Dan McFall Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 We (my wife and I) stared our Whole30 program on April 1st, a touch of irony there. I had already spent 7 weeks prior to the start cleaning up my nutrition, sort of a semi-paleo diet, but had left in some bad habits of many powerlifting/strongman types that I used to follow (e.g. eat whatever you want within 30 minutes of lifting . . . hello candy bars!) and I had gotten myself back under and over a barbell with some real frequency for the first time in 3 years (that is humbling!!!) So with my prior routine, I am already down a net 12 pounds. I say net, because I know that I have added some muscle and I will be curious to see where I am at after my Whole30. I can see a visible difference already in one week and have already noticed that waking up in the mornings, something I used to hate is getting easier. As mentioned on Facebook, I am having success with weening myself off of caffeine as well. I used to drink probably 6+ cups of coffee a day and right now I only have 1 and my goal in my last two full weeks of the program is to have no caffeine at all. So here are my goals for my Whole30 . . . and the rest of my life: 1. Take ownership of what I eat and why: I am an admitted foodie, but resources like NomNomPaleo give me hope that I dont have to solely go to the Holy Church of It's Just Fuel 2. Pullback on my recreational drinking As my sales career took off and I spent my life on an airplane, the guy that used to only have a couple of drinks a week became the guy that easily had a couple of a drinks a day to the guy that could have 5-6 drinks and not get smashed. I don't have a drinking problem, but like many people I just became immune to considering liquid calories and alcohol is some of the worst for you. It's time to move this back to a treat and a not a daily occurence. 3. Take control of my caffeine use I already mentioned this, but it got worse when I gave up soft drinks in the fall. I would say coffee is still much better than all of the Coke Zero and Diet Mountain Dew that I drank, but honestly I shouldn't need that much caffeine is my fitness and nutrition are on track to keep my energy levels up. 4. Divorce myself from the scale I am an engineer by education so I love numbers and in addition that even though it was 16 years (!!!) ago I was a high school wrestler and I think that's where my checking myself on the scale when "cutting" really started. Honestly, this has been the hardest part of my Whole30 so far, because I want to weigh myself already. I recognize the fact that I am struggling with giving up the scale after 8 whole days is somewhat telling. Thanks for letting me throw in a long introduction. When I finish I plan to go with a nice post showing all of my progress, even from before the Whole30, as I have been taking before shots along the way. Full disclosure: I technically failed already as I had Wine and Bread in church on Sunday, but as much as I am loving you guys, Easter Sunday wins over the Whole30 . I will abstain in Church for the rest of the program though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lilypad Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Good luck Dan! Sounds like you have great goals! I can especially relate to the scale - pre-Whole30 I was weighing myself in at least twice a day and letting the number totally determine how successful and happy I felt with myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technology Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Welcome, Dan! I look forward to reading your progress! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derval Posted April 10, 2012 Share Posted April 10, 2012 Hey Dan, we are both April Fool W30'ers And I am also really struggling with the scales divorce. Almost 3 years ago I joined WW at 161 lbs and am currently (well as of April 1st) 125lbs In those years I have weighed myself every day that I can recall, usually twice - at night too, so I could guesstimate what it would say in the morning. So now I am feeling like part of my morning routine is missing, like brushing my teeth! I feel like I just *need* to know, and it's driving me crazy. I hope the daily battle of willpower will end soon, I never thought when I decided to do the W30 that that would be the hardest bit. p.s I love nom nom paleo too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marzipanandshoes Posted April 14, 2012 Share Posted April 14, 2012 hear you on the scales thing - I'm a daily weigher. My husband has hidden my scales. It's tough... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan McFall Posted July 31, 2012 Author Share Posted July 31, 2012 Alrighty, let's just bump this bad boy in honor of my second Whole30 starting tomorrow, and do a review of what I wrote before with some discussion and new goals. First some achievements that I think are worth noting that occured between Whole 30's. 1. Fit into a pair of pants that I haven't been able to wear in 4+ years and fit into them comfortably (they have a 32" waste) 2. Bought a new pair of shorts with 32" waste because 33" were sold out and was worried because reviews said they ran tight. They fit wonderfully. 3. Threw out of all of my 36" waste pants because they are too loose. 4. Inching my way back up to where my strength level was 4 years ago (successfully hit barbell back squat @215 lbs for a 5x5 today and crushed 245 1 x 5 on deadlift). 5. Overall just feel and look better. Continuing the notion of the above here is what I had below as goals for April and what I am looking towards on each of these now: 1. Take ownership of what I eat and why:I am an admitted foodie, but resources like NomNomPaleo give me hope that I dont have to solely go to the Holy Church of It's Just Fuel I think this is always a permanent focus of healthy eating and while I have improved greatly a 30 day reset of what I have let creep into acceptable/justifiable cannot hurt. 2. Pullback on my recreational drinkingAs my sales career took off and I spent my life on an airplane, the guy that used to only have a couple of drinks a week became the guy that easily had a couple of a drinks a day to the guy that could have 5-6 drinks and not get smashed. I don't have a drinking problem, but like many people I just became immune to considering liquid calories and alcohol is some of the worst for you. It's time to move this back to a treat and a not a daily occurence. This has been for the most part very successful for me. My wife and I have both done a pretty solid job of not drinking on a "school night" and watching what we consume on the weekends. Work stress sometimes made me re-think when I chose to drink (remembering that these are guidelines not rules), but long gone was finishing off a bottle of wine between the two of us each and every night. A nice side effect is that when we do choose to drink, we go with better stuff. I am also surprised that I don't miss beer as much as I thought I would, but frankly it makes me feel so retched as soon as I drink it that it's pretty easy to stay on course. 3. Take control of my caffeine useI already mentioned this, but it got worse when I gave up soft drinks in the fall. I would say coffee is still much better than all of the Coke Zero and Diet Mountain Dew that I drank, but honestly I shouldn't need that much caffeine is my fitness and nutrition are on track to keep my energy levels up. This one hasn't gone as well as I would like and I am going to try again to get it back to something reasonable. I just need to put water in my cup instead of coffee after my first two cups of the day. I also have a sneaking suspicion that this is why my sleep has suffered lately. 4. Divorce myself from the scaleI am an engineer by education so I love numbers and in addition that even though it was 16 years (!!!) ago I was a high school wrestler and I think that's where my checking myself on the scale when "cutting" really started. Honestly, this has been the hardest part of my Whole30 so far, because I want to weigh myself already. I recognize the fact that I am struggling with giving up the scale after 8 whole days is somewhat telling. I'm going to pretend I didn't read a recent post and just flat call this a miserable failure. Wrestling screwed me up here worse than I thought and this has been a real struggle. The only positive is that I refuse to cheat on it and dehydrate myself or crash diet down. Getting off of the scale for 30 days and just enjoying how I look is going to be huge. So mostly not more goals, but one intent I have on this Whole30 is to use more resources available to me in order to broaden the range of food we are preparing. We've kind of fallen into a bit of a rut and I think is what drives us to eating out more and then off-roading more. So for example I picked up some grassfed short rib at the Farmer's market this weekend and we'll open our Whole30 with that and some pureed cauliflower with collard greens to remind us that good food is also good for us. My other goal is to deal better with eating during my travels. I have a lot of work travel coming up and I love having some guidelines to help get me back on my path and to think in advance about things like meals and business dinners. So here we go with W30 number 2 and this time I already know I can do it and am very excited to get my thoughts and choices on eating back on track. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derval Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Well done on those 32"s Great post, you've made significant changes for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renee Lee Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Awesome post! Good luck on aug 1! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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