When I did my first Whole30 back in January 2016, I found breakfast a pretty easy meal to plan. Eggs were allowed and encouraged and you can eat as many as you want. So, I ate eggs pretty much every single day with a variety of vegetables and some healthy avocado.
I continue to eat plenty of eggs and am concerned that I will get tired of them as I gear up for my next Whole30 that begins January 1st! Mother Fran told me I was going to start clucking like a chicken if I don’t figure out other breakfast foods!
Any change in eating habits can be easily derailed by a stressful day, bad news, hunger pangs or brownies that keep calling you from the cabinet. It is time to do some preparation in order to get ready for our Whole30 that begins on January 1st. Are you ready to get healthy? In my last post, I asked you to join me in choosing health! My first recommendation is to remove all food from your refrigerator and kitchen cabinets that you will be eliminating on the Whole30 eating plan.
You would think this would be easy but you will need to read the ingredient label on every box, can and bag of food in the house! Watch out for sugar in your spaghetti sauce, soy in your canned tuna fish and sulfites in your vinegar. In this post I wrote about unexpected places you might find sugar lurking in your kitchen.
Box up the brownie mix, flour, sugar, cereal, oatmeal along with the 10 boxes of pasta that were on sale 5 for $5 bucks. No sugar and grains for the month of January! Give away the mayonnaise made with canola oil, the crackers with soybean oil, half and half as well as the blocks of cheddar. We won’t be eating vegetable oils or dairy.
I thought eliminating pasta would be tough… No big deal!
Thanksgiving is in the rear view mirror and Christmas is just around the corner. We all know what that means! Lots of parties with crazy delicious food, fun drinks and yummy desserts. For many of us it also means Tums, Pepto Bismal and a hangover or 2. Shortly after the holiday last year, we decided to do a Whole30 Experiment and radically changed our eating habits. We expected it to last 30 days but we liked it so much we pretty much kept eating according to the program guidelines.
Christmas is coming
The Whole30 has you eliminate sugar, alcohol, dairy, legumes and grains and replace them with vegetables, high quality meat and healthy fat. We did a strict Whole30 for about 42 days and we ended it when we went on vacation last winter. On vacation we ate and drank anything we wanted and when we returned home we sort of resumed our new way of eating.
Red = the food I resumed eating after completing my Whole30
My honey and I have had several conversations about what we will do when our 30 days are over. Overall, we both feel good eating this way and don’t feel the need to permanently reintroduce any of the food groups that we eliminated (soy, legumes, sugar, vegetable oils, dairy, and grains).
That being said, I am confident I will eat the occasional slice of pizza, brownie and grilled cheese sandwich. I will need to reintroduce these favorite foods in a manner that will allow me to tell if they have a noticeable impact on my energy, my digestion or my sleep. Number 9 says when he reintroduced corn he realized it caused itchiness and some increased irritability.
Everyone knows vegetables are good for you. Everyone knows we should eat them everyday. How many did you eat today?
The more I read, the more convinced I am that not only are they good for you, they are critical for maximizing health. Eating a lot of vegetables is good, eating a wide variety is even better.
Vegetables contain different vitamins, nutrients and phytonutrients which are important for overall health. Overall, vegetables are low in calories and high in nutrients. That is a win-win! According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), “eating more fruits and vegetables adds nutrients to diets, reduces the risk for heart disease, stroke, and some cancers, and helps manage body weight when consumed in place of more energy-dense foods”.
Whole30 Update: I recently posted that my honey and I are completing a Whole30 Program experiment to improve our health. If you missed that post, check it out here. If you are unfamiliar with the Whole30 Program you can read about it at the Whole30 site.
Today’s post is a diary of sorts from the first 2 weeks.
We have cleaned out the cabinets and now have several boxes of food stored in the basement. In theory, it is out of sight and out of mind but I can hear the dark chocolate calling for me and this is day 1.
I recently asked Google to Search “How many food additives are used in the United States”?
CARE TO VENTURE A GUESS?
According to the FDA there are 3000 food additives on the EAFUS (Everything Added to Food List in the US). No, I did not make up the name of that list! Apparently the list isn’t complete because food manufacturers can bypass getting ingredients approved by the FDA by claiming certain ingredients fall under the GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) Determination.
These ingredients might not even show up on the food label! The funny part is, the manufacturer can determine on their own, without involving the EPA if an additive should be added to the GRAS list. HUH?
My honey and I have decided to follow the diet recommendations of the Whole30 Program for 30 days in order to see what all of the hoopla is about. If you haven’t heard of it you can check it out here! And for even more information read the book that introduces it, “It Starts with Food” by Dallas Hartwig and Melissa Hartwig. The authors claim that following their 30 day program will CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
I actually read about it a few months ago, got interested in it and then decided a meal plan that focuses on protein but restricts tofu, soy, and legumes would not be the best idea for a vegetarian who only eats a little bit of fish.
