The Whole30 is a 30-day self-experiment designed to change your health, habits and relationship with food. Since its inception in 2009, it has helped millions of people achieve the tagline the program promises – change your life in thirty days. It’s not a weight-loss program, a detox, a cleanse or any type of quick fix. It’s a complete shift in how you look and feel about food, your life, and what you want out of this one and only body you’ve been given. But this program is about so much more than food. It’s a monumental shift in a positive direction. And guess what? You are worth this change.
But first, let's talk about why you might consider making a change...
Do you ever feel guilty after consuming certain foods, or get mad at yourself because you know they’re not serving you, but you keep doing it anyway? Do you hate yourself for some of the foods you consume, but you can’t seem to stop? Here’s why. Food manufacturers work tirelessly in labs to determine the perfect combination of sugar, fat, salt and carbohydrates to keep us craving their products and coming back for more. Their food products are quick and easy to consume, affordable and highly addictive. It’s almost impossible to stop after just a few bites of something and then you’re left with the guilt and shame of overeating, yet again. Not to mention, the more these foods become engrained in your lifestyle, the stronger the cravings get and the more you want them. It’s a vicious cycle that’s nearly impossible to break free from.
You’re also left feeling like it’s all your fault. You feel shameful that you don’t have enough willpower and you constantly feel stressed about your growing waistline and where your health is headed. You have negative self-talk and a punishment mindset, followed by an overwhelming desire for more of the foods that made you feel this way. You hate yourself for this and wish you could break free from the yo-yo diet hamster wheel you’ve been stuck on for years. You’re attached to the scale and the mirror in a way that shatters your self-confidence. You feel out of control around food and your choices and you’ve lost trust in yourself to make the right decisions around food. You’re tired of feeling older than you want to, more tired than you want to, less confident than you want to and you’re tired of hearing, “just eat less and move more.”
Our relationship with food is emotional and complicated.
It’s not just fuel for our bodies, it’s comfort, it’s a reward, it’s how we show love, it’s an experience and a trusted friend. It’s also how we do business, how we manage our stress, how we celebrate, and how we honour our special family traditions. It’s no wonder changing what we put on the end of our fork can feel so overwhelming and threatening. Improving your health is a big deal and changing what you put into your body will do so much more than you are expecting. This will be the catalyst for trusting yourself again and initiating a positive chain reaction throughout other areas of your life.
The Whole30 is a complete reset. It not only helps you reduce cravings for those highly palatable processed foods, but it also highlights all the ways in which you’re using food in a dysfunctional fashion and gets you back to a place of self-care and self-love. It helps you pinpoint when you use food or drink as comfort or reward or when you use it to numb uncomfortable feelings like stress and anxiety. Whole30 leaves you looking at how you feel, rather than looking at the number on a scale, or obsessing with tracking calories, measuring food or counting macros. It breaks your obsession with your body weight and the scale and lets you focus on all the other positive things that are happening in your body that have nothing to do with numbers. You then start to focus on other areas of your health that aren’t reflected on the scale and start to free yourself from obsessing over your weight.
Whole30 is different than anything you’ve done before, but the premise is simple.
Certain foods or food groups could be having a negative impact on your health, habits, hormones, digestive system, blood sugar regulation, immune system, cravings and more. You’ll remove the food groups that have been demonstrated by science to be problematic for a broad range of people, to determine how these foods work for your unique body. You’ll evaluate how you feel in every area of your health without the scale. At the end of the 30 days, you carefully and systematically reintroduce these food groups one at a time to determine how they impact your energy levels, sleep, cravings, mood, focus, anxiety, depression, allergies, chronic fatigue and more.
The foods eliminated on Whole30 are not “bad”, but we need to determine if they work for you. Everyone is biochemically unique and different foods work for different people. With health and nutrition, there is never a one size fits all approach and it’s important to figure out how your body works. The Whole30 is how to figure it out. The program is not meant to be done long term nor is it’s not meant to be sustainable forever. It’s an experiment to determine how food works in your unique body so you can develop your own framework based on how you want to look and feel in your body.
What You'll Eat on the Whole30...
For 30 days, you’ll commit to eating only real, whole, nutrient-dense foods. The foods that give you the most nutritional bang for your buck. You’ll eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full and consume 3-4 balanced meals per day. Your meals will consist of:
Vegetables and fruit
Moderate amounts of protein including, fish, seafood, eggs and meat
High-quality fats including avocados, olive oil, coconut milk, nuts and seeds
A variety of herbs and spices
And plenty of whole food sauces, dressings, seasonings and spreads to keep your meals flavourful and satisfying.
What You’ll Eliminate on the Whole30...
Gluten
Dairy
Grains
Beans and Legumes
Sugar and Sweeteners
Alcohol
If this sounds scary or overwhelming to you, take a deep breath. Remember it’s only 30 days.
One of the most quoted lines in the Whole30 is this. “Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. Quitting heroin is hard. Beating Cancer is hard. Drinking your coffee black is. Not. Hard. You’ve done harder things in your life than this.” But also… we know this is hard, and we’ve got your back every step of the way.
Giving up foods you love is hard. Learning how to deal with your feelings without numbing them out with food is hard. But do you know what else is hard? Waking up every morning feeling tired. Not being able to keep up with your kids. Not fitting into your clothes. Not liking your body. Taking pills you don’t want to take. Walking around bloated. You get to choose your hard, and making the commitment to focus on your health and habits for 30 days will change your life in more ways than you expect.
I really want you to have this experience.
As a Whole30 Certified Coach, I have seen over and over and over again the transformation my clients go through after committing to just one round of the Whole30. This can change your life and millions of people have gone before you. Trust in the process. Just give me 30 days. Take it one day, one meal, one bite at a time if you have to. If you’re scared, do it scared. Let me believe in you until you believe in yourself. You can do this.
Welcome to the Whole30.