Right before the New Year started, a friend posted on Facebook that she was going to do a Whole30 in January and asked who wanted to join her.  My first thought – “what the heck is whole30 – another diet?!?!”  So I asked one of my closest friends, you probably know her, too – Google!  And eventually google sent me to one of her best friends – amazon.  🙂

I bought the first of 2 main books associated with the program:  It Starts with Food and decided to skip The Whole30: 30 day Guide and use the internet instead for recipes, etc.  Basically, the premise of the diet is a reboot and cleanse of your body of anything except whole foods.  Some of the foods you eliminate can cause systemic inflammation and digestive issues.  The goal is to eliminate all of the foods that can contribute to issues and reset your body and metabolism over the course of 30 days (or 45 or 60 days, if you need a bit longer).

What you can eat:

• Animal protein (beef, pork, chicken, fish, shellfish, etc.)
• Eggs
• Vegetables (just about everything except corn)
• Fruits
• Fats – avocados, nuts, olive & avocado oils, clarified butter and ghee

What you CAN’T eat:

• Dairy (cheese, milk, half & half, and yogurt)
• Legumes (beans of any kind, lentils, peanuts, and soy – including tofu)
• Sugar – artificial (Stevia, Splenda, Equal) or real (turbinado sugar, maple syrup or honey)
• Breads & grains (oats, wheat, rice, quinoa, etc.)
• Alcohol
• Any packaged food with MSG, sulfites or carrageenan

And no weighing yourself for the whole 30 days. (Yeah, right!!!) 🙂

Meal preparation is key.  Since you really can’t eat anything packaged, you should have fresh fruit, vegetables and meat or eggs for every meal. Fall in love with your crockpot – and cut up about 8 million different vegetables.

Fortunately, my husband joined me for the diet – I find it’s ALWAYS easier to eat healthy when you have a partner and are accountable to someone!  We were able to use a few paleo recipes, as long as we only used fruit juice as a sweetener – no honey.  *SIGH*

I am super optimistic about how this will work for us, though!  I haven’t actually done a diet in over 10 years – well….. except for the 2 weeks before I found out about Berry #4.  Oops, hee-hee 🙂  So I am determined to stay focused and not cheat for the ENTIRE month of January!  My goal truly is to just be healthier and hit my “reset” button – but I really, really hope to kickstart my diet and lose some weight!  Now that I’ve turned 45 (SIGH!), I really feel like it’s time for me to finally get serious and just be the weight I want to be for the second half of my life.  Ouch!  That sounds really dramatic.  OK, so stay tuned for the results!!!