Anyone else work in the food business??

[Ruth M. Pardee]

I've been thinking about starting a Whole30 for a while now and finally decided to do it about 3 weeks ago. However about 2 1/2 weeks ago I started at a new job, at a cheese and provisions shop that sells delicious amazing food ranging from pastries to sandwiches, prepared veggies, cheese, cured meats, pasta, gelato, etc. As a foodie this is a totally ideal job and I'm really enjoying it, APART FROM THE TEMPTATIONS! Every single day has been a struggle so far to not overindulge. I feel all I think about lately is what I'm eating, how much I'm eating, all the "bad" things I'm eating. But I've been feeling so incredibly sluggish, sleeping huge intervals at a time on my days off, and have certainly put on weight in the 2 1/2 weeks since I've been there.

So I'm ready to really start. Finally posting to the forum I think is a good start. I've hit the reset button at the bottom of my Whole30 daily emails I think 4 times already. I'm tired of totally obsessing over trying to resist all these foods, then eventually breaking down and eating some when I'm very tired after a long day, and then telling myself "I'm bad" rather than "I made some bad food decisions today", which leads to more overeating.

Does anyone else have this problem of working with food? Facing food everyday that you can't eat, literally preparing sandwiches and selling delicious foods that are totally off limits? If anyone else knows the food world, it's also really hard to sell high quality food and discuss it intelligently with customers if you haven't tried it. Especially with the cheeses, I frankly don't know how I'm going to avoid trying the different cheeses we carry in the shop over the next 30 days. Will a couple small tastes of cheese totally ruin my efforts of doing a Whole30? Because if so I don't know quite literally if it's possible for me to do a Whole30, as I need to be able to discuss these cheeses with customers as a cheesemonger. Literally any suggestions, encouragement, or discussion would be hugely helpful to me.

[Alison Webster]

Cheese is a definite no no. All I can offer is set a date for your Whole 30 and plan ahead. Psych yourself up for it. I live in a household of non Whole30/Paleo people. I prepare all meals for them. It gets tying sometimes but I can push through it. I have seen significant changes in my body and performance in the gym. Not to mention I feel really quite good!

I wish you luck! It is totally worth it. There are ups and downs along the way but you can do it!

[befabdaily]

I know people say "go all in" and "start right now" with the Whole30, but maybe you should do it differently to help accommodate this, especially since your job is new and you want to perform well. Why not try to follow the Whole30 except for the cheese at work, and then when you feel like you know the product well enough, you can eliminate that last thing? I know it's not quite ideal but the program has to work for you or you won't follow it. I totally "eased in" to the Whole30 by taking a couple of weeks just dairy free before I started because for whatever reason that seemed easiest and it let me feel OK about not throwing away too much food I'd already purchased.

[Tom Denham]

Work is work. I totally understand needing to eat cheese on the job.

One facet of the Whole30 is to find out how specific food groups affect you. If you eat cheese during your 30 days, you won't reset from dairy and you won't discover how seriously dairy affects you. That would be a big loss from the experience, but you could still benefit from eating real whole foods for 30 days and avoiding sugar, grains, alcohol, legumes, etc and learning how those things affect you. Since you might feel better and learn some important things, I would do Ruth's 30 day Diet Experiment and see how it goes.

[krisbee911]

I feel your pain, Ruth! I'm a server at one of the best restaurants in Denver. Not to mention I've worked in the industry for almost 10 years, mostly in cooking and am surrounded by it every single day. My boyfriend works at a fancy cocktail bar, my friends are all in the industry too and don't understand why I can't just have one drink at the end of the night. I was just thinking today how this would be so much easier if I didn't work in a restaurant with tasty food around me all the time.

I'm on day 20 and I can say that the only thing I've tried were two pieces of meat cooked in grapeseed oil. I have had a couple lara bars and some dates because sugar was my GIANT weakness and I gave in. Other than that I feel amazing. I understand what you mean about having to taste cheese--its your job. I say keep it to a minimum and when you are able to cut it out completely (if its ever possible) go for it! Don't be discouraged, cutting out gluten, grains, sugar, etc had a huge effect on me too. Good luck!