Final days of Whole30 #2

Four more days until this Whole30 is a wrap. It's been a good one, I have to say doing a challenge like this during a bountiful harvest time makes it pretty pleasant. Plates have been colorful and flavorful the last 26 days and I haven't experienced boredom with my meals yet. It will be interesting to see how my next Whole30 will differ - that's planned for January. My intention is to complete a Whole30 twice a year, just to give my system and myself a reset and reminder of how good it feels to eat so cleanly consistently. The effort it takes to complete a Whole30 is a way of consciously investing in my health.

This grilled cuban corn in NY was totally worth it!

One of the things I love about the Whole9's approach is that the Whole30 framework can be tailored to one's personal needs. After you complete one, it is easy (and encouraged) to use the parameters anytime you need a little reset. For example, they suggest eating Whole30-like pre-vacation and likewise after vacation. That way you start vacation feeling good and are likely to be more conscious of making choices that are "worth it" while away. I can totally see taking this approach in the future, it makes complete sense to me. In fact, I kind of did it prior to going to New York in June. I wanted to feel and look my best, so for about two weeks before we left I ate really cleanly and consciously. There was nothing I had wanted to try in New York that I didn't because of any guilt - in fact, I felt I had earned every morsel of the most amazing doughnuts on the planet (we went twice!), and the awesome Shake Shack burgers and shakes (just to name a couple of indulgences) but I did monitor how those foods were making me feel and balanced them out with really healthy choices much of the time. Thus, I can see my year being dotted with mini-Whole30s from now on. A good time for me would be the week before Christmas, when offices are littered with sub-par baked goods - I'll save my nutritional off-roading for the chocolate covered shortbread cookies made by my mother, the yorkshire pudding served with New Year's prime rib, the spiced rum caramel dark chocolate bark I make.

If any of you have tried the Whole30 for a day, a week or more - I'd love to hear how you are feeling, what worked for you and what didn't. Leanne and I will be writing wrap up posts at the end of this week; I'm really looking forward to sharing what we have learned and how we feel.