I’ve been really apprehensive about sharing this (mostly out of fear of failure) but it’s been a big part of the last few weeks of my life so I decided it’s time to tell you about it!

There is no shortage of information available on the Whole30 and it’s something I’ve been interested in trying for a long time, but I never got serious about it until this past Summer. Without going into too much detail, I’ve had a lot of digestive troubles for years now and I’m really hoping the Whole30 can get me on track, either by giving my system a break so it can heal or by helping to uncover a previously undiagnosed food sensitivity.

In short, these foods are in:

Meat

Eggs

Fruit

Vegetables

Nuts and Seeds

Healthy Fats 

And these foods are out:

Dairy

Gluten

Grains

Sugar

Legumes

Alcohol

We eat this way for 30 days and then a reintroduction phase adds back in each eliminated food group to test for sensitivities.

We picked our start date and I’ve been researching, planning and convincing Tom to try zucchini since then. I can’t stress this enough: DO YOUR RESEARCH. There is so much to learn when eating this way. I read It Starts With Food and started reading the labels on absolutely everything, to see what I would need to find alternatives for. I started working Whole30 approved meals into our current rotation and testing out some new to us ingredients as well.

I knew preparation would be the single most important thing we could do before embarking on our Whole30 and I spent over a month before we started examining our lifestyle to search for pitfalls and things we could work on in order to be successful. Luckily I already meal plan each week and cook the majority of our meals so I knew it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to do it even more. We travel a lot and that is absolutely when our eating suffers the most. I knew that I would have to plan out every meal and snack, even the majority when we would be travelling to avoid being stuck without healthy options and forcing us off the wagon.

The night before we started I cooked several chicken breasts in the crock pot with salt, pepper, garlic powder and smoked paprika. After it was cooked and cooled, I shredded it so we would have an easy protein source at all times. Tom doesn’t love eggs and I knew that he would never eat them for breakfast every single day. I decided that although smoothies are discouraged on Whole30, avoiding burnout was probably more important. I decided we would alternate between eggs and a green smoothie for breakfast, so long as I included a lot of vegetables and less fruit into the smoothie. I saw this method recently where you make a huge batch and freeze them in single serving containers, putting them in the fridge to thaw the night before you want to drink them and I knew that would be an easy grab and go for us on week day mornings. I made a frittata, cut it into slices and put it into individual containers and also made and froze six smoothies. I also put together trail mix and made ranch dressing.

Another thing we had to take into account was Tom’s tree nut allergy. He has been tested for peanuts and is not sensitive so he is allowed peanuts and natural peanut butter on his plan as well as seeds. I will still be avoiding peanuts and peanut butter (can you hear me sobbing hysterically?).

So far I’ve been keeping track of our meals each day and plan to do recaps as we delve further into the program.

Wish us luck!