Day 9 – Revisiting my goals

“My three major goals for the next 30 days are, 1) cook most of my meals (although this is daunting!), 2) figure out how to fit food prep into my schedule (I’ve been using “busy” as an excuse to grab nutritionally-deficient meals for too long), and 3) eat more protein and veggies (refined carbs have got to go).”
10/1/17 webpage post

Before getting back into my routine I wanted to revisit the goals I established back on day 1. I understand that the mission statement of Whole30 is to cut out potentially inflammatory foods (sugar, grains, dairy, and legumes) from your diet for 30 days to determine whether their absence will improve your overall health. The potential benefits from this program vary depending on the participant, of course, but the website says that Whole30 will, in general, “change the way you think about food.” This is exactly what I was going for. Before this month rolled around I had cooked almost nothing for a full year. I was reaching for grab-and-go options or eating out close to 100% of the time and I was sick of it. So when my good friend Natalie suggested starting Whole30 on October 1st (so we could be done before in time for Halloween!) I thought it sounded like a great idea. But since I was a bit skeptical of the promises of such established regimens I decided to personalize it a bit for my own purposes. If you reread the goals I posted on October 1st they have more emphasis on my daily/weekly routine than sticking to a rigid elimination diet. As far as I know I don’t have any major food sensitivities or allergies so I wasn’t worried about completely removing forbidden ingredients like soy sauce or honey from my meals. I even confessed my Whole30 sins at the end of every day so it wasn’t like I was having a bowl of ice cream every night and keeping it to myself. I am not trying to hide these non-compliances. I’m simply not too concerned about them negatively affecting the results of whatever you want to call this 30-day experiment. At the end of the day I am doing something beneficial for my body and that makes me happy. Back to more mundane descriptions of my meals tomorrow!