Surviving Whole30—A Personal Odyssey

By SARAH SHMERLING | Managing Editor

Before I dive into my experience with Whole30, let me start by saying I am not a fan of restricted “diets.” I have always believed that a healthy lifestyle can be achieved through moderation and that weight loss (usually) happens with a caloric deficit.

That being said, I had a few friends share about the success they had during their Whole30 journey, and when one friend hosted a Whole30-only dinner party, my fiancé and I were convinced we could do it.

Whole30 was designed by food guru Melissa Hartwig. Reading through the program’s website, it promises several times that Whole30 will change your life. “It will change the way you think about food. It will change your tastes. It will change your habits and your cravings.”

The basic concept is that you cut out certain food groups that could be having a negative impact on your health and fitness without you even realizing it. Things that could cause inconsistent energy levels, unexplained aches and pains, conditions like skin issues, digestive ailments, and seasonal allergies.

So we set out, Costco card in hand, to get dairy-, grain-, added sugar-, alcohol-, sulfite- and legume-free supplies.

Sound overwhelming? It is, but it’s also not. Some of the things that made it into our cart week after week were chicken, steak, ground beef, eggs, potatoes, assorted vegetables and fruits, and bacon (yes, uncured bacon, found at Costco, is approved).

We picked April, a month where we had relatively few food-centric commitments. No birthday parties, no overnight trips and no celebrations on the agenda. This worked well for us because if you break Whole30 one day, you’re encouraged to start over.

We did, however, start on April 2 because it was a Monday and also because April 1 was Easter.

Tips for a Successful Whole30

Meal prepping is everything. Each Sunday, we would do our shopping and come home and cook. We always had a Tupperware full of at least two approved proteins, most often chicken and ground beef, in the fridge to throw on top of a base, which usually was lettuce or cauliflower rice.

The few times I ventured out with friends, I did so with three or four snacks in my purse. Without going back into a restaurant’s kitchen and reading every single ingredient, it’s very, very challenging to make sure the meal you are about to consume is compliant. (Seasoned salt? Not approved, sugar. Regular salt? Approved.)

Besides Chipotle on a few occasions, we did not eat out. (You can have Chipotle, if you order a carnitas salad, with no rice, no beans … pretty much no to everything except the tomato-based salsas and guacamole.)

When you’re grocery shopping, there are a surprising number of foods that you think you can have, but in reality you can’t. Bare Simply Toasted Coconut Chips? Nope. Cane sugar.

To make it easier, there’s an app we downloaded that scans barcodes and has a pretty comprehensive list of ingredients to search through: 30 Whole Days.

A couple of Whole30-saving, portable snacks are protein-packed RXBARs, two- to five-ingredient LÄRABARs and homemade beef jerky, made in a dehydrator.

Results

Was it worth it? For me, yes.

I lost some weight over the course of the 30 days (and, three weeks later, have kept it off, even after reintroducing certain foods), but even more importantly, it changed my relationship with food in a way that I was not expecting. By the end of April, I had zero cravings. That alone was enough to make it worth it for me.

I originally set out to do this as a challenge, not really knowing what results I would see.

I knew I could do it—for two years, I’ve been tracking calories on an app on my phone. But if my dairy-loving fiancé can do it, anyone can.

(Though the Whole30 website recommends speaking with a doctor before starting this or any diet.)