ICYMI: Editor Jennifer Tormo and staff writer Kaci Yoder are on the Whole30 program. That means 30 days without grains, sugars, soy, dairy or alcohol. We’ve been blogging about our experience as we go. Catch up on parts one, two, three and four.
Whole30 real talk: We’re a little beat up. We’re tired of getting the evil eye from waiters who are annoyed by our interrogative menu questions. We’re tired of watching our friends, family and coworkers eat pizza in front of us. We’re tired of doing all the food-related photoshoots our jobs require.
And we are so, so tired of cleaning dishes.
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But despite our exhaustion, we’ve learned some important lessons. Today is day 29 for Kaci. (It could’ve been for Jenn, too, but she had to start over and is now on day 13). As this wraps up one month of our Whole30 attempt, this will be our last Whole30 post for now. Here’s what we’ve learned:
Jenn Tormo, editor:
1. You can make your favorite meals healthy with a few substitutions. Yes, really. I could straight-up live on grilled cheese—that’s how much I love anything made with dough and cheese. So, I thought there was no way I could enjoy Mexican food without queso, a burger without the bread or a taco without the tortilla. Whole30, you proved me wrong. So far the best restaurant meal I’ve had was a steak arepa with chimichurri and a side of housemade plantain chips—without the corn flour or the melted cheese and aioli it normally comes drenched in. The meal was still 100% just as good as every other time I’ve had it. Bonus: I didn’t immediately lapse into a food coma after eating it like I normally would. (Grilled cheese, though … I’ll see you next month.)
2. Forget Whole30 for a minute—weekly meal planning is key to healthy eating, period. In every other part of my life, I know: Always have a plan. So, I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to figure out the importance of this when it comes to having a balanced diet. I’ve been pretty good about having all my meals planned out at least three days in advance since I started the program. This past Sunday night, though, I found myself hungry (like, the need-to-eat-right-now kind of hungry) and with no ingredients left in the fridge. I didn’t have a plan, and as I started frantically looking through recipes and making a haphazard grocery list, I started to question everything: why I was on Whole30 in the first place, would it really be so bad if I gave up, and who needs almond flour anyway. If I hadn’t been on Whole30, I definitely would’ve gone out and picked up something horrible to eat that night. Always. Have. A. Plan. Also, it’s true what they say about breakfast being the most important meal of the day. Anytime I skipped it or tried to shortcut it by eating a Lara Bar, I wound up hungry and miserable the rest of the day, no matter what else I ate.
3. Shop local produce. I hadn’t been to Fresh Pickin’s Market before Whole30, but now I’m obsessed. The fruits and veggies taste better, are fresher and are much cheaper than my chain-grocery-store shopping. Hit them up or go to the Red Stick Farmers Market on weekends to stock up on ingredients for the week.
4. But for everything else: There’s Trader Joe’s. A lot of bloggers on the program swear by some TJ’s, and I’ve been converted over the past few weeks. As you quickly burn out from endless cooking and dishes, TJ’s pre-packaged healthy foods just makes life easier. The store stocks several must-haves such as riced cauliflower, pre-chopped veggies and several compliant sauces and meats.
5. You can do anything if you set your mind to it. I was going to end on ranting about how stressful it is to dine out while on a restrictive diet, but it’s probably better to end on a cheesy, positive note instead. I am far from the finish line of Whole30, but I have no doubt that I am going to make it there. Last week, I had doughnut frosting all over my fingers as I arranged and rearranged doughnuts for a 225 shoot. I was getting hit with all the scents: chocolate, peanut butter, caramel, raspberry, cookie dough. I was by myself with my camera in a room full of my absolute favorite doughnuts, and it would have been so easy to cheat. I could’ve had just one little bite, and no one would’ve known any better. That’s why I am so proud to say I didn’t eat a single crumb. I washed the frosting off my fingertips and carried the box over to my coworkers, who quickly devoured them. If I can make it through that? I can make it through anything.
Kaci Yoder, staff writer:
6. It’s easier than you think to change your perspective on eating. Look, I’m a baker. I believe in all things sugary, carb-loaded, frosted and chocolate-chipped. I’ve never believed in “healthy” desserts. My usual eating philosophy is: If I’m gonna eat it, I’m gonna eat the real thing. This means I always felt like I was depriving myself if I opted for the bowl over the burrito at Chipotle or a salad over a burger at, well, anywhere. But after a few weeks on Whole30, I had totally reset my view of what was a treat. I got stoked to pick up a big bag of trail mix to snack on, and the best meal I had by far was Mestizo’s Delgado tacos on lettuce instead of tortillas. My threshold for sweet had gotten so low that I got freaked out by how sugary a Craisin was and had to double check the ingredients on the package. My palate got so used to really tasting and savoring the ingredients in my food that when I had a friend over, she had to add seasoning to my guacamole, which has never happened before in my life. I’m exiting Whole30 hoping not to blow this balance I’ve struck—though I still believe in cake.
7. You don’t need grains that badly. This sort of ties into my first lesson: I haven’t missed grains that much over the past 28 days. Don’t get me wrong, there were days I would have killed for a pizza or a burrito, but when I actually sat down to eat the meals I had planned, I found that I didn’t miss the grains as long as the rest of the meal was tasty enough. And I definitely didn’t miss the bloat and fuzzy-headedness that usually come with grains for me. Even if you don’t do Whole30, I’d recommend going grain-free for a month. I’m not even planning on reintroducing grain into my diet more than once a week after Whole30.
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8. Stick to the rules, but bend them a little. Nobody’s perfect, guys, and I definitely bent the rules of the Whole30 program a few times. Whole30 purists will hate me for this, but I made pancakes with bananas and eggs, drank spinach smoothies and ate Lara Bars for breakfast. I stuck to the ingredient restrictions, but I also didn’t beat myself if I prepared things in a way that’s not strictly approved by Whole30. For any lifestyle shift to be sustainable, you have to find the sweet spot of what is feasible for your lifestyle and be honest about what you can manage without burning out. I say if you’re crunched for time and it’s between a veggie-packed smoothie and going completely off plan at McDonald’s, cut yourself some slack.
9. You probably don’t even realize how much you snack. It wasn’t until I started avoiding any foods that I wasn’t 100% were compliant that I realized how often I mindlessly throw things in my mouth throughout a day. Grabbing a bite of whatever cake or candy bowl is in the office kitchen? Those tempting little chocolate bars at the cash register? Endless tortilla chips at a Mexican restaurant? I had to stop myself from reaching for them automatically more times than I’d care to admit. I realized I had subconsciously convinced myself that if it was something quick that I didn’t give much thought to, somehow the food wouldn’t have any effect on my body. Obviously, that’s not how it works. I’ve learned a lot about mindfulness over this journey, and I’m hoping I can carry that into my non-Whole30 life.
10. When you stop orienting your entire life around food cravings, you’ll be amazed how much more time and energy you have. It’s hard down in Louisiana where our social lives revolve around food and drink, but moving your eating out of the “treat yo self” category of your brain into the “necessary to survive” category of your brain frees up more of your life than you might expect. I got up earlier, did more non-eating activities on the weekends, felt better about what I was doing for my body, found new shows to watch with my friends rather than going to a bar as usual, and spent the money I would have used on takeout and dinners in restaurants on upgrading my bedroom decor. I will always love food, and it will always be a huge part of my life, but I was a total slave to my cravings before.