Today I wanted to share my favorite books on food. Some of them are cookbooks and others are a bit different. They’re all books that for one reason or another I really love.

In one of his books, Michael Pollan talks about how people spend more time watching cooking shows than actually cooking these days. He ponders about this fascination with watching other people cook. I don’t watch cooking shows, but I do seem to have a certain fascination with reading about food.

At least I can say that I’m quite certain I spend more time actually cooking than I do reading about it. I’m constantly trying to find a more wholesome approach to food in my life – without actually giving up baked sweet things.

With that said, here are the books that made my list of favorites:

Salt Fat Acid Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking

Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat is an amazing book. It starts with a chapter for each of the title elements of good cooking and then has recipes to put the principles into practice. It has been eye-opening to me and has provided me with interesting tid-bits that I think will make me a much better cook.

Among many, many other things, I learned about how adding a little salt and a few drops of fresh lemon juice to my eggs for omelettes will make them fluffier and moister… and it works!

In the salt chapter, Samin also makes a claim that salt does more to cut bitterness than sugar. For example, putting salt on a grapefruit does more to change the flavor than adding sugar. So I had to try it, even though I don’t like grapefruit.

It was a fun little experiment to run: I lined up a plain piece, one with salt, one with sugar and one with salt and sugar. She was right! The salt really did make the grapefruit less bitter. I still don’t like grapefruit though. Not even with salt.

After reading the chapter on acid, I started squeezing fresh lemon juice on the veggies on my omelettes right before eating. It makes them taste so much brighter without being lemony at all.

This book also has some of the best illustrations: they’re gorgeous and also come packed with a bit of humor.

Kids Cooking: A Very Slightly Messy Manual

This was my favorite cookbook as a kid and I fondly remember many of the recipes such as Buried Treasure Muffins, Happle Bagel Sandwiches, Juicy Orange Rounds, Carrot Raisin Salad, Frosted Chocolate Conecakes and Disgustingly Rich Brownies. Plus it has a few non-edible recipes for things like Play Dough and Face Paint.

I’m not sure who in my family has the original copy of the book we had when I was little, but when I saw it again as an adult, I snagged my own copy. Sadly, it seems to be out of print, but used copies are available on Amazon (they might not come with the original color-coded measuring spoons though).

I love this book for it’s illustrations and my fond memories of making (and eating) many of the wonderful recipes. Also, for the brownie recipe.

The Tassajara Bread Book

The Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown was my one and only introduction to baking bread. My mom gave it to me when I was 14 or 15 and it’s continued to be my reference book. It has incredibly detailed instructions to get you started with a simple yeast bread and many other variations and recipes to keep you going after that.

I love this book because it’s how I learned to bake my own bread and because the author’s warmth and earthy passion for baking really shine through.

Nom Nom Paleo

Nom Nom Paleo by Michelle Tam and Henry Fong is a gorgeous book with lots of pictures and entertaining cartoons. Plus it even has some great paleo recipes. Even if you’re not a paleo eater, it’s a wonderful cookbook filled with flavorful awesome recipes like Magic Mushroom Powder.

The website by the same name (nomnompaleo.com) also has tons of great recipes. My favorite this month has been Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas with Avocado Crema. These are ridiculously awesome. Even Toddler B seems to agree… sort of. He won’t eat the onions or bell peppers but will devour the chicken pieces.

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

Cooked by Michael Pollan is an amazing read. Actually, I borrowed the audio-book version from my library on the Overdrive app and it was wonderful listening to it in the car. (This being the only one of these books I don’t own, I have no pictures for it.)

The book is divided into four sections with the themes of fire (grilling pigs), water (cooking with liquid), air (baking bread) and earth (fermenting things like cheese and beer). He finds experts for each of these areas to teach him the ropes.

He also forays into things like the history, chemistry, politics, and mass-production of food. It was clear that Pollan had exhaustively lived and researched what he was writing about. I’m the sort of reader that is just curious about everything, so I really enjoyed all of the details and his various tangents.

I loved this book for it’s depth in exploring the topics covered and for the desire it sparked in me to be more hands-on with my food. Sometimes cooking can feel like just a chore, but this book is a reminder that it can also be something really special.

Well Fed

Well Fed by Melissa Joulwan is another fantastic paleo cookbook that I’d recommend even if you’re not paleo. The pictures are wonderful, she includes lots of options for variations on the recipes and her love of different flavors really shines through.

The recipe for sausage seasoning which turns plain ground turkey into a savory delicious food and spices up breakfast is one of my favorites. (This can be very important if eating paleo or doing a Whole30 when eggs for breakfast are just getting really old.)

I also love her Chocolate Chili recipe. The Meatza Pie is delicious and the Cocoa-Toasted Cauliflower was surprisingly good (not that I didn’t expect her recipe to be good- just that cauliflower strikes me as a washed-out version of broccoli both when it comes to color and to flavor).

Mostly, I love the attitude towards food and all the suggestions for experimenting and trying different options.

It Starts With Food

It Starts With Food by Dallas Hartwig and Melissa Hartwig is the original book behind the Whole30. It goes into the science of why some foods are good for us and others aren’t. It makes it so clear why the low-fat calorie-counting method of dieting doesn’t work.

One of my key take-aways from this book was a better understanding of how certain foods affect our hormones (such as insulin and leptin) and these in turn affect energy levels, blood sugar levels, fat storage and the ability to burn fat for energy.

It has lots of sciency bits, but they do a good job of breaking it down to be accessible to anybody. I’m the sort of person that if I see the word ‘sciencey’ I’m ready to dive in. If you’re the sort of person that sees it and wants to run the other way, don’t worry. This book explains things so they’ll make sense.

Another key take-away for me was understanding how some foods can cause general inflammation in the body leading to symptoms like achy joints and acne. Even foods that one isn’t necessarily allergic to can cause problems to the immune system.

After going through the things you shouldn’t be eating and why, it goes through the things you should be eating. Then it covers the Whole30 guidelines and discusses putting all of the theory into practice with a few sample recipes.

It also led me to try the Whole30 twice now, which has had a big impact on my dietary habits. I really did see some amazing results. The big things I noticed on my last one were more consistent energy, not feeling like I was ABSOLUTELY STARVING when I was hungry, my acne totally disappearing, and losing almost 10 pounds.

One of the amazing things about that last point is that there is no calorie restriction (or even calorie counting). I ate tons of food. But EVERY SINGLE bite was nutrient-dense, real food: meat, eggs, seafood, tons of vegetables, healthy fats and a little fruit. To me, it really does prove that when food causes a healthy hormonal response, it becomes so much easier for the body to lose fat.

You can read more about my personal Whole30 experience here.

What are your favorite food books? Let me know in the comments.

The post Best Books – Food Edition! appeared first on Live Hoppy.

Yep, this time around I finished the Whole30!!

I’ll jump right into the improvements and good things I’ve noticed:

• I feel more optimistic about my health. I don’t 100% feel like I’m ‘there’, but I feel like I’m definitely on the right path. I’m closer to ‘there’ than I was 2 months ago. I also recognize that living a healthy lifestyle is not a goal you reach and then you’re done. It’s ongoing.
• I have fewer cravings for sugar and carbs.
• My acne is like 98% better. (If only I could have had this when I was like 17.) I have had problems with acne since I was a teenager and after bouts with all the different soaps and a dermatologist, I had just sort of settled into accepting it. I have to wonder what else is better inside my body that I can’t see.
• My clothes fit better. I went down a size in pants. I’m definitely a little leaner.
• I’ve learned more about cooking and found a couple of new recipes that I will definitely keep in rotation.
• My energy levels are more even throughout the day.
• I no longer feel STARVING hungry when I go a few hours without eating. I get hungry, but it’s not such an overwhelming feeling and it doesn’t affect me emotionally making me irritable or cranky.
• I mostly eat three solid meals every day. Some days I also have a small snack. No more grazing all day.
• It just feels satisfying when I make myself a healthy meal. It makes me feel like I’m taking good care of myself.
• It’s even more satisfying to make B healthy meals. I made no attempt to make him go Whole30. He goes from being fine to melting down because he’s hungry so I end up prioritizing convenience sometimes when feeding him. He doesn’t get much in the way of the worst food options out there like McDonald’s and ice cream, but he definitely gets things like graham crackers that are ready RIGHT NOW. His diet contains a disproportionate number of bananas. Even though I wasn’t feeding him completely Whole30, I certainly fed him healthier meals while doing this because it was what I was cooking and eating anyway and that really does make me feel good.
• Made a habit of keeping the kitchen clean. This was my second Whole30 and on my first one, I made a rule to do the dishes after EVERY meal. It’s my one rule that’s not actually part of the official program, but I almost feel like it should be. It is so much easier to want to cook something healthy when the kitchen is clean. So I kept this rule for my second Whole30 and have enjoyed a sparkling kitchen.

There were also some things that I wanted to improve or to improve more than they did.

B started day care in January and he brings home all sorts of germs so we’ve all been sick a lot. January brought the stomach flu and February we’ve all had some sort of cold or flu. Actually, I strongly suspect we were hit with like six different cold viruses at once. I have been sick basically all month.

This was not what I imagined for my Whole30. I was hoping for extra energy, optimism for each day, and being physically active. Instead it turned into boxes of kleenex, Costco-sized boxes of cold medicine, staying home with a sick kid and waking up in the middle of the night with a painful, raspy cough.

While most people report better energy, better sleep, and being more active on a Whole30, that just didn’t happen for me at all. I don’t blame the Whole30, I blame being sick. But I’m still a little disappointed.

I am considering extending my Whole30 to give myself some time on it while not being sick to see if the rest of the improvements I hoped for will show up.

Also, my sugar cravings are better, but not as much better as I might like. I do claim full responsibility for that though because I know I ate too many Chocolate Sea Salt RXbars along the way. These are technically compliant, but totally not recommended because they reinforce the cycle of craving-reward that comes with sugar addiction.

Weight loss

One of the Whole30 rules is to not step on the scale for the 30 days. This is perhaps one of the hardest because of the desire to know if it’s “working”. The idea is that there is so much more to gain from eating healthy than a number on the scale and that by not weighing-in, a person will focus on the other benefits instead of being distracted by a number.

I think this is good reasoning. I also think that there is a lot of ‘noise’ in data that comes from weight. It’s normal for a person’s weight to fluctuate throughout a day or a week. That normal fluctuation is greater than the amount of weight one is going actually really lose in that time period. Frequent data points don’t actually give a clearer picture of what is happening.

The Whole30 is not supposed to be about losing weight. But for me, and I’m sure for tons of other people, that really was one of my goals.

I’m writing this on Day 30, so technically, I still have to wait until tomorrow until my program is really over to weigh myself. I’m dying of curiosity for the number.

I will also take it in stride. I know that some of my other life-style factors weren’t lined up. I was sick which is a big physical stress and also meant I was pretty sedentary and I wasn’t sleeping well. Stress, lack of exercise and not sleeping well are not a good combination for weight loss.

I basically expect that I lost a little weight. It probably won’t be a miraculous number and I might be a little disappointed or maybe I’ll just be glad that it went down instead of up. I’ll have more to go before I’m at my ideal weight. I’m OK with that. I know I’m on the right path and that if I stick to my healthy eating, I’m confident that I’ll get there.

Thirty days can make a big difference, but it is still only 30 days. Being healthy is a lifelong process. Nothing I can do in 30 days will solve my health for a lifetime. It CAN and DID get me heading in the right direction.

Going Forward

One of the big parts of the Whole30 (and one that often gets overlooked) is the reintroduction process. They recommend a careful reintroduction plan so that people can really learn how the foods they eliminated affect them. The idea is not to eliminate these foods forever, but to take a break from them and then to try them again to see the impact.

I’m pretty sure that I don’t have any really strong reactions to any food groups. I’m not lactose intolerant. I don’t have a big problem with gluten. Eating anything once doesn’t seem to be a big deal for me. I do know that consistently eating those things IS a big deal.

I may also have more subtle things that are a little harder to tie to specific foods. My acne for example. From what I’ve read, most likely it’s a reaction to dairy or gluten. But it doesn’t happen the second I drink a glass of milk or eat a slice of bread. Either it’s a delayed reaction or it is a cumulative result of a certain amount of those foods.

I really need to take some time and experiment with those things. Really, the Whole30 is meant to be one big self-experiment. It’s not about following somebody else’s advice on what to eat, but about learning how different foods affect YOU.

I want to remember how good I feel doing this. I want to come back to it if (when) my diet goes too far off again. I want the time between my second and third Whole30s to be much shorter than the time between my first and second ones.

If my energy starts slumping, or I start gaining weight, or my acne returns, I want to make the connection that it’s because of what I am eating. (I know this is hard because I might not want to stop eating sugary cereal six meals a day.)

I just want to keep getting closer to a diet and lifestyle that helps me feel my best. I feel like I am so much closer to this than I was two months ago.

(I say two months instead of one month, because I had a few weeks of Whole30 in January too. See My January Whole30 Fail. While I didn’t make it the full 30 days, I do think that it helped to get me back on track.)

Yep, I’m actually publishing this post without waiting for that final number to include in it. Which would drive me nuts as a reader because when I look for the Whole30 posts with before and after photos and with numbers. I also don’t have photos because taking pictures of myself in my underwear when I feel like I need to change my eating in order to lose weight is so just not going to happen. Sorry to disappoint.

The post My February Whole30 Win appeared first on Live Hoppy.

I think I do better with black and white than I do with moderation when it comes to some things. I sort of got back on track for a few days after I started feeling better and then gave in and had cheese and sour cream one night. Knowing that I hadn’t stuck to the plan 100% had been eating at me, even if I had a more than legit reason with the flu. (Even the insanely rigid Whole30 website has a post about being sick and mentions that if all you can hold down is a piece of toast, it’s OK as a last resort.)

So then I had a few more days sort of on plan, sort of off plan. I knew that it would bother me that I hadn’t completed it, so I decided to start over fresh.

Today is day 8 and I’m feeling good about this. There were a few days where I felt a little down about my ‘failure’. During my first few days this time around, I kept noticing how much easier it was than my first go at it.

My day one on January 1st was awful. I was coming off of eating too much sugar and carbs. I had an awful headache. This day one was easy. Sure, I’d eaten a few non-compliant things, but my diet had been much better for weeks so my body was already adapted to living without the sugar.

So I’m back in the groove and giving it another go. It will end up taking most of February, but that’s OK. I was a bit down about my ‘failure’, but now that I’m committed to trying again, I’m feeling better about it. Plus, because I at least gave it a good go in January, I ate way better than I would have otherwise.

I have noticed some benefits from eating better. One of the big ones is that I have more energy and more consistent energy throughout the day. I can also tell that my body has made the transition from running on sugar to running on fat. I’m less prone to feeling like I am starving if I go a few hours without eating. My cravings for sugar are somewhat reduced.

The way I think about food is different too. Things like nacho-flavored chips just seem so fake. Obsessively reading ingredients is one of the gifts of a Whole30. It’s also sort of a curse. It leaves you wondering things like, “Why does this company put sugar in my deli turkey? It’s for a sandwich not a cake or something.” Or “Why does my lemon juice need sulfites? Can’t they just put lemon juice in there?” Then there’s a whole ton of worse, weird, ingredients in things, many of which I totally don’t know what they are. Of course, most of those products are one’s whose labels I don’t even bother to read these days because I already know they’re not Whole30 compliant.

It makes me think of one of Michael Pollan’s food rules:

Avoid food products with ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.

This is one of the ‘resets’ that the Whole30 promises. Getting back to eating real food with real ingredients. Or better yet, things that are the ingredient like a steak or an apple.

One of the other cool things is knowing that because I’m eating healthier I’m feeding healthier things to S and B. Certainly they both eat other stuff and I haven’t even tried to make either one of them Whole30 compliant, but I do most of the grocery shopping and cooking. I am no where near perfect with what I feed B, but I do try to feed him healthy-ish stuff and it gives me a special sense of satisfaction when I see him eat a plate of scrambled eggs with veggies. (I chop them up super small so he can’t pick them out.)

I do totally miss some foods like cheese and have other random cravings for things I’m not eating. Some of these foods I know don’t actually promote a healthy emotional/mental response for me anyway. It’s only for 30 days and eight of them are already over. Once the 30 days are over, I’m sure I won’t be as strict about what I eat, but I also want to keep my good food habits.

So most of February will be Whole30 take two for me. I am tackling a second big goal for February as well which is to be extra-productive at work. It’s not the most exciting goal, but I figure tackling it during the winter is a good time since in the spring and summer I want to be outside more.

The post My January Whole30 fail appeared first on Live Hoppy.

I mentioned in my last post that this year I am focusing more on monthly goals than annual goals. The idea is that this condensed time frame will help me to focus more on one thing at a time and make real progress. We’ll see how it plays out in practice.

My goal for January is to complete a Whole30. I did one maybe four years ago and it really helped me out a lot, but it was definitely time for another.

What the Whole30 is (and isn’t)

The NO List

Sometimes it seems like the quick description of the Whole30 is just a list of NOs.

• NO sugar or sweeteners (artificial, natural or other)
• NO grains
• NO dairy
• NO legumes (beans, peanuts, soybeans to name a few.) I don’t know the correct pronunciation of the word legume.
• NO sulfites, carrageenan, or MSG
• NO recreations of junk foods using approved ingredients
• NO getting on the scale

The first time I heard about the Whole30 from my friend M, I just thought, “Yeah, NO thanks, wacko!” (And then a week or two later, I ended up jumping right on.)

While that list of NOs is accurate, I feel like the real meaning of the Whole30 has more to do with the YES list. There are rules to the Whole30, but there are also recommendations about what to eat. In my experience, these recommendations are what make for a successful Whole30.

The YES List

• YES meat, eggs, & seafood of all kinds. Preferably natural, organic, grass-fed, and/or sustainably sourced.
• YES vegetables.
• YES fruit (in moderation).
• YES healthy fats like coconut, avocado, olives, coconut oil, avocado oil, olive oil, ghee and coconut oil.
• YES eating lots of good, filling, tasty meals.
• YES carbs. Some people mistake this for a low carb diet because of the prohibition on grains, but carbs are fine in the form of fruits and vegetables (think sweet potatoes- a Whole30 staple).
• YES eating enough to be satiated.

Oh, and two more NOs that aren’t part of the official rules: NO going hungry. NO counting calories.

The goal of the Whole30 is NOT to be a diet. The purpose is NOT about losing weight (at least it’s not supposed to be about losing weight), although most people do lose at least a few pounds when they do it. Certainly many of us DO undertake it hoping to lose weight, but that’s not what the program was designed for.

So what is the purpose of the Whole30?

Everything is based on the idea that healthy foods should meet four standards. 1. Promote a healthy psychological response. 2. Promote a healthy hormonal response. 3. Support a healthy gut. 4. Support immune function and minimize inflammation.

The foods that are NOs on the Whole30 commonly fail at least one of those four standards for many people. So the Whole30 plan is about eliminating all of those foods for 30 days to get a baseline of feeling good from clean eating and then slowly testing them one at a time to see if you have bad reactions.

It’s about running an experiment to learn what your personal reactions are to foods that commonly cause problems for people. Many people discover that certain symptoms or issues they have had for years disappear on the Whole30 and they previously had no idea that it was food related.

It’s also about some other things like getting hormones involved with eating and blood sugar reset to a healthy pattern. It’s about developing a new relationship with food- eating for health and nourishment rather than because you’re craving sugar or another unhealthy food.

It’s about what the program terms NSVs or Non Scale Victories – paying attention to how you feel when you change your diet. Looking for results like more energy, better sleep, more consistent mood, etc.

The Meal Template

One of the things that I found most helpful on my first Whole30 was the meal template. It provides a guideline for how much protein, fat and vegetables to include with each meal. It’s not a rule. It’s a tool to help people as they are switching over to this type of eating.

The goal is to get to where you’re eating three solid meals a day and not snacking much, but snacks are not prohibited if one is really hungry. The idea is that if you can’t make it between meals without needing a snack, you should eat more at each meal. It does take some time to figure out how much is enough. (There’s an additional pre-workout meal and post-workout meal for people that are working out.)

Technically, you could eat nothing but fruit smoothies and fruit and nut bars and you would be doing a Whole30, but you would entirely miss the essence of what it’s supposed to be about. I feel like including at least some protein, fat and vegetables in each meal should be a Whole30 rule. I certainly try to treat it as one, although some of my meals definitely include more or less of each category than others.

It Starts with Food

It Starts with Food is the name of the first book published by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig about the Whole30. It goes in depth outlining the science behind why some foods are prohibited on a Whole30 and why others aren’t.

Maybe it’s just my personality type wanting to know the sciency details, but I thought it was a great read. I think understanding the why behind something is important and adds motivation and conviction when the going gets tough.

It made a lot of things about the less-than-optimal state of my health make sense. I read it once before my first Whole30 and I’m in the process of reading it again. So much that I had forgotten!

At the time of my first Whole30, it was the only book they had out. In the mean time, they’ve published several other Whole30 books, but It Starts with Food is still the one I’d recommend to anybody looking for in depth information on the program.

That said, you don’t need to buy anything to do the program (other than food, of course). Plenty of information for it is freely available online.

Free Whole30 Resources

The master resource is the official Whole30 Website*. Of particular interest there are the Whole30 Program Rules, the downloads page where you can find a meal template, shopping lists, a guide to common preservatives and more, and the forum where you can get support or just browse the posts.

There are also tons of great Whole30 recipes available online. A couple of good sites to start with are Nom Nom Paleo and Well Fed.

Notes on products and marketing

*I have to note that the official website seems like it has so many things on it to try to get you to buy something now. You don’t need any of those things to do a Whole30. Some of them may be useful or helpful, but others almost seem like they detract from the program to me. Like the meal planning. If you don’t know how to make a shopping list and do a little meal planning, now is the perfect time to learn. Don’t pay for their plan.

Part of the experience of a Whole30 should be trying new foods, getting hands on, picking fruits and vegetables, using a knife and a pan in the kitchen, starting with whole foods and turning them into a meal.

They now have Whole30 approved Walmart brand frozen TV dinners. Which mostly I just feel is completely wrong. Throwing some tasteless meal out of a cardboard box into the microwave and then chowing down is not the goal here. It’s crazy to see how this has taken off and become a marketed, money-making thing.

On the flip side, some little bitty piece of me feels like it’s progress. If you’re going to be eating a frozen meal anyway, at least pick one without a bunch of nasty crap in it. And it goes to show just how many people have made this effort to improve their health is cool.

Plus, I do understand that whatever one’s best intentions, it’s sometimes really hard to plan and cook for every meal. Maybe a backup for traveling or some catastrophic day is OK. On the flip side, by the time you’re shopping at Walmart, you could just buy say a bag of almonds and a few bananas to tide you over.

The good news is that one can just ignore all of that stuff and do a Whole30 old-school style. Which brings me to some memories from my first Whole30.

My First Whole30

I’ve been thinking back to what I remember about my first Whole30. I learned so much for it. I really had no idea how to cook any type of meat before then, so I had a learning curve there. But I pushed myself to be adventurous. With a bit of help from the internet, I learned how to cook shrimp, chicken, ground beef, steak, and salmon.

This is embarrassing to admit, but I wasn’t even really sure what sweet potatoes looked like the first time I went looking for them in the produce aisle. I was only familiar with the type that come out of a can.

My first Whole30 was at a time when there were just starting to be brands that were putting out products aimed at being OK to have on a Whole30. So making your own mayo or ranch dressing or ghee was just a part of the program for many people.

I remember making my own mayonnaise for the first time and how cool it was. Also, I had a few fails where it didn’t work right and was a gross mess. I tried my hand at making my own pickles. Although since I don’t remember eating them, I suspect something went wrong with that experiment. I made my own ghee too.

Then I found specialty avocado oil mayonnaise with only approved ingredients and this amazing ghee on Amazon and now I don’t make them anymore. But it’s still important to me that I went through the process of learning how.

I also remember people complementing me on how I looked, saying that I looked like I was glowing or that I looked good. That’s always a nice thing to hear.

Also, I lost 8 pounds while eating huge meals and not working out at all.

Things changed for me after that. I kept eating mostly Whole30 stuff for a long time. I read ingredients on the stuff I bought a lot more often. I cooked more. I ate eggs and vegetables for breakfast every morning.

Eventually, I did start to slide back to old habits a bit. Then when I got pregnant and felt sick all the time, there were so few foods that I could tolerate and none of them were that healthy. B was born and my sleep was so messed up and my hormones and my eating habits weren’t the best. Now, I want to get back to what worked so well for me.

My Second Whole30

Today I am almost done with day 9 of my second Whole30. That means I’m 30% through it. First and foremost, I can’t wait to see what the scale reads in 22 days. Which, of course, is not supposed to be the point. I’m not actually normally obsessed about weighing myself, but I’m just curious to see what the results are.

This time around, it’s easier in some ways. I already have a repertoire of recipes that I like and know how to make. I know what sort of ingredients I’m looking for. I know of products I like that have approved ingredients. Despite my long absence, it feels like returning to a town I’m familiar with or putting on a favorite sweater.

In other ways, it’s been an adjustment. Coming off of sugar and flour and all that other stuff is not entirely easy. Day 2 I had awful headaches. Sometimes I’ve felt sleepy. I am maybe only now getting to where I can do just 3 meals a day instead of needing a snack in there somewhere. I felt very jealous yesterday when S poured Parmesan cheese on top of his zoodles (zucchini noodles).

But I’m noticing improvements too. Maybe my pants are a little looser, I have a little more energy, my skin is a bit clearer. Also, for the longest time, I’ve had this irritated spot on one of my fingers where it was like the skin just wasn’t thick enough and it is suddenly better in the last few days. Which is one of those things that one might wonder if it’s really due to the dietary changes, but I’m fairly certain that it is.

Whole30 and the family

The first thing recommended on the Whole30 site is to clear out everything that’s not approved from your fridge and pantry. My first go around, I mostly did that. This time around, I haven’t done that at all. S can still eat whatever he wants. He’s an adult. Some couples jump in and do the Whole30 together, but that’s not really our style.

And for B? I have enough on my plate with making sure that my Whole30 is successful, I’m not aiming at a Whole30 for him. Plus, he likes to drink his milk. By default though since I’m cooking a bunch of Whole30 stuff, he’s eating a lot more of it too. In fact, S eats a lot of it too.

My decisions for my health also end up affecting the health of the people around me. Pretty powerful stuff.

It turns out B likes scrambled eggs with sweet potatoes. He likes zoodles too, just not for eating.

Are you thinking about doing a Whole30, but also think it sounds a little crazy?

As I mentioned above, the first time I heard about the Whole30 I thought it was crazy too. My friend M had so many good things to say about it though. I am so glad that I gave it a shot. It really was an amazing experience. (It must have been, I’m doing it again!)

I read something in Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project. One of the best ways to predict how happy you will be if you do something is to see how happy somebody else who has done it is. Does your friend gush about the new workout class they go to? Give it a try. Does some random blogger gush about this life-changing diet? Give it a try. It’s only 30 days. You have nothing to lose and perhaps quite a lot to gain.

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