Whole 30 Results

My posting has been extremely sporadic lately, I know. Other than Arianna's 8 month post, I hadn't posted since her 7 month one. Eeek. Can you blame me though, she's very adorable if I do say so myself and she keeps me quite busy.

Anyways, I completed the whole30 about a few weeks ago. Where to begin?! This post is kind of a rambling of random thoughts about my whole30. Obviously it is a little restrictive, thankfully it's quite short term. I have done harder things before (hello nine months, no wine) and that little competition I did 3 years ago, which was obviously a piece of cake. Not. And there was no cake involved either!

I really love and respect that all the details you need for this "challenge" as I like to call it are FREE. You don't have to join a club and you don't have to buy a book. Not that those things aren't worth doing but for this one the information is out there for everyone.

A lot of people do this diet to see if they have any food allergies that may be dragging them down in life. I don't think I have any food allergies, when I reintroduced foods at the end I didn't feel much different. Obviously I feel better without processed food, but nothing made me sick.

The details:

Basic rules are to eat real food: vegetables, fruit, meat and nuts. It's pretty amazing what you can do with those ingredients.
Also: (are in much more detail on the website)
Do not consume added sugar of any kind, real or artificial. 
Do not eat grains. 
Do not eat legumes.
Do not eat dairy.
Do not consume carrageenan, MSG or sulfites. 

The hardest part hands down was just planning ahead. I couldn't just go out without a plan or snacks. This is obviously way healthier and cheaper in the long run and I'd like to keep those habits up. I'd usually just throw an apple or banana and almonds in my bag.

The food was quite delicious. Some of my favourite recipes:

Homemade mayo (use for burgers, sweet potato fry dip, and tuna or potato salad) I actually cannot eat regular mayo anymore, I continued making my own.
Lettuce Wrapped Burgers (topped with homemade mayo and bacon) didn't use a recipe for these but put almond meal, and egg, and spices.
Cauliflower fried rice (I LOVED this)
Meatballs in Homemade Spaghetti Sauce (cooked in crockpot) over Spaghetti Squash
Chicken Bacon Mushroom Quiche
Roasted Broccoli (my usual recipe, minus the Parmesan. Still amazing.
Taco Lime Chicken over salad (used Trader Joe's Salsa Verde for dressing)
My go to for coffee was coconut milk and I would blend it in the blender which made it into a latte!
Crispy Baked Chicken Fingers - these were so good but so hard to find a good whole30 dip. I used leftover homemade marinara.
Foolproof Hard boiled eggs

The results: 

I didn't really take any before or after pics, maybe I should have but this one is at least right after haha.

My clothes fit way better and I feel confident enough to wear shorts(!) which I haven't in years. I feel more and more like myself and less and less like my appearance screams NEW MOM! :-P

Weight: 10lbs lost

Measurements:
Natural Waist: 2 inches lost
Midsection (Around belly button) 2 inches lost
Hips 1.5 inches lost
Widest part of leg: 0.5 inches lost

Just for fun, these are my measurements since January:
Waist: 3 inches lost
Midsection: 8 inches lost
Hips: 4 inches lost
Legs: 3.5 inches lost

Post baby I think I lost about 25 pounds before I realised "Crap...I kinda still have a looong way to go!" So onward I keep going. Now I'm down about 40 total. So by my calculations that means I gained 45 during pregnancy. EEK! It wasn't hard to do I will tell you that. And I didn't do it by only eating junk food, obviously because I know better than that. But being grossed out by meat = a lot of toast. I was hungry all the time but couldn't handle eating lean protein. By doing this challenge I found ways to cook again that I can actually enjoy eating, which is great.

So now it's been about 3 weeks since I finished. I actually really miss it, but I find it too strict to do all the time. I want to be able to go out for dinner once in awhile, order sushi and have my coffee with milk and stevia. It's hard to find the balance, but I'm working on it. I'm going away for the weekend at the end of August for a girls weekend so that's motivating to kick it up an extra notch again.

I posted about this when I was pregnant but having Arianna grow up with a healthy body attitude is so important to me. I still catch myself saying or thinking things I shouldn't but it's gotten a lot better. I appreciate my body so much more knowing that it carried another human into this world and I want her to grow up appreciating her body too.