….Whole 30 challenge

Whole 30 – 30 days of eating whole food – no junk (sugar, dairy, grains, soya etc.)

This might seem like a stupid challenge to do considering we already strive to eat whole food in general. Well, let me tell you about our love for this challenge.

We did our first Whole 30 long before we started with our LCHF lifestyle. We realized we needed to change not only our eating habits but our relationship with food. Our first Whole 30 was not as hard as we expected it to be. Maybe because we ensure we knew what to do and prepared a menu to help us. The weight loss results were also great (that was only an added bonus). We decided to do another one soon after and just couldn’t cope. Most likely because we still wanted to eat the same food we ate before the whole 30.

Since then we tried several whole 30’s but never got pass day 12. It was so frustrating and I felt demotivated about the entire process. When we finally changed our lifestyle it seemed more realistic to attempt another whole 30. I’ve always been an emotional eater – when I’m happy, I eat, when I’m sad, I eat, when I’m stressed, I eat…. you get the idea.

This year started off with a bang and from the first week back at work the pressure were on to perform in hyper drive. With all the added stress my relationship with food turned bad and I started snacking constantly – even if it was on low carb snacks – I kept on getting on the scale and when I don’t like what it says I would get so upset with myself for snacking – I would snack again out of frustration. One evil cycle.

Luckily I realized I need to get my mind right and get back on track – I needed my food freedom – and for that reason we decided to do a Whole 30 for March. Looking back it might have not be the best month to do a Whole 30 (Hubby’s birthday, weekend away, loads of work travel), but I knew if I wait another month I would find another 10reasons not to do it.

My Whole 30 was not about loosing weight – it was all about resetting my relationship for food. Saying no to dairy (my weakness), rather drinking a glass of water when I am getting frustrated instead of heading to the cupboard to snack on nuts. And I can honestly say – Whole 30 got me back on track.

So let me summarize my gains from Whole 30:

1. I do not turn to food when stressed
2. I can survive with black coffee
3. I don’t need to snack during the day
4. I can survive without any sugar (xylitol/stevia/honey)
5. Broccoli without cheese sauce is edible
6. I can survive without red wine

And the added bonus – I dropped 3kg and 7 cm in 30 days. This might not seem like a lot, but to me it is huge. In a good month, I will drop about 600g so this to me was a great achievement as I didn’t focus on loosing weight.

We tried to keep our meals simple, and to ensure we eat enough healthy fat with each meal to avoid cravings and getting hungry. You can find all our Whole 30 meals on our Facebook page 4-the-love-of

Cauli mash with home made wors

Boiled eggs with avo, cucumber and home made mayo

Fish cakes

Steak with stirfry veggies

Beef stew

Grilled chicken with veg and salad

What did I learn from my March Whole 30:

1. I am obsessed with the scale – so from now on I will only weigh myself once a month.
2. I consume to much dairy – cream I my coffee, cheese/cream base sauces at least 3 times a week, snacking on cheese etc.
3. When I re-introduced dairy – I suffered from bloating and craps -so avoid dairy as far as possible.
4. I tend to replace my meals with cream coffee, and will now try and limit my coffee and drink it mainly black.
5. Never trust labels – even if it says gluten/sugar/dairy/soya free or banting friendly.
6. Eating out is extremely difficult – restaurants do not care that their butter sauce is made with margarine.
7. Track your carbs if you want to loose weight, they tend to sneak up on you and before you know you are eating way to many carbs.

Will I do another Whole 30 – without a doubt, it kept me focused on the bigger picture – improving my relationship with food. I can recommend this to anybody that needs to refocus and get their food freedom back.