Tag Archives: “The Whole30” by Mellisa Hartwig and Dallas Hartwig

I DID IT!!!

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30 days of only good, clean, wholesome, fresh food!  Was it really that difficult?  No, not really.  Oh sure, I had my moments, but never once did I truly want to cheat.  And I think I had the challenges that I did simply because I had so many toxins to release and that is always a painful process, at least in my experience.  If I am being completely honest, the idea that since the 30 days has passed, in theory, I can eat whatever I want today.  Of course this is true every single day.  I have made the choice, and it is ALWAYS a choice, to not go back though.  The thought of a cinnamon roll is somewhat tempting, but why would I purposely undo all the good I’ve done for the last 30 days?  I wouldn’t, I won’t.    It’s like Maya Angelou said, “When you know better, you do better.”  I know better now.  For the first time I truly understand all the damage I was doing to my body by eating foods that, while not horrible overall, still were making my body hurt and were not helping me in the ways they were claiming to.

I have an event coming up in a couple of weeks that involves company coming to town that always stresses me out.  Because of this, I am going to continue to eat the Whole30 way until that time, do my best while said people are in town and then go back to eating completely cleanly after they leave.

So instead of the cinnamon roll I briefly considered, I decided to have my new favorite breakfast, which is sweet potato hash with onions and red pepper and ground turkey with a fried egg…super yummy and super satisfying!

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A BETTER THIRD WEEK

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Just a quick update…

I am definitely feeling better, though still haven’t had the burst of energy I’ve been waiting for.  I am still sleeping a ton more than normal, too.  It’s all good, though.  If I really think about it, it took me pretty much 55 years to get my body into the state it is currently in, no matter the reasons behind it, and realistically I cannot expect to be all better in just 2 or 3 or even 4 weeks.  Of course, that doesn’t stop me from expecting it.

I saw a friend yesterday I had not seen since we started The Whole30 and she noticed a difference.   Said my skin looked really good.  That must be the bone broth I drink every morning.  I also ‘convinced’ her that she should be doing it as well.  Since she was just diagnosed with carpel tunnel syndrome, eating clean on this program will most likely help her out tremendously.  Even if it doesn’t exactly cure her carpel tunnel, she will at least still be wheat, sugar and processed food free, and that’s a very good thing.

Because I am still having a lot of hip pain and wasn’t sure if I should really be walking/stretching/playing tennis/doing yoga or just resting, it finally occurred to me that my pain was probably being caused by my old walking shoes.  When I used to walk 60-90 miles a week, I was very good about replacing my shoes every six months.  Lately, I’ve not been so good.  Plus, I’ve been wearing the shoes that have absolutely no support.  So yesterday I went to Road Runner Sports and got myself analyzed on their ShoeDog machine.  I already knew I had high arches, but, dang, when I stood on the blue pad that records the bottom of your feet, the only thing that showed up was my toes, the pads that my toes are connected to and my heals…nothing in between.  I have an extremely high arch, which basically means any kind of non-supportive shoe is probably a bad idea.  It also explains the hip and IT band pain I’ve been suffering from.  So I got new shoes and custom molded arch supports.  I walked this morning and what a difference!

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As far as the eating goes, no cheats.  Sure I miss some particular foods, cheese and yogurt the most, but I see no point in eating them until we start the reintroducing process, which we may not even do.  I mean, why ‘gum’ up a clean system?   I can already tell that dairy is probably not my friend.  Bummer!  Really, nothing is off-limits expect the crap we shouldn’t be eating anyway, so I haven’t felt deprived in any way.

A CHALLENGING SECOND WEEK

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And by challenging, I mean it SUCKED.  Not in the food sense, but when I thought that my nonsense (itty, bitty cold) was cured in one day with the cherry bark syrup, I was overly optimistic.  And while it is true that I spent the entire day Saturday in bed/resting before I got the cherry bark, and that I woke up Sunday morning feeling all better, after I wrote my update on Monday morning I started feeling worse.  As the day progressed, my nonsense came back with a vengeance.  I never felt horrible, just blah, like I needed a lot of sleep.  And don’t even get me started on the weather we’ve been having.  Okay, relatively speaking, it has not been terrible, but it has been much cooler than usual and we had (true, much-needed) rain.  None of that, though, is good for my mental heath, especially when I am feeling so crummy.

I thought I would be feeling better doing The Whole30.  I do, however, realize my body is going through a major transformation, what with no sugar, no dairy, no sugar, no alcohol, no sugar, no wheat or grains, no sugar and no processed foods of any kind, especially the kinds with added, you guessed it, sugar.  I just didn’t know it would be so difficult.  What is also even more clear to me is the fact that body has not been the same since my assault.  It’s nothing major, a lot of small things, but added altogether, it’s a lot to deal with and accept.  And this is with intense therapy and a huge desire and effort to not let my attack change me.  The best intentions, right?

As if to add insult to injury, Sunday morning at 3:02AM I was awakened with a shooting pain down my right leg.  Now I’ve had back issues for, well, ever, but I’ve never had anything like this before.  I got up and stretched and hung on the inversion table, but nothing was helping.  I got back in bed and tried to sleep.  No such luck.  I could only be on my back for a few minutes before I’d have to turn to my left side.  Then in a few minutes that would become unbearable and I’d have to turn on my back again, where I would only last for a few minutes…you get the picture.  So I got up to take a shower a little after 4AM.  The funny thing was, it did not really hurt to move around.  While in the shower I decided to wash my hair and shave my legs, just in case I ended up spending the next week in bed with my back out.  It did not really feel like it was going to go out, but never having experienced this kind of pain, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.

When I got back in bed, I googled ‘sciatica’ on my phone, decided that it was probably that, and slept fitfully, in pain for the next several hours.  After consulting with a doctor (my mother, as it happens) and a couple of people who have had to deal with sciatica, we decided on the best course of action, which was really no action at all.  I was advised to take 3 ibuprofen and 1 Tylenol, move as much as the pain would allow, and basically, allow it to rest.  So I spent another entire weekend day resting.  I am sensing a pattern here.

This morning I woke up and realized I had had no pain in the night, at least not the shooting down my leg kind, and I slept half-way decently.  I am still in need of much more sleep than normal.  I guess that’s okay.  It is also dawning on me that I may need more than the 30 days to clean out all the built of whatever that has accumulated over the last 4 1/2 years.  And, really, I guess that is okay, too.  Just like with most everything, I want it now, I want the results yesterday and I don’t want to have to wait a minute longer than I think it should take.  Yeah, and how’s that working for me?  Clearly, it will take as long as it takes.

The good news is, as they say in The Whole30, I have been completely compliant for the last two weeks.  No slips, no forbidden foods;  only good, whole, real food.

 

ONE WEEK DONE

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I wanted to give you an update on my progress with The Whole30.  The easiest way to say it is, So far, So good.  But, then, my post would end here.  So I will fill in more details. It has been interesting, to say the least.  As I told you on the Day 3 post, one of the biggest things I’ve noticed is an increased need for sleep.  This has not changed yet.  If anything, I am needing even more than the 10 hours, which is 3 hours more than my normal amount.  This is due, in part, to my catching the crude that is going around town.  I can find no mention of what you are supposed to do if you get S.I.C.K. while on the Whole30 program.  I did know enough to not reach for conventional cough syrup or throat lozenges, both of which contain sugar and/or alcohol.  As it turned out, the cough medicine we did have is alcohol-free, but still contains all kinds of other stuff I did not want to put into my body, sugar being the least of it.

What we ended up with is a product from Planetary Herbals called Old Indian Wild Cherry Bark Syrup.  While the taste was not so great, it worked on my cough in one day!  I did rest for the entire day on Saturday, which probably helped, but ONE day?  Cool!  I guess because I did have some nonsense (my term for s.i.c.k., because I do NOT get sick) going on in my head, nose and throat, my sleep continues to be messed up.  Before I realized there was something going on, I slept for 12 hours.  Mind you, this, unfortunately, does not mean I slept 12 solid hours.  Between having to get up to go to the bathroom and hot flashes every few hours, it’s not like it was a restful 12 hours.  Still, I know that when our bodies are healing, no matter from what, we need extra sleep and need to nurture ourselves even more than normal.  What I am really looking forward to is the renewed energy I know I will be feeling once my body is cleaned out.

I already told you about the bone broth that I made, which, by the way, is delicious!  I also made mayonnaise!  I made it with avocado oil, so it does have a slightly green tinge to it, but it is amazing.  The best part is there is nothing unpronounceable in it.  Even the organic, relatively healthy ones you can buy, still have added sugar.  No clue why.  The only drawback that I can foresee is because there are no preservatives in it, it doesn’t last nearly as long as I’d like it to.  Still, being able to make my own fresh extremely yummy mayonnaise is more than worth not having it last for months.

I asked Jim last night as we were going to sleep, if, after the first 7 days he missed any particular food that we are not allowed to eat?  He said no, and then asked if I do.  Well, yes, honestly I do.  BUT, and this is a huge BUT, I don’t miss anything enough to sabotage my body (even more than I have for the past 55 years) and lose the ground I’ve gained thus far.  The more I read, the more I am coming to understand that I most likely have food sensitivities that I never knew I had, and I am talking way back to when I was a baby.  I’ve written before about the really weird skin I was born with and which plagued me for years. I am thinking now that I most likely had, if not an allergy, at least a sensitivity to dairy.  Oh, the things they did not know 50+ years ago.  That’s okay, though, because now we do know and that means we, I, can make the necessary changes to my diet that will support a much healthier body/mind/immune system.

Actually loving this program!

 

DAY 3

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Okay, so it’s only day three of the Whole30, but I want to share some of what’s happening so far.  Although we haven’t been following the 7-day meal plan exactly, nor are we really supposed to, we’ve been very compliant with what we should and we are not allowed to eat.  No dairy, no grains, no processed food of any kind, no alcohol, no sugar…does this seem harsh?  Really, it’s not.  There is so much real, whole food available, if you just take the time to look.  For example, this morning I had a mug of bone broth, which I made myself (!), and an omelet cooked in ghee (this is butter with the milk part removed) with chicken and spinach.  I had an orange and strawberries on the side.  It was yummy and filling.  If anything, I cannot really eat all the food they recommend in a day, but that’s another story.

One of my reasons for doing this ‘diet’* is I am in a lot of physical pain from inflammation.  I never understood what this meant before now.  And I still do not totally understand it, but I know I have it all over my body.  Enough is enough.  To me physical pain is far worse than emotional pain.  Once the emotional part of my healing from my sexual assault was complete, my back went completely out.  I spent 96 hours not moving at all.  When I was finally able to get out of bed and start the process of moving my body again, the pain was, at times, overwhelming.  I remember thinking at the time that as difficult as it was to go through, I’d rather spend another 14 months in intense (mental) therapy than to spend another 96 hours in physical pain.  And while my physical pain these days is not acute to the degree it was then, I am still in a lot of pain.

Several years ago, I suffered an injury at the gym to my elbow, and ever since, I’ve had pain in it.  Your elbow is not exactly a part of your body that can be easily rested. You kind of use it every day, no matter what you are doing.  And my hips, boy, do my hips ache.  My legs, too.  The weird part is they do not hurt when I am using them, like walking or playing tennis, but at night, I wake up in pain more nights than not.  I try not to take ibuprofen all the time, for obvious reasons, but sometimes the pain is just too much and I have to take it.  When I was listening to IT STARTS WITH FOOD (by Melissa Hartwig and Dallas Hartwig), it suddenly occurred to me that my body is full of inflammation, and that;s when I made the decision to do something about it.  I do not have to live like this and have no intention of living this way for the rest of my life.  Enter the Whole30 program.

According to WebMD,  “Inflammation is a process by which the body’s white blood cells and substances they produce protect us from infection with foreign organisms, such as bacteria and viruses.  However, in some diseases, like arthritis, the body’s defense system — the immune system — triggers an inflammatory response when there are no foreign invaders to fight off. In these diseases, called autoimmune diseases, the body’s normally protective immune system causes damage to its own tissues. The body responds as if normal tissues are infected or somehow abnormal.”  It goes on to say, “When inflammation occurs, chemicals from the body’s white blood cells are released into the blood or affected tissues to protect your body from foreign substances. This release of chemicals increases the blood flow to the area of injury or infection, and may result in redness and warmth. Some of the chemicals cause a leak of fluid into the tissues, resulting in swelling. This protective process may stimulate nerves and cause pain.  The increased number of cells and inflammatory substances within the joint cause irritation, swelling of the joint lining and, eventually, wearing down of cartilage (cushions at the end of bones).”

So what have I observed so far?  Because my body is healing and detoxing itself, I need a lot more sleep than normal.  I’ve been sleeping 10 hours a night, which is so unlike me.  I normally need just about 7 hours to feel good and be well-rested.  I am honoring and listening to what my body wants, though, and it is saying sleep more.  So more sleeping it is.  I’ve noticed I am crabby, too, with an underlying headache.  This is due to my withdrawal from sugar.  As I’ve said before, according to experts, getting off sugar is harder than getting off heroin.  I believe it. And it is just as hard not to relapse, which I’ve done more times than I like to admit.  Just to be clear here, I am addicted to sugar, not heroin.  But just as being addicted to an illicit, illegal drug can rule and ruin your life, sugar, in its own way is just as destructive.  Some of the problems with sugar are: it increases insulin and contributes to obesity and diabetes, it can deplete essential minerals from the body, it can lead to food allergies, it can weaken your immune system and it can increase your risk of cancer.  Do any of these possible effects of sugar sound like a good thing?  I don’t think so.  The time has come to break this habit once and for all.

Yes, it is still very early in this process, but I am very hopeful that, once I get over the hump, the benefits of eating clean and not putting poison into my body will override any desire I have to slip again.

Stay tuned…

 

 

AN ACCIDENTAL REWIRING

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Turns out our brains are a lot more elastic or plastic than was originally thought.  The old thinking was once you reached a certain age, your brain was, for lack of a better way to say it, set in stone.  The neurons were thought to migrate to predetermined locations in the brain.  Once there, they performed only certain functions.  New research has shown that it is possible to change our brains.  This is good news.  No, really, this is great news. We are no longer necessarily stuck with a brain that does not work for us, and by this I mean that when I accidentally rewired my brain to crave sugar and carbs and other things that are not good for my overall health, I have the ability to change it, to rewire it again.

After my attack 4 1/2 years ago, to help me feel better, I started eating cupcakes and macaroni and cheese and soft pretzels and rolls and, well, you get the picture.  In 2010, for the most part, I stopped eating bread and pasta.  And even more importantly, I stopped eating most processes sugars.  No coke, no more of my beloved (sad, but true) slurpees, no sweet tarts or jelly beans.  Or if I did have a treat, it was not very often and I never went overboard.  When I was sexually assaulted in September of 2011, that all changed.  I was doing my best to heal and part of that, unfortunately, involved self-soothing, which took the form of eating comfort foods.  Over time, my brain changed, and through the long process of healing and reclaiming my life, I inadvertently created another problem, though it has taken several years for me to completely understand exactly what I did.

I’ve always been a huge reader and though I enjoy fiction tremendously, I also love inspirational, self-help-type books, too.  Since I am always working on improving myself and my life, I am pretty open to most books that encourage that.  I am also a life-long athlete and, as I’ve written about before, after my attack, I went from walking 60-90 miles a week to zero.  Luckily, I found yoga a couple of weeks before my attack and I was no longer able to walk outside alone.  Still, not having that outlet for stress release and staying in shape was a huge loss.  HUGE.  So, I was on the lookout for books to, perhaps, change my life.  I read (listened to, actually) Grain Brain and Brain Maker by Kristin Loberg and Dr. David Perlmutter, Wheat Belly by William Davis, Use Your Brain to Change Your Age by Dr. Daniel Amen, The Wisdom of Your Cells by Dr. Bruce Lipton, The New Sugar Busters by H. Leighton Steward, Morrison Bethea, Sam Andrews and Luis Balart, and countless others.  While all were good, and some I’ve even listened to more than once, and all had good advise and wisdom to pass along, I still was not ‘getting it.’  I might try out a few of the suggestions, but nothing stuck for long.

A walk with a friend a couple of weeks ago ended up supplying the missing link, so to speak.  Just in passing he mentioned It Starts With Food by Melissa Hartwig and Dallas Hartwig.  I cannot tell you now what it was he said that made me go home and check if the book was available on audible.com.  It was, and I got it.  From practically the first sentence I realized this was the book that was going to literally change my life.  I finally got it.  I also knew that I needed the actual book to refer to.  At the bookstore, however, I ended up with their followup book, The Whole30, subtitled The 30-Day Guide to TOTAL HEALTH and FOOD FREEDOM, which is the one I really needed.  This book explains the entire program and how to accomplish it.  It contains recipes, tips, hints and, basically, a blueprint for (my words) a new life!  And today starts that 30-day trip.

I will be chronicling my journey here, partly so that I am accountable and partly so that others may, hopefully, be helped, as well.  I keep hearing from people who have done the Whole30 that it is hard, that you always end up ‘falling off the wagon’ at some point.  While this may be true, I am confident that I am truly ready for the changes that eating clean will bring about.  I am so ready to be clean of my sugar habit.  I’ve spoken about it before and the trouble I’ve had with kicking the habit.  Like I just said, I AM READY, and this, I think, will make all the difference.  Will I never eat something that is less than perfectly healthy again?  In all likelihood, I probably will, but once I have rewired my brain to crave healthy, whole foods again, a slip or, rather, a conscious choice to eat something that is less than ‘good’ will not result in disaster.  It took a long time to wire my brain to want a cupcake once a week.  Likewise, once I am where I want to be with regard to food, one soft pretzel or martini will not create a new, unwanted neural pathway in my brain.

We all always have a choice.  My choice is to eat clean to reset my brain and hormones.

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If you would like, please join me on this journey.  We can help each other along the way.