What is a Whole30?

So for those who don't know a lot about it, I will explain exactly what a Whole30 is. For more information, please have a look at the website, which does explain it briefly, but if you want to delve into it further, I highly recommend reading the book It Starts With Food by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig.

The lowdown....A Whole30 is very similar to the well known Paleo diet, AKA caveman diet. It is probably a bit more strict, but the idea is you are very strict with yourself for 30 days, then you can slowly start reintroducing the restricted foods back into your diet, paying special attention to the effects it has on your body (and mind!). The foods that are restricted are:

• added sugars, real and artificial
• alcohol (even in cooking)
• grains
• legumes (with the exception of green beans, snow peas and sugar snaps)
• dairy (clarified butter and ghee are ok)
• carrageenan, MSG and sulfites (found in processed foods)
• baked goodies and treats, even if made with Whole30 ingredients (yep pancakes made with bananas are out).

A more detailed description can be found here.

You might be thinking, what the heck can you eat?! Easy! Meat, seafood, eggs,  vegetables, fruits and good fats. This is listed in much more detail in the book, and on the website, so if you want to know more check it out. I'm not here to plagiarise! haha

The main idea of the Whole30 is that it resets our bodies to work at an optimal level. Most people these days eat way too many processed foods, and the increase incidence of lifestyle related diseases and rising levels of obesity shows what sort of effects this is having on the population. You only need to read through the many testimonials to see how changing your diet for just one month can have drastic outcomes on your health. It has helped people with allergies, autoimmune diseases, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, Lyme disease, migraines (hello, this is where it got me interested), digestions issues such as reflux, Crohn's disease and irritable bowel syndrome and many others.

I won't go on and on about it. It all sounds pretty amazing. And to an extent, I do know how something as simple as changing your diet can have a profound effect on your health and well-being. When I started seeing my naturopath, he had me on an elimination diet. I didn't consume any dairy, sugar, wheat or caffeine for 2 weeks. Yes, the first 3 days were horrendous. I suffered from terrible headaches and withdrawal symptoms, but I persevered. after a week I started to feel good. I felt like I had come out of a fog, I had loads of energy and was thinking much more clearly than I had in years. After the 2 weeks were up I started reintroducing each food, and monitoring how I felt. Dairy, wheat and caffeine didn't seem to give me too much trouble. But the sugar - that really messed me around.

I eventually got lazy and the sugar crept back into my diet. I have put on weight and feel tired a lot, and even after sleeping all night I have trouble waking up in the morning. I also have energy slumps in the afternoon and have occasionally nodded off on the couch after eating lunch. 

I'm hoping to find that doing a Whole30 will help with these issues and also reduce the number of migraines i have been getting lately. I know that some of them are related to the amount of processed,refined carbohydrates I have in my diet. I would like to get off the sugar train. And stay off!