We're Doing 120 Days of Whole30--Should You?

Keep in mind we are not officially licensed by Whole30 or anything and we don't even play doctors on TV, but if you're thinking about doing a longer version of Whole30, here are some things we would mention to our besties (and y'all are just besties we haven't met IRL...yet):

Joke!  It's a joke! 

• It actually takes a little over 60 days to really make a habit, so eating healthy for at least that long probably has benefits for both moderators and abstainers 
• Coincidentally (or not) we agree with several others that the real magic (seeing differences in your body and feeling confident and in control) seems to happen around the 60 day mark and it gets better from there.
• If you are significantly overweight or struggling with serious health issues, you're probably going to need to eat Whole30 longer to fix those issues, so you may just want to commit to a longer period.

The time will pass anyway,  right?

You may not want to commit to a longer Whole30 if:

• You're likely to feel overwhelmed by a big number and more likely to quit 
• There's something on your calendar that will create a major hardship if you are limiting your food choices.
• You have a history of overly limiting food or imposing overly high standards on yourself.

We used to think you should get at least one regular Whole30 under your belt before trying a longer one but, meh, you do you.

I  think sometimes when we announce we're doing a mega Whole30, people wonder if we think we're better than everyone else.

We're actually doing it because we think we're worse than you. We've seen so many people do a simple Whole30 and then find food freedom with an occasional reset. Meanwhile we're trying to follow the one bite rule and falling face first into dessert bar.

We keep coming back to the fact that we're abstainers not moderators (if you've recently joined us this is a great article about abstainers vs moderators
). So that's why we do these "crazy" long rounds of Whole30.  Honestly it's a big part of why Whole30 works for us--it eliminates all of our food triggers and that's that.

We think everyone should try a Whole30 at least once with a proper reintroduction to learn how your body reacts to various foods. (I'm still mad that it never occurred to me in my twenties that my acne might be connected to eating dairy...) But that might be all you need.

So, no, we're not judging you for not being "Whole30 enough" for doing the program AS IT WAS WRITTEN.  We're the freaks here. But we know there are others like us, so we keep our account going to be a support for them and to inspire people to try Whole30 because it's been so great for us. Sometimes we joke that we should change our name to AbstainerSisters because that seems to be our niche.

For us, making a long term commitment to eating healthy feels freeing. We're like toddlers who need schedules and rules to feel safe. Your speed may vary. Whatever that speed is, we hope you find something that works for you. Besos!

Getting Ready for a Whole30

Hahaha...just realized Whole30 is publishing these exact tips in the same order. Great minds...!

Between the two of us, we're losing count of how many Whole30s we've done (but our 2015 Whole100 remains the most memorable). And we get a lot of questions about getting started, so here are our thoughts on that...

Step 1: 
Get yourself a copy of The Whole30 book or It Starts with Food if you've never read either before. There's a lot of info on the interwebz, and both of us did Whole30s  before we bought the book, but we both found reading the book gave us a nice solid foundation to build on and clarified some inconsistencies you might see on unofficial Whole30 sites. We'll often skim the book before starting a new round just for reminders and inspiration.

Step 2: 
Set up your process. Notice I didn't say set your goal. We've found that focusing on a goal just makes us frustrated that we're not there yet and if we're not closing in on the goal fast enough, we are likely to give up. When we focus on the process,  we can "win" daily instead of striving for some big win in the distant future (that may or may not be realistic even).



For us, that means establishing ground rules (which is pretty much done for you with a Whole30, but make sure you've got them down and you've made your peace with them), thinking through upcoming events and how we'll deal with them, making some public announcements/establishing support networks, and...

Step 3: 
Deal with your pantry. There are different ways to do this. Some people find it helpful to clean out their house of anything they might be tempted by. That may or may not be realistic for you and your living situation. We find that once we get into abstaining mode, we're not as bothered by other snacks around. Be honest about who you are and what you need to be successful.

But you are going to need to eat, and nothing derails a Whole30 faster than having a crazy day and then realizing you have nothing quick, easy and compliant to shove in your face.



Here are the things we keep in our house AT ALL TIMES:

• Aidells chicken Apple sausages 
• RxBars/Larabar
• Precooked potatoes 
• Prepped veggies (meaning possibly cooked but at least cleaned and chopped up)
• Fruit
• Nuts
• Eggs
• Compliant oils (avocado, olive, coconut)

Some non-essentials that just make Whole30 more enjoyable are:

• Sparkling water and kombucha
• Ghee
• Compliant bacon
• Homemade/compliant mayonnaise  (OMG, this makes the Whole30 life so much more awesome)

It helps to cook in big batches. I'll make a whole tray of chicken just with salt and then use it in several different combinations veggies potatoes and sauces. That can often make the difference between dinner in 10 minutes and dinner in 45 minutes or more.

So that's the gist of it, we'll be posting daily experiences, complaints, inspirations, and any other tips we think of on Instagram for the next month or so at least, so you'll get our thoughts real time over there and deeper thoughts over here when and if we have them...