Day 31 Assessment

[HazelSkye]

Somehow I managed to make it through! Time for a wrap-up assessment.

PROS:

- I lost 9 pounds in a month!!!!! I can’t even believe it. I stepped on the scale twice this morning to check. This was huge to me because I felt like I hadn’t lost anything with eating “fattening” foods/meat everyday. I still feel/look fat, and my goal is to lose about 10 more pounds and be back within a healthy BMI range at least.

- My blood pressure dropped 10 points on systolic and diastolic! 107/70 is great!

- I am a morning person??! I don’t feel as tired at work in the morning, which is really great for my focus. I’ve always been a night owl, and I still struggle to go to bed early. But, at least now I don’t have to deal with the repercussions as much  

- I managed to survive a whole month with no sugar. I don’t think I’ve ever done that for myself in my life. It’s so good for me and I really want to try to stick to keeping that at a minimum in my diet. 

CONS:

- Can’t say it’s a “miracle diet” for medical issues. My acne improved some, but is still very prevalent on my back. 

My two psoriasis patches didn’t clear up at all. 

I had two gallbladder attacks during my Whole30, which is unfortunate. I still need to be careful about consuming fatty meats. As before, I’m fine with plant fats like avocado and cashews. 

- Expensive. We spent more on this diet than we normally do in a month. Fresh food unfortunately doesn’t come cheap. 

- Exhausting. Lots of trips to the store as it seemed we were always running out of something. And a lot of time spent cooking and cleaning and doing dishes. As someone who spends two+ hours a day commuting, when I get home at 6 or 7 all I want to do is relax. It is unfortunate that I have less free time now than I used to. 

- Stressful!!! Reading all of the labels definitely caused me a lot of extra stress. I didn’t have nice food dreams like other people seem to report. I had food frikkin nightmares. I’d dream that someone handed me a chocolate covered peanut that I absentmindedly ate, then freaked out at myself so upset that I’d have to start over and messed everything up over a small mistake. Waking up from those nights was such relief, finding out it wasn’t real.