Even though Danny and I ended our Whole30 at 25 days, I feel like that is long enough to know what you got out of the experience. Here are some of the positives:
- I have found healthy alternatives that I can see me using long-term. Spaghetti squash and zucchini noodles are perfect substitutes for actual pasta. Using these in place of pasta gets rid of the guilt, especially when I want a piece of garlic bread with it.
- Cauliflower. Why didn't I realize how great this veggie is until now? It's the perfect filler for virtually any meal. Whether it's mashed to be used as mashed potatoes, or just chopped up to used as a rice substitute, it's delicious! Again, this will help me get rid of the guilt when I want something like Chinese. I can just order sesame chicken without the rice and make my own "rice" when I get home.
Basically Whole30 taught me how to cheat.
- I've retrained my brain in terms of dessert. If you read any of my posts on what our meals and snacks consisted of, you noticed I ate a ton of Larabars. Well, a week and a half later, I'm still eating one every day. While I know I still like cookies and ice cream, I find myself looking forward to my nightly Larabar. Either by itself, or crumbled over some strawberries.
- I've broken my peanut butter addiction. Before Whole30, I expected peanut butter to be a must have on my next grocery trip. Nope. I bought another thing of almond butter instead. This is a far cry from where I was a few weeks ago....
- My drink victory is coffee. I'm fine drinking it almost black now. I've been putting a teeny bit of sugar in it. Before I was using 1/2 packet per cup (that was because I'm a tight ass and those boxes of stevia packets are pricey), now I'm using 1 packet for 4 cups! I put some creamer in the other day, just because I could, and I didn't love it enough to justify the empty calories.
- All of my pants fit! It's been 2 years since I've been able to say that. That is a good feeling.
I'm still using the Whole30 meal guidelines to build my meals in terms of how much protein, how much veggies, don't snack on just fruit, etc. My snacking is still at bay. I have a bedtime snack still, but I don't have a morning snack and rarely have an afternoon snack.
- Finally, Whole30 taught me what eating right alone can do for me. Because of my stress fracture, I wasn't able to work out. The 5 lb weight loss and the confidence I gained in my body over those 25 days came from what I was fueling my body with.
While Whole30 taught me some positive things, there is one negative: Ain't no self-employed, firefighter wife, toddler mama got time for that. This one doesn't anyway.
I'm not going to say the experience wasn't worth it, especially since before that I had like $75 worth of jeans sitting in my closet not being used. But it was hard. It was exhausting. My dishwasher is tired. It had no idea why it was being used once, if not twice, a day when its used to getting a break. My house got so messy and dirty from me not having time to clean because it seemed like every spare moment I had went to cooking, doing dishes and meal planning. There were times I would wash a skillet or bowl, just to use it again. This might be lazy of me, but this alone would keep me from doing this again, at least in the near future. If Danny had a different job, or Tucker and other kids were older and could entertain themselves instead of crawling up my legs and pulling my pants down while I did what I needed to do, I might have a different attitude.
I definitely don't regret doing Whole30. It was very eye opening and I think I got what I was going to get out of it.
Learning even the littlest changes in the way you eat is a success, even if you don't stick to it.... p.s. Almond Butter and Apples are my favorite snack ever.
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