It Starts With Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways (31 page)

Even if you haven’t achieved all the results you’d hoped to by the twenty-ninth day, hang on: you cannot reasonably expect to completely reverse decades of poor eating habits in just thirty days. At some point, we promise … the magic
will
happen. In the meantime, be patient, don’t ease up on your hard-won discipline, and focus on all the things that
have
improved in your life since starting the Whole30—that should supply all the motivation you need to keep up the good work. But we’ll caution you now …

You don’t have to abandon your efforts just because you’ve done your thirty days. If after a month, your tastes have yet to change, if you’re still craving all your “old” foods, if you’re still a slave to the sugar dragon, or if you haven’t noticed a significant improvement in a particular factor that was important to you at the beginning of this program ... please consider sticking with the Whole30 for a little while longer. You’ve already put in thirty long, hard days of reconditioning your body and your brain. And we bet that if you’re feeling a little frustrated right now, it’s because you’re trying to counteract the effects of twenty or thirty
years
of less-than-stellar eating habits. That damage doesn’t miraculously come undone in a month.

So stick with it, for as long as it takes. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to your body. But let’s also address one really important point right here.

This is not
just
about your body. This is also about resetting your
brain
.

If there is one thing we’ve learned from our clients’ Whole30 experiences and our own, it’s this: Food is emotional. It’s comfort, it’s celebration, it’s punishment, and it’s reward. Food is often the
only
thing people come together over. It’s used to establish common ground, form a bond, smooth over rough personal interactions. And you cannot take that aspect out of this equation.

So if you’re still feeling the same way about food after your initial thirty days, if that relationship is
still
too dysfunctional to feel healthy ... hang in a little longer. Allow your body
and your mind
to catch up to this new way of eating, this new way of being. This thirty-day program is the kindest thing you’ve done for your body in a long time, and your brain simply may not know what to do with that. Be patient, embrace the intention and spirit of the program, and allow those new habits, patterns, relationships, and tastes to change right along with the changes you are seeing with your body.

Now ... for those of you who are thinking about taking on this life-changing challenge but aren’t sure you can actually pull it off, cheat-free, for a full thirty days, for those of you who really
want
to do this, but just need a little extra motivation—here comes the famous Whole30 tough love in a few talking points.

• It is
  not
  hard.
  Please don’t tell us this program is hard. Quitting heroin is hard. Beating cancer is hard. Birthing a baby is hard. Drinking your coffee black. Is. Not. Hard. You have no excuse not to complete the program as written. It’s only thirty days, and it’s for the most important health cause on earth—the only physical body you will ever have in this lifetime.
  
• Don’t even consider the possibility of a “slip.”
  Unless you physically trip and your face lands in a box of doughnuts, there is no such thing as a “slip.” You make a
  choice
  to eat something unhealthy. It is always a
  choice
  . So don’t talk as if you had an accident. Own it. Commit to the program 100 percent for the full thirty days. Don’t give yourself an excuse to fail before you have even started.
  
• You never, ever, ever
  have
  to eat anything you don’t want to eat.
  You’re all big boys and girls. Toughen up. Learn to say no (or make your mom proud and say, “No, thank you”). Learn to stick up for yourself. Just because it’s your sister’s birthday, or your best friend’s wedding, or your company picnic does not mean you
  have
  to eat
  anything
  . It’s
  always
  a choice, and we would hope that you stopped succumbing to peer pressure in seventh grade.
  
• You can do this.
  You’ve come too far to back out now. You want to do this. You
  need
  to do this. And we know that you
  can
  do this. So stop thinking, and start
  doing
  . Right now, this very minute, tell someone that you are starting the Whole30. Tell your spouse, tell your best friend, post it on our Facebook page, and prove to yourself that you are
  committed
  to your health.
  

There—that wasn’t so bad, was it?

And before you know it, you’ll be done with the first part of your program. Hooray! So go do your Whole30 (or Whole45, or Whole60 …), and then come back here when you’re ready for the next phase. (Or for all of you overachievers, keep on reading and get a sneak preview.)

“This program has shown results that I didn’t think were possible. I recognized that I had severe difficulties dealing with food cravings and knowing when to stop eating. Daily I asked myself, ‘How can I get these urges under control? Why do I feel like I need these bad foods?’ The Whole30 is the answer.
I haven’t felt the deep desire to binge since I’ve submerged myself into this program. I don’t feel like I have to struggle to make decisions when trying to decide what to eat. It’s as simple as knowing that what I have been eating is beneficial to me, and that is how I will continue to nourish myself.”

—Aubrey H., Manassas, Virginia

You’ve eliminated added sugars, alcohol, grains, legumes, and dairy from your diet for an entire month. But every once in a while, maybe you’d still like to drink a beer, have some ice cream, slather a piece of toast with peanut butter and jelly.

We are completely on board with that. (Does that surprise you? We’re healthy, not automatons.)

But let’s use the efforts you’ve made during your program as a springboard for approaching this intelligently. Yes, you’ll have to be patient here, too—don’t waste the last thirty (or more) days! You’ve spent valuable time cleaning out your system and allowing your body to heal. But if you run right out the day you’ve completed your program and binge on pancakes, pizza, ice cream, and beer, when you feel like junk that night (yes, you
will
feel like junk), how will you know what to blame for which symptoms? Was it the dairy that bloated your belly, or maybe the grains? Were you headachy because of the sugar, the booze, or both? And where did those pimples come from—the soy, the dairy, or the sugar? What a waste. You’ve spent so much time and effort … and missed a critical opportunity to learn from your experience
.

Here’s what we’d like you to do instead: introduce “less healthy” foods back into your diet
one group
at a time
, while keeping the rest of your diet as Whole30-clean as possible. Think about it like a scientific trial, in which your Whole30 is the “control” and the one food group you are trying to evaluate is the “experimental group.” Sure, you’ll get some added sugar in many of your “experimental” foods, but the key is not combining
food groups
in any one testing day.

Here is a sample ten-day reintroduction schedule. Feel free to alter the food groups and particular food choices to suit your needs.

Day 1: Evaluate dairy
,
while keeping the rest of your diet Whole30-compliant
. Have yogurt in the morning, some cheese in the afternoon, and ice cream after dinner. Evaluate how you feel that day, and the next day, and perhaps even the day after that. Stomach feel like you’re about to birth an alien? Suddenly feeling all congested and headachy? Skin break out in the next day or two? You may need to limit your dairy consumption to very small quantities or only certain items (yogurt, but not ice cream) during “off plan” meals, or you may decide that the aftereffects mean that all dairy is simply never worth it.

Day 4: Evaluate gluten-containing grains,
while keeping the rest of your diet Whole30-compliant
. Gluten is such nasty stuff that we want to break it out from the other grains, so you can evaluate it all by itself. Over the course of your day, eat a whole-wheat bagel, a side of pasta, and a dinner roll. See how you feel that day, and the next day, and so on. Evaluate your experience and decide how often and how much to incorporate gluten grains into your regular diet—if at all. (We recommend not at all.)

Day 7: Evaluate non-gluten grains,
while keeping the rest of your diet Whole30-compliant
. Eat a serving of white rice, some corn tortilla chips, and a slice of gluten-free bread. See how you feel that day, and the next day, and so on. Pay attention to your reactions and decide how, how often, and how much to incorporate grains into your regular diet—if at all.

Day 10: Evaluate legumes,
while keeping the rest of your diet Whole30-compliant.
Try some peanut butter, a bowl of lentil soup, some tofu, and a side of black beans. See how you feel that day, and the next day, and so on. Evaluate your experience and decide how, how often, and how much to incorporate legumes into your regular diet—if at all.

This invaluable information, and the self-awareness you gain as the result of your own hard work, is a big part of the Whole30 program, and a huge influence on how you eat going forward. In a very short period of time, you’ve learned how the foods that we’ve been saying make you less healthy actually affect
you
, personally. You’ve completed your scientific experiment, and now it’s time to take that knowledge with you, and create new, lifelong healthy eating habits.

We are not telling you where to draw your own individual “worth it” line. Maybe ice cream
really
makes your stomach hurt, but you
really
love ice cream, so you decide it’s worth it for you. That is entirely your call. But don’t you at least appreciate knowing what the repercussions of that ice cream will be, so you don’t indulge in a bowl before a tough workout or while out on a date? Draw your own line, and arrive at your own conclusions—and use your Whole30 experience to add some smart context to those decisions.

Easier said than done, you’re thinking?

That’s exactly why the next section is devoted to transitioning your Whole30 experience into sustainable, healthy habits. Because that’s what this is all about: it’s not about a short-term fix or a temporary solution, but about creating lifelong behaviors designed to always move you in the direction of “more healthy.”

Sounds too good to be true?

It’s not.

In fact, you’re already well on your way.