Step 1: Always have a plan
If you plan ahead, its a lot harder to get stuck somewhere you don't know where to go. You can't make the excuse "I'll just go out to eat," if you packed your lunch ahead of time. As with all diets, and especially with the whole30, planning is ESSENTIAL. The whole30 book, It Starts with Food has a lot of great information about meal planning and what to do to prevent screw ups. You don't have to purchase the book (everything you need to know is available on their website for free!) but it is a very helpful resource if you plan on doing the whole30 repeatedly or for a long period of time. If anything, it will educate you about why the whole30 works and what it is actually doing inside your body.Meal Planning
Meal planning will help you stay organized, and get a better grasp of what you are eating every day. This, in turn, will prevent you from worrying about "What am I going to eat!?" and should help give you the motivation to say no to tempting side-trips or office snacks. If you have a nice salad or chicken dish waiting for you in the fridge, its much easier to say "I brought my lunch today, maybe another time." It will be hard at the start, but once you have done it successfully a couple of times, it becomes second nature.There are some really great tools out there for meal planning, but personally I use my stash of cookbooks and Google Docs.
First, peruse your cookbooks (or recipe resource of choice) for stuff that looks appetizing for the week to come. Then, earmark enough recipes to fill in your normal meals. For my husband and I, we usually cook dinner 5-6 nights a week, and I eat the leftovers for lunch at work. Obviously, your cooking requirement may go up on the whole30 as you aren't going out to eat as often, or at all, so keep that in mind.
Make a grid with the necessary days of the week and number of meals you need to plan (don't forget to include snacks and additional things if you have kids in the house!) Save this as a template before you start adding any recipes for the upcoming week, so you'll always have an easy method to make a new meal plan.
Now, start filling in recipes that sound good. As you do so, make a note of the ingredients you'll need to buy to make the recipe happen. You might want to come up with some sort of indication that an ingredient is a staple ingredient that you'll need frequently (such as almond flour, coconut aminos, or fish sauce,) versus something that is going to be used up entirely by this recipe.
An important side-note here: keep leftovers in mind. The first time that I did the whole30 I was absolutely SWAMPED with leftovers, so much so, that the last week that's all I chose to eat. Make sure you leave gaps for potential leftovers, or at least have a storage plan!
Now, go shopping and start cooking! It really is that simple :)
Emergency OK Foods
The whole30 is designed to change your relationship with food for the better, and part of that is stopping the habit of mindless eating. However, you do have to acknowledge that life happens, and sometimes that means that it doesn't go to plan. Perhaps you accidentally left your lunch sitting on the kitchen counter when you left for work, or you found that the lettuce you bought had gone bad before you got to use it all up. Regardless, life never goes to plan, so plan for those times when it goes to hell. Whole9 has a list of "what you can and cannot eat" during the whole30, so make sure that when you plan emergency snacks you keep this list in mind.
Some great (mostly) non-perishable (or at least, don't need refrigeration for a period of time) ideas to keep around:
- Whole Fresh fruit, such as apples, oranges, or bananas. Keep in mind you should limit fruit intake at least to begin with, so that you can get used to lower sugar in your diet.
- Veggies, such as carrots, snap peas, green beans, or celery. These will last several hours without refrigeration so they're great to bring along for mid-morning snacks instead of springing for those Donuts that Jeff brought in this morning! Also great in salads!
- Roasted almonds and other non-peanut nuts - these have a great shelf life and come in many different varieties and flavors (just make sure you read the labels!)
- Jerky - but read your labels (or make your own)
- Larabars (or other food bars) - as stated in the list above, these should be truly emergency foods. They are high in sugar, and nutritionally equal to a candy bar. For example, a snickers bar has 250 calories, while a larabar has 230. Both have almost 20 grams of sugar. One may be natural, but your body really doesn't know the difference. I would suggest keeping a few in an office drawer or in your pantry, but don't rely on them on a regular basis.
Step 2: Don't be afraid of messing up, or starting over
This is something I personally need to learn to do better. Frequently, I will screw up and eat something (either on purpose or on accident) and then constantly guilt-trip myself for the rest of the day. Inevitably this will lead to more no-no foods, more guilt, and then I've fallen way off the wagon and I'm feeling very down on myself. You don't have to follow in these footsteps!
First, realize that to err is human. You are probably going to inadvertently eat something you shouldn't. You're going to be faced with tough decisions in social situations where everyone is eating the donuts, except for you. You might cave to this pressure. The important thing is how you act once that is over and done with. There is no use regretting what you've done and feeling guilty; you can only move on and do better next time. As long as you learn something and try not to make the same mistake twice, you'll do well!
The whole30 by-the-book states that if you screw up, you start over. On paper, this means its day 29 and you accidentally eat a peanut, you're back on day 1. In practice, its not quite so simple. The point is that you make mindful decisions about what you put in your body. I'm not saying that you should plan cheats, or rationalize your way into eating a cupcake, but if the benefit of eating a bad food outweighs the benefits of not eating a bad food, you're probably going to eat it. It's all situational, and in the end if you decide to start over, its up to you. The whole point of the whole30 is that you become aware of the decisions you make with food and why you make them.
Step 3: One day at a time
If you're anything like me, you look at something like this as a great opportunity. You want to figure out exactly how to do it the right way so you succeed. You might start at the whole9 site, but pretty soon you'll figure out there's a lot of other resources out there talking about this program (and thank you for using this resource!) Don't get overwhelmed. As much as you will want to read everything you can about the program, don't overload yourself; you might start to feel like you're sinking into a sea of complex recipes, guidelines, rules, and regulations.
BREATHE!
The important thing is that you take this endeavor one day at a time. This is about the journey, not the end result. You will learn something new every day: be that a recipe, something about yourself or your habits, or something else. You will learn something, I guarantee it! Enjoy it :)
Reward yourself with something that isn't food
Many of us are here because food is a good thing; too good a thing in our lives. It's important to celebrate your successes with something that isn't food, which will help change your relationship with yourself and food at the same time. Make a list of things that you can use as rewards along your journey when you reach a point of success. This could include a massage, a manicure or pedicure, a day off of work, your significant other cooking dinner for you, sleeping in, or any other sort of thing you can think of!
I hope these steps will help you on your journey. Today is Day 1 for me!
What helps you succeed with your #whole30?
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