My Crafty Life: Whole30

In case you haven't noticed, I have not blogged any of Mommom's recipes during the month of November. Why? Because Matt and I were on a detox/diet/cleanse called Whole30. Most (if not all) of Mommom's recipes are not Whole30 compliant, so I needed to take a hiatus. I'm going to use this post to give you an insight into our journey.

Who? It was my idea, but Matt was along for the journey and I honestly could not have done it without him doing it too.

What? Whole30.

Where? Definitely easier to stick to it and eat a decent amount of good food if we just stayed home (which we did most of the time, favorite recipes at bottom), but we chose to continue to live our lives also.

Disney - I knew this was going to be hard because my go-to meal there is chicken nuggets or a cheese burger. Both of those were out. At Hollywood Studios there's a "quick service" restaurant called ABC Commissary. They have the option of green beans as a side, so I was able to order a bun-less, cheese-less cheeseburger with green beans without too many odd looks thrown my way. At the beginning of November, my parents were camping at Fort Wilderness Campground and one of the places we eat when we stay there is Trial's End breakfast buffet. When we got there I asked the waitress about the scrambled eggs in case milk or butter was added to it. She didn't know, but brought out one of the chefs that answered all my questions and even made Matt and I special eggs that we could eat! It was an awesome experience!
Bridal Shower - One of my friend's bridal shower was in the middle of this quest and I was a little worried about sticking out or appearing rude for not eating the food. I didn't have anything to worry about. They offered plenty of fruit, veggies, and ice water. My plate and cup were full. I think my biggest fear was people accusing me of being pregnant because of my lack of wine. I don't think anyone noticed at all.
Work: Work wasn't very hard for me. A couple of times someone offered me chips or cookies and I would just decline not wanting to get into why I didn't want any. I mostly just packed my lunch. We also packed Matt's lunch, but since he works 24 hour shifts he had more meals to eat there. They eat dinner as a "family" and therefore he's not always in control of what's for dinner. He told enough people about what he was doing, so he maybe only had a few meals where the protein was all he could partake of.
Restaurants: We ate a couple restaurants while on this. It wasn't always easy, but we made it work.

Chipotle - I had read on many blogs that Chipotle was a good place to eat while on Whole30. We had the Carnitas over a bed of lettuce and I had them load on the guacamole and salsa. If we went again, Matt would need to order double meat. It wasn't very filling for him.
5 Guys - Their burgers are made of just meat. Nothing else added. I ordered mine wrapped in lettuce (super messy) with mustard, grilled onion, grilled mushrooms, and hot sauce. Very yummy!
Outback - Steak! We told our waitress we were lactose intolerant so they wouldn't add a pad of butter to our steak (nor bring us out bread and butter). We had it with steamed broccoli and a baked potato.

Why? Of course I wanted to lose weight, but I picked Whole30 because I really wanted to just feel better too! I have really bad acid reflux and a poor digestive system (thanks dad...) that is so often and so bad that it frequently causes me to choke, cough, and/or vomit. I knew I made it worse by my meal choices and just being overweight in general. I also would get headaches and migraines weekly for an unknown reason. It took maybe three days on Whole30 before all of those symptoms stopped. Not only did it help me succeed in the reasons I did the program, it helped us in areas I didn't even know it could. I felt so much better that it was almost unbelievable that just changing my diet would lead to such a drastic change in my life and attitude. I had read about some couples that had a hard time getting along during the program because of giving up their favorite foods, but we got along better. We were able to love ourselves more and therefore love each other better.

I really can't wait to do this again. January can't come soon enough! My parents are going to do it too and I know they're not looking forward to it, but I'm excited for them!

If you have any questions, please ask!

Some of our favorite recipes:

Creamy & Smoky Chipotle Pork Chops