Whole30: A Comeback Comedy

When you need a jump start to your wellness journey reboot, think #Whole30! Back in January we jumped head first into the challenge...

Read on to learn how it went!

Let's be honest here... rebooting a wellness journey can be difficult - ESPECIALLY in the winter when the weather is horrible, sweatpants are socially acceptable as full-time attire, and comfort food is in peak season. With that being said, we knew we needed the close equivalent to an act of God to get us going again, and thus entered the Whole30 Challenge to save the day!

Many, many folks are familiar with #Whole30. Nowadays it's nearing a household name, if it hasn't reached that status already, and January is a busy month for it. (Ah, the fresh smell of a whole new year, full of promise and the unknown!)

PS: If you aren't familiar with the Whole30, we HIGHLY recommend checking it out!

We'd done the challenge once before during 1.0, but we weren't exactly 100% compliant on it... we were fairly broke and living with Rachel's folks so we were decently limited. We used that limitation as an excuse to eat whatever condiments, sauces, and dressings we had handy, which held us back from getting the full effect. It also happened during Rachel's birthday, and the willpower between the two of us fell a little short. Alas, it turns out we're human...

Fast-forward to this January, and we were ready to give it the old college try once more- and this time we were going to keep it 100% compliant.

We knew in late December that we were going to commit to doing Whole30, but we also knew that January 1st was NOT going to work for us. We already had NYE plans that came with plenty of alcohol and junk food, and the following day was not going to be a "YES, LET'S DO THIS!" kind of day. It was, instead, going to be a "Pass the Gatorade and Greasy Breakfast Food" kind of day, and that was okay with us.

So, we went a little off script and started the #JanuaryWhole30 on January 8- which was a Monday, and that allowed us to grocery shop, meal plan, and prep over the weekend. This made a world of difference in our attitude from the start.

Rule 1: If you want to be successful on Whole30, plan plan and plan some more. Plan your meals, make that grocery list, stick to it, and prep those meals allowing plenty of time for all of that.

Planning

For us, if it isn't written down, it doesn't exist. So we got out our calendars, planners, and the like and wrote, "Meal Plan & Grocery Shop", on every single Saturday of Whole30. Then on every Sunday, we wrote, "Meal Prep". We know... that sounds pretty dang redundant, but redundancy builds habits and that's what we needed.

We also needed to break it up into weekly chunks - even our grocery shopping - because we couldn't trust ourselves to not waste fresh produce. We've probably wasted what feels like hundreds of thousands of dollars on produce that ends up going bad before we can eat it, because we over buy and over commit. We couldn't afford to keep doing that in life, nonetheless during Whole30 when we knew our grocery bill was going to skyrocket. So weekly grocery shopping it had to be.

Speaking of skyrocketing grocery bills...

Even though we're better off financially than we were the first time we attempted Whole30, we still aren't millionaires or even upper-middle class. That meant that we needed to keep this challenge as budget friendly as possible, which also took planning. To make it work, we built a Google Doc that housed weekly pages with our meal plan, grocery list, and cost breakdown for each item on the list. It took work, and a LOT of price comparisons via specific store apps and dry runs through our local grocery stores to make sure we were getting the best deal on compliant items. We didn't always succeed (one of our Whole30 pet peeves was definitely finding an item cheaper after already having purchased it elsewhere- damn you, Almond Milk!), but we managed to stay within our budget.

Don't worry, if you want to learn more about how we did this, be on the lookout for an upcoming post about doing Whole30 on a Budget!

Execution

Every single Saturday, we stuck with our "to-do's" of meal planning and grocery shopping, armed with our list and price comparison. Sundays were spent meal prepping. We boiled so many eggs... sometime we'll have to add up how many we boiled, but that's for another day... and that brings us to...

Rule 2: Get creative with your recipes (especially for dinners!), but be prepared to eat lots of eggs. Just accept it. You'll be much happier if you do.

We spent hours on Pinterest (check out our Whole30 Board HERE) and Instagram searching for recipes, ingredient swaps, and the like which paid off in spades. We decided to stick with an easy boiled eggs and fruit breakfast during the week, leftovers and salads for lunches, and got a little fancy on dinners- saving the weekends for experimenting. This execution strategy gave us the right amount of consistency and uniqueness that we needed to be successful, and it's one that would be easy to replicate.

Observations

Here's where we're going to get real. We truly believe that you can do just about anything for 30 days, and that includes sticking to a 100% compliant Whole30 diet. But that doesn't mean it isn't hard or that you won't want to quit X number of days in.

• On day 4, Rachel almost licked bread. Yes, seriously.

• During week 3, we finally resigned ourselves to the fact that we do NOT like sweet potatoes and cannot cook them correctly- no matter how hard we try.

• All the planning in the word still can't keep you from dropping an extra $300 at Costo on groceries... luckily they were all nonperishable so we're still able to use them now in our recipes post-Whole30.

• Finding compliant sausage and bacon is like finding the Holy Grail.

• At first, we absolutely hated La Croix... but after not having anything fizzy, it tasted pretty awesome, though it still came with an acquired (muted) taste.

• Day 15, Ryan drank a beer and didn't start over because NO.

• Eating out is difficult, though not impossible. Plan ahead of time, and just accept that you'll be the annoying customer asking lots of questions and for lots of substitutions.

• Don't be afraid of canned meat- especially chicken. Just read the label to make sure it's #Whole30Approved!

• Aldi saved our lives and our bank account.

• Getting hangry is a real thing. Pack snacks, because you're going to be hungry like ALL. THE. TIME. and your coworkers will not appreciate your grumblings and poor attitude.

And a bonus observation, which is also part of...

Rule 3: Have a Whole30 companion or a cheerleader

• It is totally doable to complete Whole30 by yourself, but it is so much easier if you have a buddy or at least a positive support system that's willing to cheer you on even if it's from the sidelines. For example, Rachel's work friends did the challenge at the same time as we did, which kept her lunchtime temptations at a low. We also had mountains of friends doing the challenge, but lived elsewhere. Their posts about it on social media, though, kept us engaged and accountable. Not feeling alone in this was key.

When it was all said and done, we lost a combined 47 POUNDS.

Here's our before (left) and after (right) comparison picture. The difference in our faces, right?!

Ecstatic hardly describes how we felt when we were finally able to get on the scale, and it solidified that we were right not to break the rules and weigh during the challenge. This seemed like a silly rule first, but seeing the full result (instead of the incremental change over the 30 days) was well worth the wait.

Confession: we both gained a little weight back as we transitioned to a normalized healthy diet. The Whole30 is a challenge (and not a long-term diet) for a reason. It helps you figure out how your body feels with and without certain foods, and it's up to the individual to make the necessary changes for the long haul.

In order to keep us on track, we're committing to doing the Whole30 Challenge once every quarter this year. That means we'll be starting Round Two in April, Round Three in July, and Round Four in October. We're hopeful that even as we occasionally stray from good habits, which is natural and nearly unavoidable, we'll have a plan to get back to the good stuff in a meaningful way.

This won't be our only post on Whole30, but that's it for the general overview of Round One. We're excited to share more details with you all as we go along, but until next time...

Always,

Ryan & Rachel

PS: this is NOT a sponsored post- we just really like Whole30 and find it incredibly valuable to our personal wellness journey.