My Whole30 experience

[Katie Blatchford Magner]

I am 42 year old active female who came across the Whole30 through my husband's CrossFit gym. My husband was interested in a 30 day challenge and I thought I would go along for the ride. Since I do the majority of the cooking in the house it was sort of imperative that he had my buy in. I have done other food challenges such as Alejandro Junger's 21 day "Clean" program so I sort of knew what I was in for. I was pleasantly surprised that eating clean according to Whole30 did not deviate much from my typical meal preparation. Better yet, apps like nomnompaleo and clothesmakethegirl.com gave me a whole cache of new ideas for cooking. So the eating part was fine for me. You do sometimes get tired of eggs and all that meat but I kept my eye on the 30 day goal. What I do find deceiving is the ability to maintain any serious level of physical fitness. I'm not a CrossFitter. I'm a long distance runner, skier and yogi. The former two activities were seriously compromised during this challenge. I tried more sweet potatoes and probably ate more nuts than I was supposed to but to no avail. I had terrible muscle fatigue and head rushes that almost fell me to the floor (I have low blood pressure but this was worse than normal). I also found that my GI system was totally out of whack. I was on one end of the extreme or the other of constipation or diarrhea. By coincidence I had a physical in the middle of the 30 days and my doctor gave me a great report (low BP, low cholesterol, good BMI). So generally I have taken issue with the suggestion by Whole30 creators that if you aren't feeling completely awesome after doing this program, it is something wrong with you and not some imbalance in the diet that would cause any of these side effects. So I leave the Whole30 looking forward to reintroducing complex carbohydrates and yogurt into my diet. I have learned a lot about my body through this process and most importantly to listen to your individual needs. I always think there is an opportunity to reduce the carbohydrates in a diet and eat more vegetables and fruits and well sourced meats. But the Whole30 is not a long term diet solution for everyone.

[Nikol]

Katie,

Thanks for sharing your experience. It is really interesting to me as a person on the opposite end of the spectrum to you. I am 38 and about 100 lbs overweight. I have struggled like crazy with high bp, high cholesterol (all seemingly drug resistent) and I don't exercise often because it feels like it's going to kill me! (I know it's not). I started the Whole 30 because I spent all last summer in the hospital with massive stomach pain that none of the doctors could figure out. My mystery stomach pain went away after my first Whole 30, but recently I started ballooning up so I thought I'd try another. I'm about half way through. I have the constipation/diarrhea issue when on Whole 30 too, and I just had a checkup and had perfect blood pressure and cholesterol (except my hdl could stand to be increased--with exercise). The reason for all this background is to say....I have the opposite effect regarding excercise when I'm on Whole 30. Both times I've done it, I can actually maintain a jog or run without being winded. I suddenly feel so much more fit when exercising--a complete contrast to when I'm not on Whole 30! After reading your post, I'm wondering if it has something to do with all the fat I have reserved so I need less carbs? Anyway, I'm glad you shared because it gives me some context for what I'm experiencing with my body.