So, Rusty and I did a thing recently. After the New Year, we started our first Whole 30 challenge. If you’ve never heard of Whole 30, it’s a very restricted diet that you follow for 30 days. It’s meant to help detoxify your system by removing most of the problematic foods (grains, dairy, legumes, and sugars). It also helps you think critically about your eating habits and your relationship with food. If you are interested in knowing more about Whole 30, you can visit their website here.
A few days ago, we completed the challenge. Yay, us! Honestly, I had my doubts when we started about whether we would be able to stick with it, but for the most part, we did okay. It definitely helped to do a Whole 30 together — we kept each other accountable. At the end of the 30 days, I had lost eight pounds total and Rusty was down about twenty! Weight loss is not the main goal of the Whole 30, but it is a nice side benefit. I was still carrying around the weight I had put on during our 4-month home ministry assignment in 2019, and my health issues and subsequent hysterectomy last June certainly didn’t help with my weight loss goals. So, by the time the holidays were over, I was definitely feeling the need for a “dietary reset.”
Here are a few of the things I learned during my first Whole 30:
- It was hard, but not as hard as I expected it to be. This was the most restricted diet that Rusty and I had tried for many, many years. When we lived in Japan, we once did a 21-day detox diet that was about 80 percent raw foods. Blech — that got old really fast! We were both glad to be able to eat delicious, hot meals and not just salads and smoothies. I expected to miss things like cheese and bread more. While I DID miss them occasionally, I didn’t have terrible cravings. Really, the only times I noticed myself wanting foods that I couldn’t have were when other people were eating them in my presence. For example, we bought pizza a couple of times for the kids, and when that hot pizza was right there in front of me on the table, I found myself wanting a slice. Or when I made muffins for the kids for breakfast, and I would smell them baking in the oven, I would wish that I could have just one. The absolute hardest thing for me was having my morning coffee without sugar or my flavored powdered creamers. I never did stop missing that!
- Having a plan was key to my success with this diet. One of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome when thinking about doing a Whole 30 was figuring out just what we were going to eat every day. I found that there are a lot of food bloggers out there who have created some very organized meal plans, complete with shopping lists and delicious recipes. I love it when someone else does the planning and the organizing — just tell me what to buy and what to cook and I will cook it! I signed up for a free 30-day meal plan from The Real Simple Good Life — link here to the one I used. We loved all their recipes!
- I was surprised to find that most Whole 30 friendly recipes were easily modifiable to make them more kid-friendly. I thought when starting out that I was going to find myself cooking two different meals three times a day for a month. But this was not the case AT ALL! My kids ate most of the Whole 30 dinners with us and actually enjoyed them! I made a few modifications from time to time to make the meals more like the food they were used to eating. For example, I once made “spaghetti and meatballs,” which Rusty and I ate over zucchini noodles, but the kids ate over regular pasta. Or if I made baked sweet potatoes for us, I would make them regular baked potatoes… or cauliflower rice for us and regular white rice for them. Doing simple things like that meant that I could cook the same basic meal for all six of us.
- I enjoyed getting creative in the kitchen and learning how to “DIY” a few things that are hard to find in our local grocery store in Cayambe, Ecuador. During our Whole 30, I made homemade beef broth from roasted soup bones, marinara sauce, salsa, cauliflower rice, zucchini noodles, zucchini pizza crust, almond butter, roasted red bell peppers and jalapeño peppers, mayonnaise, and a “coconut aminos” substitute. Most things were so easy to make. I had no idea that almond butter could be made just by grinding up roasted almonds in the food processor until they turned to paste. I have also decided I “need” a spiralizer — those things look so fun!
- Surprisingly, when I hunted for them at the nice, big grocery stores in Quito, I found that many of the pantry staples that are needed when doing a Whole 30 are, in fact, available here! We can now buy chia seeds, almond butter, avocado oil, almond and cashew milk, all kinds of gluten-free flours (almond, plantain, coconut, ect.), sugar alternatives like coconut sugar and stevia (technically not allowed on the Whole 30, but now that we are finished, Rusty has started substituting those for regular white sugar). There are also a variety of healthy snacks and even non-dairy sugar-free coffee creamers made with almond or coconut milk! I found orange sweet potatoes at the supermarket several weeks in a row — we used to only be able to find them by making a special trip to the Iñaquito market. The only things I looked for that I was never able to find were coconut aminos and fish sauce. And Ecuador really is a great place to live when doing a diet like this. So many fresh fruits and vegetables — and so affordable, too!
- I feel like I now have better ideas for how to support people on super restricted diets who come to stay at the camp. Not only do I know what things are available locally to help them be gluten or dairy free, but I also know how easy cauliflower rice, zucchini noodles, and potato toast are to make! I know that plantain chips are a great substitute for corn chips. I have several delicious breakfast recipes that don’t utilize either grains or dairy.
- I read so many stories of people on this diet who experienced increased energy and just all around “feeling better” once they got over the initial hump of the sugar detox. Neither of us experienced this. I’m not sure what to make of this — perhaps it signifies that neither of us have a lot of food sensitivities? Or maybe that we really weren’t eating all that ?before? Aside from needing to cut back on carbs and sugar, and maybe adding more veggies to our diet, we mostly eat at home, and food that we prepare ourselves. We eat out less than we ever have these days, mostly due to the pandemic.
All in all, it was a good experiment and something we will likely try to do again, maybe once a year, right after the new year begins. I had a friend ask me “Why just 30 days, why not a lifestyle?” My response was that since I don’t have issues with food (like allergies, diabetes, etc.), that force me to eat in a very restricted way, I would never choose to do so on an ongoing basis. I love cheese and bread too much! I also want to be able to enjoy the occasional treat, like ice cream or a piece of chocolate. There are certainly some things that I will start trying to do more of when cooking at home, like replacing foods such as rice and noodles with healthy, lower-carb options. But when traveling or eating out or at someone else’s house, I’ll eat what looks or sounds good or what is served to me without being fussy. In the Whole 30 world, they call this “food freedom.”
If you’ve ever tried the Whole 30, I’d love to hear about your experience with it!
My Cracked Kettle 