We are Whole30!
As for me, I still was struggling with my anxiety and depression and last fall I hit an ALL TIME LOW! It was awful and it scares me everyday that its a possibility I could go back there but I am refusing to. Or at least trying my absolute hardest to be the person I know I am and not the person who has no control over awful thoughts and emotions.
We NEEDED a change! We did some research and there was so much information pointing towards diet affecting and even causing anxiety and depression and diet also contributing to inflammation in joints etc. We came across the WHOLE30 and did some more research on it. It seemed like it could be the "miracle maker" so we picked a date and started it!
A quick recap if you don't know what the WHOLE30 is. Basically, its to press the reset button. Reset your hormones, your cravings and change your emotional relationship with food. You are not supposed to weigh yourself at all throughout it, it is NOT a diet for weightloss at all, you do not count calories and there is no limit to how much you can eat.
Basically you don't eat ANY sugar (minus the sugar in fruit) at all. No sugar substitutes at all either. No honey... even the good for you kind! No beans, corn or peas, no dairy whatsoever, no gluten whatsoever or any other form of grains at all. You also aren't suppose to make any kind of "healthy" substitutes... like no banana egg pancakes or fries (even if you home make the fries in healthy oil etc). Also, no peanuts (this wasn't hard for us given Carter's sever peanut allergy) because apparently our bodies have a SUPER hard time digesting the protein that is in peanuts but other nuts ok to have you just have to watch out with what kind of oil they are prepared in.
So basically we lived on meat, eggs, nuts, fruits and veggies.
Day 1 was HORRIBLE for me! There is literally Sugar in nearly everything!! Like Everything! Its crazy, and I didn't have any "go-to" food yet so it was a struggle. But after Day 1 was good! the first week and a half was great actually.. kind of like in the "HoneyMoon" phase of the whole thing. We felt great! Our energy levels were up, we were sleeping better at night, we weren't as crabby.. it was good.
BUT!
Day 10... the breaks slammed hard and it was THE WORST day of the entire thing! My body was going through MAJOR withdrawals and ALL I wanted was sweets! sticking to it at this point was hard but we did and we pushed though the next week that was also really hard. It got hard to find new things to eat .. you can seriously only eat so much fruit, and veggies... because remember, unless you make your own vinegaretts, your veggies are completely plain.
Week 3 was hard too. The Kids and I got really sick. Fevers, chills, I got pneumonia, bentley now has bronchitis... what a disaster!
The last week though.. was the hardest! We loved it, but we were getting tired. The kids didn't completely do it with us. They ate WAY more fruit and veggies and healthy snacks and they ate our meals for the most part BUT they still had their goldfish crackers and sweets here and there. The worst part was that I was SO TIRED of making dinner EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Yes, I make dinner every night normally but sometimes we have soup and grilled cheese or pancakes on days that you're just super busy or tired.. but this Whole30 doesn't really let you do that.. so its an extravagant meal nearly every night which is really hard with 3 kids sometimes.
In fact, Brian wrote in our log that on Day 28 I said "I want to cry today" lol And I think I did.
Once we finished day 30, it was time for the reintroduction part! So on day 31 we introduced beans. I made a (safe) chilli and added A TON of beans. We had beans for lunch too just to make sure we were having a TON to make any changes noticible to us.
After having bean on day 31, you are supposed to go back completely to the WHOLE30 diet again for the following two days and try to notice if anything is affecting your body, mood, energy levels etc.
Beans didn't seem to affect us at all so on Day 34 we reintroduced non-gluten grains like White Rice and oatmeal. We tried to be conscience again for the following two days and were happy our bodies didn't seem to be bothered at all by the non-gluten grains.
On day 37 we reintroduced dairy. I was shocked to notice that plain yogurt (which I typically don't like) was yummy and SUPER sweet and Cheese was WAY too rich for me! Weird!
Dairy had an interesting affect on us for sure though! the following two days, Brian totally noticed the pain in his joints were worse and I was SO SO TIRED! I literately fell asleep the next night at 8:30pm DURING a conversation with Brian.. I was out like a light and the following day was no different. My energy levels that I had the entire 30 days were gone!
On Day 40 we introduced Gluten. (This day was my 29th birthday and I was so HAPPY to have a a bowl of gluten cereal for dinner with raw almond milk of course!) I had no reaction but Brian's was similar to dairy, he noticed his joints gluten as well.
Now, the Whole30 doesn't technically reintroduce sugar BUT we really felt like a large amount of sugar could be my problem with anxiety/depression and Brian is constantly getting sugar headaches (he was completely headache free for the entire 30 days with no sugar!) so on day 42 we introduced a large amount of refined sugar. I only had half a chocolate bar and two small packs of my kids organic fruit snacks and Brian has one and a half chocolate bars and a fruit snack and low and behold.. he had a headache almost instantly and I felt SO SICK to my stomach but it didn't trigger any anxiety/depression.
During the WHOLE 30, I did not have even one episode of anxiety/depression. WAIT - I was taking my vitamins the first week and then tried to stop and started to feel the anxiety and depression so I quickly got back on them and tried again to stop them in week 2 (so I would know for sure if it was helping) and I was able to stop them AND still have had no episodes! This is unheard of for me right now and I am so happy about it!!! I am praying so much that it was just my insane hormones completely out of place after having these three beautiful babies and maybe the WHOLE30 really did reset them for me! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!! This is amazing!!
During the WHOLE30 for Brian, he never once had a headache (until he reintroduced sugar) and his joint pain and inflammation was way better than before it! He started playing Basketball once a week and never once had even one flare up during the whole30.
I would call that a Success!! We are now back to a regular diet BUT we are being really conscience of how much sugar is in everything, how to avoid it as much as possible and we are being conscience of our dairy and gluten intake too! This has really helped up and despite is really being hard, it was worth it.
Ive learned SO many new recipes that we love and will continue to make forever and a handful of snacks that I never would have thought to try before.
I love that Brian was so strong and has so much willpower because on days that were hard for me, he would just tell me its ok and we would push through it!So, there you have it! We are Whole30!
