T'was the night before Whole30...

...and all through the house, not a creature was stirring except me* with my can of coconut milk to use in my coffee in the morning...

So, here goes right? It's Whole30 Eve and I'm home sipping my last glass of red wine for 30 whole days, thinking about coffee in the morning. I have a confession... but don't tell anyone... I'm a sweetener addict.*gasp* Sugar Twin being my drug of choice. I know, pure aspartame; but don't even think about giving me anything else.
 I've tried to quit many times, but that means giving up diet soda and switching to unsweetened coffee. I can drop the Diet Pepsi, but I just can't go without having it in my coffee. I also know all the issues with aspartame - that it's a carcinogen, excitotoxin, causes headaches, yada yada. I just can't stop! Enter Whole30 and the switch to coconut milk. Today for the last time EVER, I enjoyed a coffee with Sugar Twin. This is a commitment to myself that I believe my Whole30 will help me achieve. At the moment, I drink at least 3 travel mugs of coffee per day, with 2 Sugar Twin in each serving, unless I splurge and order a Starbucks, then it's a latte or americano with cream, no sweetener added. I find these drinks so rich and the milk or cream seems to settle the coffee and I don't need sweetener then. So, I must like coffee without sweetener, now just to convince the rest of my brain so that I don't automatically reach for that yellow package of chemical in my half-awake stupor in the morning. I need to remove this from my diet and I haven't been able to do so yet. But tonight I whisked up some coconut milk to use in my coffees. It actually smells/looks awesome! Rich and creamy, just a hint of nutty flavour. I can't wait to try it tomorrow!

Actually, that's kind of how I feel in general about tomorrow; excited! Well excited in the same way that you would be both excited and nervous about starting a new job. Not excited in the Christmas Eve kind of way that Nicole is excited. I'm looking forward to the challenge; trying new things, learning how to prepare foods differently, and redefining my relationship with food. I'm ready for this challenge and I have to thank Nicole for sharing her knowledge and for motivating me to do this, even through all those times that I rolled my eyes at her or argued that I could prove anything with Science if I just ask the right questions. She never once made me feel judged (well maybe once or twice when I had to sneak some ice cream cake out of the freezer at work...) and she didn't push me into taking on this Whole30. She just said she was doing the Whole30 in August and kept telling me of all the benefits. She let me make up my own mind and was super supportive and excited when I said I was actually debating on doing the August challenge as well. She came up with the idea for the blog to keep us in touch and accountable and set it up, all I had to do was post. I really do call her the Food Nazi in fondness and shared humour. Thanks Nicole!

Nicole and I took our measurements this evening, along with before and after photos; which I may share with you at the end of the Whole30 if you promise not to post them on facebook! We've been chatting about our preparations all week and about what things will be different for us. We ended up on the topic of listening to our bodies. I told her a story about how I had been at a wedding reception last Friday for a dear friend and I spent the evening drinking raspberry vodka and 7-up's. I like to have a drink but my limit is usually 1, maybe 2 beer or wine in an evening. Saturday morning came too quick and I spent the day feeling guilty/gross/stupid because I had basically poisoned my body and I could feel that my systems were working in overtime to try to deal with all this poison. Of course, my body had absolutly no problem telling me that. Let's get this straight, I wasn't nauseous but my whole system, my muscles, my stomach, my head, were all screaming, calling out for help to make it through this toxic environment that I had deliberately induced and not just hit the self-destruct button. I kept thinking about a quote from a good friend regarding overindulging: "If you drank sour milk and got sick from it, you'd never drink milk again, but you get sick after a night of drinking and the next time you're going to a party you find yourself in the line at the Liquor Store." Interesting huh? And the same scenario works for food. We overindulge in not-so-healthy foods and our body reacts the same way. We just don't listen when it feels poisoned by our bad food choices. It's like we are just too desensitized to any signals regarding food that we just can't hear our system calling out for help. It takes something so toxic as an overindulgence of
alcohol to get us to listen. How often do we experience food hangovers and not even realize it? The Whole30 will help us to start listening and as a result make better choices for what our systems can handle.

But, now for the nitty gritty. I've prepared a pre-Whole30 profile. Once you read it, you'll know all about me and my lifestyle. You'll probably know me better than really necessary but I want to be clear on the benefits that I get from the Whole30. I am going to try to revisit the profile in the weeks to come and again at the end of the 30 days. I will be interested to see what changes. Who knows, maybe you will see yourself in one of these profile items and recognize the benefits that I find in 30 days time.

Profile - as of Whole30 Eve
Female
Age: 30
Weight: Heavy
Height: 5'9"
Favorite Foods: Pizza, nachos, steak, hot wings, caesar salad, Mary Browns, pretty much any kind of cheese.
Favorite Treats: ice cream (particularly McFlurries), any kind of potato chips, any kind of pastry, shaken donuts at Montanas.
Favorite Drinks: Coffee milk and 2 sweetener, diet pepsi, A&W rootbeer
Alcohol: Yes please... errr... ale or red wine.
Veggies most likely found in my fridge: peppers, mushrooms, onions, tomatos.
Activity Level: Running 4-ish km, 2-3 times per week, hiking 1-2 hours once every 2 weeks - I HATE walking and I HATE stairs. I will find any excuse to get out of these activities, ask Nicole.
Other Activity: Gardening, I grow my own herbs and veggies including carrots, peas, lettuce, beets and pumpkins.
Health Issues: IBS (symptoms have significantly decreased since I cut out wheat some time ago), slight acne, dry and itchy legs, intermittent neck soreness (could be related to chest size...), infrequent sciatic nerve issues.
Frequency of take out food consumed: average of 2/5 workday lunches, and 2 additional times per week at home.
Homelife: Super supportive boyfriend (Barry), a roommate Peter, and a greyhound named Fury. Barry has always been my #1 fan and supportive. He may not believe everything that I read to him from 'It starts with Food' but he is dedicated to making my Whole30 work, as long as he doesn't have to do it too. Barry is the primary meal preparer in our household and he believes that cutting out all the bad stuff is a good idea for me. I'm sure this will be a learning curve for him too but I'm sharing resources and he is committed to my Whole30.

So that's me in a nutshell. Wish me luck! Hopefully by the end of this Whole30, you won't even recognize me from the info above. Thanks everyone for following and being so supportive!


*to be honest it was Barry that mixed up my coconut milk. So technically he was stirring... hehehe.
** Sorry for the length of the post I was excited and a little sentimental.