Whole 30… Well, Technically Whole 28
When I was asked to take part in a Whole 30 challenge, I said “Sure, why not”. I’d never done any sort of challenge like this before and thought it could be a neat way to get in tune with my body in a different way. Challenge Accepted.
For those who aren’t familiar with Whole 30, it’s essentially a 30 day period of time where you cut grains (almost all carbs), dairy, alcohol, and artificial sugars out of your diet completely. Sounds daunting, right? You might be thinking… what did you eat?
Surprisingly, it wasn’t as hard as I thought to still eat delicious food without having carbs or dairy or added sugar in my diet. For the most part I ate what I would normally eat for breakfast and lunch, but for supper instead of having rice or pasta, I just ate a lot more meat and vegetables. I looked up recipes on Pinterest to get meal inspo (as I always do) and adapted the recipes according to my liking, adding different vegetables and meat as I saw fit.
Sample Meals
A typical day of meals for Whole30 looked something like this:
Breakfast : A smoothie made of almond milk, banana, natural peanut butter, frozen berries, chia seeds and spinach, as well as what I call egg muffin cups (they probably have a more correct name) consisting of spinach, mushroom, sausage, green onion, and egg baked in muffin tins.
Lunch : Salad with chicken (lettuce, tomato, green or red onion, cucumber, seasoned chicken breast) with carrots and some fruit.
Supper : Meat + Veggies of some form For example: kebabs, roast and veggies, potato casserole
Snacks : Dates, cashews, almonds, fruit, and veggies. I also broke one of the “rules” of the “official” Whole 30 program by making muffins using coconut flour for snacks. This rule that said not to make regular snacks with Whole 30 compliant ingredients just didn’t resonate with my goals in the challenge, because I know that I’m a snack person and need these types of snacks to help keep me full at different points of the day.
Challenges
One of the biggest challenges for me personally was cutting out dessert after supper. I definitely have a sweet tooth and often make cookies or have chocolate in the house to satisfy that after supper sugar craving. It was challenging the first couple days to replace that craving with fruits like raspberries or pineapple, but after a while I got pretty used to it.
Another challenge was meal planning in terms of portion sizes. I normally am really good about knowing exactly how much I’ll want of a meal, and how much will go into the fridge for leftovers, but I was blown away by how much I was eating when I didn’t have rice or pasta to fill me up. Meals that normally I would have stretched out across multiple days were only lasting me one day, and I had to readjust my grocery purchasing and meal planning accordingly.
Top Recipes
As I mentioned above, my breakfasts and lunches didn’t change too much, but I definitely tried some really great recipes at supper time that I will definitely continue to make going forward.
Egg Roll in a B
owl
This recipe I actually made quite often before doing this challenge, and I continue to love it. It’s such a quick and easy recipe, and it is delicious.
Check out the recipe I use HERE.
Potato Casserole
This recipe was brand new to me and I will definitely continue to make it. I found the flavour and creaminess of the coconut milk to resemble that of alfredo sauce, but without having to use butter and milk. It was also super filling and made 4 large portion sizes, which was ideal for leftovers.
Find the recipe I used HERE.
Burger Bowl
Although this doesn’t quite match up to having a real burger, it was pretty great! I made this recipe twice in the 28 days, and it really satisfied that “Friday night burger craving”. I never included the avocado that the recipe calls for, but the bacon was a really nice touch, and the sauce of mixing mayo with ketchup was excellent.
Recipe HERE.
Loaded Sweet Potatoes
This one is a fun recipe because it’s kind of a “whatever you have left on hand at the end of a work week” type of recipe. I made this on a Friday night and did just that. Instead of bacon, I had leftover cooked ground beef, so I added that on top of the sweet potato base, made guacamole, added green onion, and of course the best part - a sunny side up egg overtop so that when you break the yolk open, it adds more flavour and sauce to coat the whole meal.
My creation was based on this Recipe.
Spaghetti Squash Casserole
This one actually blew my mind. Similar to the potato casserole, the coconut milk has a really nice touch here. I definitely didn’t follow the recipe exactly in terms of which veggies to include, I just used whatever I had on hand or whatever was cooked and leftover from the previous day, but wow was this good. If you haven’t tried spaghetti squash or are trying to think of new things to do with spaghetti squash, I highly recommend this recipe.
Get the recipe HERE.
Findings
The Whole 30 experience (technically Whole 28… my birthday was day 29 and I really wanted Italian food. I’m only human) was actually pretty eye opening and interesting to me. Here were some of my findings from the 28 day challenge:
No bloating after meals. You know the feeling, when you’ve eaten a big supper and afterwards you feel kind of lethargic and unmotivated. That went away since I didn’t have heavy carbs weighing me down. That bloated feeling completely subsided and overall I felt a bit more trim and toned around the mid-section.
My resting heart rate went down. I’m not sure if this is a normal side effect of the program, but my resting heart rate (according to my fitbit) was consistently sitting at around 59-60 BPM before doing Whole 30 but during the challenge, my average resting heart rate sat between 53 and 55 BPM.
At first eating a whole foods only diet seemed like it was going to be super expensive, but at the end of the month tallying up all of the grocery bills it ended up matching my typical grocery + restaurant spend in a typical month. The difference of it was really that all of my “food” money was going into these groceries, and I didn’t eat at any restaurants for the 28 days. What made it seem so expensive was I was eating so much more meat than I would normally cook.
Reflections
I’m really glad I did the challenge. Why? Because I learned something and I proved something to myself. I set my mind to a challenge and wanted to let my body experience the change, and I did. So I’m proud of that. The first few days were quite hard, I felt really hungry and was wondering how I was going to manage getting through 4 whole weeks, but slowly my body adjusted, and I got better at making sure to have lots of snacks on hand to help me stay full.
My biggest takeaway is that I’m going to incorporate some of these meals and practices into my everyday life, but not quite as strictly as the Whole 30 challenge. I’m going to try and reduce the amount of rice, pasta, and bread I eat with supper because I liked how my body felt. This doesn’t mean I’ll never have them, though. In fact, for my birthday I had a big Italian meal of pasta and pizza, and I loved every minute of it. But the key moving forward for me is going to be balance. Some days I’ll have a big piece of cake after supper, other days I’ll have an apple. And that’s ok. In fact, it’s great!
I’m so glad to have challenged myself and broadened my horizons to try new foods and recipes and appreciate the power of whole foods, but I’m also looking forward to having more flexibility with food choices moving forwards. My ultimate goal has always been to live a healthy lifestyle and make choices that benefit me in the long run, while maintaining the freedom and flexibility of choosing to eat what I want. And some days that’s gonna mean eating the big piece of cake. And enjoying every bite. ;)
