole30." "What's that," I asked? From there it has been a delightful flood of learning and experience. The small steps into a new, healthier life that we took at first have become running and jumping and playing. It has truly been a cascade of knowledge and I have already seen it being passed on now from us to other friends and family.

[noelgreen]

 

Energy, confidence, support, encouragement, tiger blood, food freedom. . . Whole30 connects you to the reservoir of all of those things.

[noelgreen]

 

Remember a few years back when Weight Watchers had advertisements about "conquering the hungry" and it was the big, muppet-like, orange monster that looked a bit like "Gossamer" from Looney Tunes? I am not a fan of WW but I did think they were onto something with that idea.

 

If you're doing the July Whole30 then you're on day 16 and, hopefully, tiger blood is kicking in and you're seeing / feeling some big changes — cravings are going away and you're out of the bad withdrawals. You're probably looking back on the days before the Whole30 and thinking, "WHAT was I EATING?!" The monster of habits you were a slave to before probably doesn't seem as daunting as the first days of the program.

 

Fact is many of us doing the Whole30 can echo Dr. Victor Frankenstein when he says, "How can I describe my emotions at the catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form?"

 

The Whole30 gives us the tools to destroy that "food monster" that we  took such infinite pains and care to create and there is no arctic circle for this monster to escape to. 

[noelgreen]

 

Friction is the force resisting change or movement and it is a powerful force at that. Life is FULL of friction. In fact, you could say friction is the force that "surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together." (haha)

 

There's friction in work, friction in relationships and friction within ourselves with things like body image, self-worth, diet and habits. Obviously friction can be good but when it's resisting a change we WANT to make there is a dark side to the force that we must overcome. That's when we need STICTION.

 

Stiction is, if you will, the force that is required to overcome resistance. The Whole30 is a force of stiction... a force of change. The Whole30 can prevail against the resisting friction of bad diet, bad food habits, body image, sleep, energy, alertness and even/especially the friction of actual physical change!

 

Use the Whole30.

Use its stiction.

Use the force.

[noelgreen]

 

Eucatastrophe is a term coined by J. R. R. Tolkien which refers to the sudden turn of events at the end of a story which ensures that the protagonist does not meet some terrible, impending, and very plausible doom. He created the word by affixing the Greek prefix "eu", meaning good, to catastrophe, the word traditionally used in classically inspired literary criticism to refer to the "unraveling" or conclusion of a drama's plot.

 

The Whole30 is, if nothing else, a eucatastrophe. Not only for the individuals (me) who have and are doing it but I believe for the entire human race.

 

Obesity is epidemic [in America]. If you've watched the documentary "Fed Up" then you know a great deal of what I mean. Stores are chocked full with "low fat" (a.k.a. added sugar) items. By the time my kids are my age they will have fewer peers their age because many will have died off in their 20s due to poor nutrition. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say the Whole30 — and awareness because of it — is indeed a "eucatastrophe". It is a turn of events at the "end of this story of obesity" that is going to ensure we don't meet some terrible, impending and VERY plausible doom. 

[noelgreen]

 

 

Frühstück is German for "breakfast." If you follow me — or stalk me — you have undoubtedly noticed that I LOVE breakfast. In fact, I love breakfast for lunch and dinner too.

 

Eggs, bacon, sausage, prosciutto, whatever! If it's breakfast-y I love it. So, how does the German word for breakfast have anything to do with Whole30?

 

One of the greatest ways to learn a new system of thought is to change your language. Change the way you represent something verbally — internally and externally — and you'll start to see it differently. It's why hypnobirth works. You change how you represent birth, discarding all the fear-based, media-driven, nonsense and replace it with correct thinking. The same thing happens on the Whole30.

 

The word "breakfast" to many people means something different to almost anyone. To some it's "McDonald's." To others it's "nothing." To my friend in high school it meant, "a Mountain Dew."

 

For many years, to me, the word breakfast meant, "the first chance to start eating." This was, back then, after having eaten my last big meal before bed at 3:00 a.m. Then, as I began to lose weight and tried dieting the word changed and became, "the first time of the day to not really enjoy food." But — thankfully — the word has changed again! Now breakfast is all it can and should be. The word holds a lot of hope and brightness as well as flavor and memory. It has become a different thing.

 

So rather than simply use the word breakfast for my 20th word and possibly bring with it any baggage I decided to choose a foreign word —German seemed appropriate since I'm learning it — and let that become the new representation of all the new awesomeness that breakfast now is. It is now frühstück!

[noelgreen]

 

If you've read any of Anne Rice's vampire chronicles you know who the vampire Lestat is. The first book in that series I read was "Tale of the Body Thief" — the 4th book in her series — and I devoured it in a couple of afternoons. Two things about it, and the other books in the series, struck me and stuck with me. First was how real the books seemed: did she really interview a vampire? Second was how, in "... the Body Thief," she described Lestat when he is moved into a new, mortal body.

 

His awkwardness in his new body was a bit like a teenager who grew overnight. The descriptions of his "hoarse breath," "human sweat," "heaviness of his limbs," and how he was at, "moving [his]

monstrous encasement of flesh as [he] did so. . . appalled at its thickness." Those things stuck with me in particular because it was during that time that I had just begun to lose weight and transform the body I was in.

 

That was 18 years ago. I was over 320 lbs at the time and I remember laying in bed wondering, "What will it be like to literally take up less space?" I was in the same skin I'm in now... but I was definitely in a different body. I felt I was the victim of a body thief. The rub was I was that thief.

 

If you've become your own body thief then Whole30 gives you the tools and knowledge to get it back. Realizing that the skin you're in is, indeed, your skin! It's your body and you've only got one so steal it back!

[noelgreen]

 

It's not popular to claim I don't deserve something. That's the case especially when it comes to myself or my body or my life or health. We want to tell each other that we deserve the best. We deserve to be happy. We deserve to be healthy. Truth is, however, if I think about my past 43 years I can think of a lot of things I've done, said, even thought that make me "not a very nice person." Certainly many of the things I've done to myself — eating habits, etc. — haven't been what a good person would do to someone they love... and, last I checked, I do indeed love me. My wager is everyone reading this can say the same thing. So I'm thankful, as you probably are, that I've had graces all along the way of life.

 

Eucharisteo means thanksgiving. It has in it the Greek word for grace, charis. It also holds its derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning "joy." Charis = Grace. Chara = Joy. Eucharisteo = Thanksgiving.

 

Whole30 has gives me eucharisteo. I am thankful for it. It brings me a lot of joy (in the common sense). But most of all it is a grace because learning such good eating habits and having a chance at this stage in life to change my life for the better is — whether you agree or not — seriously better than I deserve.