The Whole 30

“Fitness is 20% exercise and 80% nutrition. You can’t outrun your fork.”

Live without dairy, carbohydrates & not even a drop of sugar (of any kind) sounds like fun (said no one ever)! Learn all about how we survived for 30 days on nothing but fruits, veggies & protein.

Have you heard about The Whole 30? If not, don’t feel bad, I hadn’t either until a friend of mine wrote about it on her blog. It is basically a food plan for 30 days to eat nothing but fruits, veggies and protein. No dairy, no bread or grains, no beans or lentils, no sugar (except for the natural sugar in fruit). Normally I would be running in the other direction from a challenge this big, but I really felt like the hubby and I had been eating pretty crummy and needed something to really jump start our bodies. So after indulging in the biggest chocolate cake you can buy at Costco we began our journey…

I am not going to show any “before” and “after” pictures, because for us it was more about how we felt (plus I also believe comparison is the thief of joy) . I will tell you that the hubby lost over 10 pounds and I lost about 3 pounds (I was kinda small to begin with and was doing it to feel better about myself, especially in a bathing suit). Our results were not just the weight, we also felt less pudgy (if that is even a word), became more aware & mindful of everything that we were putting in our mouths (like realizing we were eating way to many leftovers of the kids food) and became more knowledgable about ourselves and the food we eat (like why am I really eating these chips, they may taste good but have absolutely zero nutrition in them).

If you are interested in jump starting a diet or even just want to eat more clean, then I would highly suggest trying The Whole 30. This is not for you if you: 1) feel like you would die without the items mentioned above (you are not going to die, but I understand the thought) 2) have no will power what so ever (you are stronger than you think) 3) can not plan a meal schedule at least a day in advance (this is a lazy excuse, but I can understand this one the most).

I found some great resources online of people that had recipes and even grocery lists for The Whole 30 program. My suggestion is to go to the store with a list for the week and get everything you will need. Some people like to cook for the entire week at once, but that was not manageable for us, so we made sure to have all the ingredients we needed and then prepped the night before for the next day.

Here is a great grocery list for those with Trader Joes

Here are a few websites that really came in handy…

Whole Spirit

Jay’s Baking Me Crazy

The Nourishing Home

Here are some of our favorite meals (if I found the recipe online I linked it for you)…

An easy chicken salad (either keep a rotisserie chicken handy or get the pre-sliced chicken strips to toss on any salad), add lots of fresh fruit and a simple strawberry vinaigrette.

This was our simple take on taco’s (without the shells, or cheese). We used the lettuce as our shells, seasoned some lean ground turkey and I sauted some carrots and zucchini for some extra crunch. Then topped with avocado and tomato.

Breakfast was a challenge because I love carbs in the morning. So we found an interesting recipe that made hot “oat-less oatmeal” out of nuts, coconut and bananas. You definitely need a food processor for this one! But it made a pretty big batch and we were able to re-heat for a few mornings (which was a nice break from eggs).

Since we are on the topic of breakfast, many of you need easy, on-the-go options, so this one was great! I was able to bake these egg muffins the night before and just nuke it in the micro for a couple seconds, added some fruit and I was set. You can pretty much add any kind of meat or veggies to the egg then bake.

For a variation at dinner, we added a “broccoli rice” and I loved it!! Again, you do need a food processor, we got this little one at Williams and Sonoma. But once you get the broccoli chopped up, it doesn’t take much to cook, and it was still good the next day. We paired it with mashed sweet potatoes and some lean meats.

I found a recipe for chicken strips and homemade ketchup and I was digging it. Obviously, it is going to taste different because the ketchup was sweetened with dates, but since it was toward the end of our 30 days I thought it tasted pretty good!!

Now that our 30 days on The Whole 30 are over I will admit that we have splurged on a few things here and there (we really missed In-N-Out). But for the most part, I feel like we are trying to avoid more obvious sugars, skipping out on lots of bread and even trying to keep our dinners (mostly) Whole 30 approved. I now actually crave apples and almond butter, Lara bars and sweet potatoes instead of rice! I truly believe everything in moderation, including moderation (because sometimes you just gotta have a couple cookies).

If you are interested in more of our Whole 30 journey or want more of our meals, let me know! I could do an entire post just on all our meal plans, but I’d like to hear from you!:) So leave me a comment below!

And one last funny moment, when shopping in Costco and you become starving, just grab a rotisserie chicken and dig in the moment you get to the car, you will harness your inner cave woman! haha!