Tuesday, November 18, 2014

The Final Countdown!

Day 30.
DAY 30?!?!? I made it? The end is nigh?
The last 30 days (OK, 29 ½-ish at time of writing) are behind me. And I did it. I survived the Whole30®. Admittedly, I wasn’t a complete purist (nor am I made of money!; my bacon had sugar in it and my eggs were not pasture raised, except for the dozen a co-worker of Fella’s gifted to us for our anniversary—I need chickens!)
A feat in and of itself: I haven’t had chocolate in 30 days. CHOCOLATE! 30 DAYS! AND ONE OF THOSE WAS HALLOWEEN!!!
Alright, alright. You get it.
So after the question “what do you miss the most?” people are also very curious to know: “are you going to stick with it after you’re done?”
Maybe these people are just serial dieters. I’m a little bit of a serial dieter. I finally broke it off (for good!) with Weight Watchers® a couple of years ago. I purged YEARS of program materials into the recycling bin as recently as a couple of months ago. Seriously. I had stuff dating back to high school (not as far back as to my first foray into WW…in the 8th grade, but that’s for another post entirely). So to them, this is just another “diet” to go on, get results, and revert back to “normal” rather than a dietary lifestyle.
So…what is next? More of the same (or at least similar)! Eating Paleo makes my body happy and I know this from previous experience. I will probably allow myself to incorporate some dairy and certain generally accepted sweeteners (although unsweetened applesauce and bananas worked wonders where recipes called for honey throughout the challenge).
What I really ought to focus on is my relationship with food. When things are good, I shouldn’t reward myself with crappy food (tomorrow notwithstanding). Nor should I soothe myself with it when things are not so good.
What has been the best part of the Whole30? Nobody but me has asked, but it’s that I feel like I’m cooking again. Like, really cooking. Not just throwing together a bunch of premade things together and calling it cooking. Troubleshooting when a recipe includes an ingredient that is verboten (I’m looking at you Worcestershire sauce!) Creative cooking. It’s great.
Will I do another Whole30? Im not sure. Right now, I simply want to navigate through the holidays and do the least harm to the 30 days of progress Ive made.

3 comments:

  1. Just dropping over from Nablopomo to say YAY you! You're a champion and you definitely deserve a reward... or at the very least a cyber-high-5 from a total stranger.
    Wendy of The Rock.

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  2. Congrats you made it! I remember seeing you after I got my first Almond Milk Latte post-whole 30. Hope you treated yourself yesterday and are having eggs and veggies again for breakfast this morning.

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  3. Dropping by from NaBloPoMo. I heartily agree with your insight about relationship to food. It was such a PING! moment for me. Yes. I need to stop rewarding my efforts with crap food tomorrow! And go you, for sticking out for 30 days. :-)

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