We started on Jan 2nd me and my spouse

[A.M. Wudtke]

Me and my spouse. I bought both books last year, read them both. Tried it on m y own twice, made it 14 or 15 days. This time my spouse said lets do it together, lets start on the 2nd since we knew we had a birthday party on the 1st. But we don't eat cake anyways but we do have ice cream or alcohol. We have been personal training for a year.  We had been doing cardio for 4 years before.  We have been doing green power smoothies every morning for a year. We do hemp or pea protein. We do mostly organic and non GMO, but we didn't do much red meat every in the past 4 years.  We do chicken or some pork. We don't do pop anyways. We don't buy cakes or pies or cookies.  We don't eat candy other than an occasional special truffle from a chocolate store here in town as a treat.  We only used real unsalted butter or olive oil. I use a lot of Gluten Free and we don't drink milk, but we did use yogurt or cheese. We aren't big juice drinkers, but we do like our fruits and veggies.   We have read labels for years because our middle son has chronic significant health issues and severe tree nut and other protein allergies.  I had to visit Mayo clinic last year 3 times for odd, unexplained weight gain and health issues.  I had maintained 130 pounds for years, then in 2014 my dad died, and 8 months later over a six week period bam  I shot up to 159 pounds, wasn't sleeping, was grumpy, ached all over and have not been able to drop below 155 in 18 months time. I looked 5 months pregnant, my clothes wouldn't fit. Mayo did find lesions on thyroid, pituitary, and kidneys. They said Cortisol, lack of sleep and stress.  I have been doing guided imagery, new sleep habits, and exercise...but still nothing.  So I know I shouldn't fixate on the scale # but I want my stomach to go down.  I was 32 inches in the waist on June 6, 2015, then on August 1, 2015 I was 39 inchs Even with the year of personal training the stomach has only gone down 1 inch to 38.  I am counting on that to be fixed.  Lets hope so. It looks smaller.

  We kept true to the program to date. We have 3 days to go. We saw some benefits about day 12. We haven't hit Tiger Blood stage yet. We had a pretty clean - in our mind - eating pattern for a couple of years. Little did we realize the sugar that was added to so many food items. Our hardest spots have been my organic creamer in my coffee, my spinach, pea protein, banana smoothie and my brown rice gluten free crackers.  My spouse says he misses his sugar and not sure where, he has always liked a treat after supper - whether it is a truffle or coconut ice cream or a Siggis yogurt mixed in oatmeal.  We are nervous about reintroduction.  We plan on a 10-12 day reintro plan.  This is our order gluten, dairy, non gluten grains, legumes, then alcohol last. Did I mention his hobby is to brew his own beer?  Our nephew owns a brewery, too!  But we found the alcohol piece to be easiest to give up. 

I will say that I have a couple posts to add since I did track things in a separate notebook -yep the old fashioned way!    People asked us what?  Why you doing this?  We went out to eat 3 times in our 30 days.  I always packed my lunch but my spouse didn't. So now we pack 4 days a week, get a salad on Fridays at work add grilled chicken and bring our own dressing that I made that is Whole30 compliant.   We have literally saved $100 on alcohol this month, $300 in eating out and $100 in lunches at work. We were able to buy new desk chair with that money and had some left to give to my mom for her groceries.  Didn't expect that out of the program. Not sleeping better. 

We do work out 3 times a week, have been for a year, so we found we could do more weights - seriously!  And we did find we needed to eat a little more even though you shouldn't snack we have to have a post workout mini meal.