WHOLE30

This past month I have been on Whole30.

Quoting Whole30's website,

" the Whole30® is our original nutritional program designed to change your life in 30 days. Think of it as a short-term nutritional reset, designed to help you put an end to unhealthy cravings and habits, restore a healthy metabolism, heal your digestive tract, and balance your immune system."

During the 30 days, which I started at the beginning of January, I was only allowed to eat fruits, veggies, eggs and meats. That means no dairy, no gluten, no sugar, no corn, no grains, no nottun! Or at least thats what it felt like. Now if you know me, you know that my staples included popcorn, chips and salsa and cereal, chocolate- as well as any type of Mexican and pizza- so good by all of those!

Now why did I do this? Back in 2011 my digestive tract decided to rebel and reject anything and everything. Ever since then I have had stomachaches, cramps, bloating, many trips to the bathroom, nausea and everything else that comes with stomach problems. Now I could have been a good girl and stopped eating the foods that made my stomach hurt but I suffered. That is until I finally decided I needed to do something about it. Stomach, this was for you!

So my friend told me about Whole30 and I took the challenge. Let me just say this took a lot of mental and physical preparation! Luckily I was coming off the holidays and was ready to stop eating all the goodies and over eating that comes with holidays.

Things I learned from this experience:

My stomach never hurt the entire time! I can tell you TJ was grateful not having to hear me complain anymore about my tummy hurting all the time! But boy! I was eating all the wrong things.
I was not very good at meal preparation before. Still not- but at least I have a few more recipes under my belt.
SUGAR! Everything has sugar in it! Try reading the labels of foods- you will find that everything has some sort of "not very good" sugar.
Activities involving food get very minimized. Granted- more and more places are catering to food issues so it was possible to go out and just ask to have special orders. I was just not that desperate to go out.
I have self-control! The first few weeks (pretty much the first 3) it was so sad to have to turn down things that I loved so much. But by the end, somethings didn't even appeal to me anymore. So when TJ has his 10:30 snack at night. I can happily sip on my water and be ok :)

I've included some pictures of things I made during the month. I was pretty proud of myself.