Disclaimer: No one, I repeat, no one is paying me to write this post. I’m not selling anything. I’m just going to share my experience with trying something out.
Additional Disclaimer: I will not get into a debate about health and nutrition and fad diets. I am faced with a potentially permanent health change that I’m working around. Now, on to the good stuff...
At my age (have you narrowed down my age yet?), I’m starting to notice changes in my health that are just normal. And sad.
Since January this year, I have developed severe lactose intolerance. It started out with eating an abundance of chocolate mousse that someone else made one evening, and I ended up on the bathroom floor hugging the trash can by midnight that night. Could have been anything I ate, or I might have picked up a 24-hour thing, right? (Not because I overindulged. No way. Couldn’t be that.)
About a month later, I had a bowl of ice cream before bed. Same brand and flavor I’ve had many times before. Again, I ended up on the bathroom floor making friends with the trash can by midnight. Hmmm. That’s odd. A bowl of cereal before bed. Same result. Now I’m paying attention to the similarities.
I stop consuming dairy when it’s in large quantities such as the bowl of ice cream or cereal. Still consuming small quantities. A cheese stick here or there. A splash of milk in my morning coffee. Cheese on a salad.
Eventually, the cheese sticks start making me nauseous within 30 minutes. My morning coffee starts making me nauseous. Just the aroma of parmesan cheese on a Caesar salad is an offensive smell for the first time.
I start using coconut milk in my coffee and it no longer makes me sick. I cut out dairy everywhere. Then in a weak moment one evening, I order pizza for dinner with friends. I down 2 slices without thinking and within the hour the queasiness starts. And again, I spend some time on the bathroom floor with my new BFF, Blanca. (She’s a white, plastic trash can.) Seriously? I can’t have pizza anymore? *sigh* Pizza never smelled so good until I couldn’t have it.
It was surprising how much dairy was in my diet. I couldn’t put cheese on my scrambled eggs anymore. A slice of provolone on a nice ham and turkey sandwich. A cup of yogurt with fresh cut up fruit. Cheese and sour cream on my blessed tacos! (That might hurt the worst. I love tacos.) Oh, and queso dip! That stuff comes right from Mt Olympus!
Ok. I’m rambling. Get to the point.
So in a bit of a rebellion, I started eating things I would not normally eat. I started carbing up on comfort foods. Pancakes regularly instead of once in awhile. Donuts just because they were on clearance at the grocery store at the end of the day. My sweet tooth went insane! And I gained about 15 pounds, couldn’t fit into some of my favorite clothes and felt generally miserable.
That’s the point where I decided I wanted to make a change. A reboot so to speak. I’ve tried changing my eating habits in the past. Sometimes with success. Low carb, high protein, and high fat was one I did well previously. But that wasn’t going to work so well now that I couldn’t have the dairy I was used to consuming in large quantities with that plan. Enter Whole30.
I had heard about it more than a year ago on a podcast. And what I heard was positive. So I went to buy the original book and have been reading through it for a few weeks now. (I went to Amazon. Neither Amazon nor Whole30 have anything to do with me writing this. This post is all me. Links are just to make sure you see exactly what I am referring to.)
I will be implementing the Whole30 plan starting the second week of August. Thirty days. Planned out food choices. And I’ll tell you all about it. Right here. Weekly updates, if not more often. I’ll tell you what I’m eating, and how I’m feeling. (I’m really looking forward to the stage they refer to as “Tiger blood”, days 16-27.)
So stay tuned to find out if I kill anyone off besides a book character in the stage they call “Kill all the things”, days 4 to 5.
Does anyone want to do this with me?
What have you tried in the past that has worked for you?