Whole 30, with kids, ALL DONE!

Sort of...

We did it! We completed the Whole30 with no cheats (for adults) and only a few minor ones for the kiddos.  I for sure have more energy than I've had in a long time. I fall asleep easily at night, and wake up easily too. No more groggy, "don't talk to me until I've had my coffee" mornings. It's amazing. I'm a starbucks junky and I haven't even had coffee in days.

I lost a grand total of 6lbs. Doesn't sound like much, but it's the right direction and I did it all just by changing they way I eat. I wasn't working out like crazy or anything. Josh lost more. Punk. Yes I love my husband and am so glad he did this with me, but how in the HECK can guys lose more than women so easily? It's like they just think "lose weight" and it drops off.

Now I know that isn't really true, but it feels that way. Either way---- I'm glad we are all on a healthier way of eating.

We've added back in greek yogurt to make breakfast shakes, oatmeal and honey for the kiddos, and otherwise kept it all the same.  We're going to keep doing this for another 30 days. Yup. So we're done, but we're going to keep going.

Josh gets blood work done every year around his birthday. His doctor told him to wait this year until we'd done this for 60 days to really see a difference in your bloodwork. 30 days is great for creating new habits and "cleansing" the system, but it won't really show up until 60+ days.  So in a month look for an update on Josh's blood work compared to last year, which has always been pretty good.

The cookbooks we used during this journey were:


Both were ok and we found a few golden recipes in them; however, we found just as many we loved online for free!  The well fed book had about 6 recipes we liked that the kids liked and the everyday paleo had maybe 10.   The one thing to know is that in these books they sometimes use things that aren't allowed in the Whole30 first 30 days, like honey.  There was also a lot of "fluff" in the intros of these books like "oh it's so easy" or "My kids love to help me cook" or "kids love this" which was a crock in my humble opinion. The kids didn't love it at first. They hated most of it, as is evidence by my blogging. HOWEVER, that being said, now they are eating fine and eating a lot.  Most of the recipes they said "kids love" though mine still don't like.

We found that simple meals tended to work better for them like grilled chicken, blanched broccoli, and apple slices instead of pork stuffing stuffed acorn squash, for example, which we love.

I think the big take aways for me are this:
- it costs more to eat healthy
- it takes more time cooking to eat healthy
- it makes you feel great though!
- it's worth it.

Right now my book on whole30 is out on loan. I already have one person in line to read it (Jen), but after that I'm happy to loan it out (maybe not to Papa New Guinea though Becca).



You can read a lot about it online at www.whole9life.com

Maybe once I get my book back I'll write a list of what is approved and not, for those of you out there that care to take a gander.

It was hard, very hard at first, and frustrating, but now--- I can see this as a life style with some once in a great while treats, like Chocolate!