Whole 30: Day 0 – Preparation Time
Day 0 – Preparation Time
Today marks the day before my 3rd round of the Whole 30, or in other words, 3rd go at eating real, whole foods for the next 30 days and avoiding grains, legumes, sugar, dairy, and preservatives/additives.
As mentioned in my last post about Whole 30, I’m trying to enter this time with another mindset: one of love, and not of punishment. Often we do fitness/food challenges as a way to get ourselves back on track after derailing, or because we think that is the answer to fixing our battle with our weight and health. These challenges definitely do help us in the short term, but the challenge is to continue applying the healthy principles we learned on those challenges in the long term. The goal is to continually learn how to have a holistically, healthy life over all of our years.
My Goals for this Whole 30
Each time I do Whole 30, I find that I learn a at least one new thing I want to continue to apply to my lifestyle – with food, fitness, and even about other areas of life such as relationships and sleep. Thus, my main goal with this Whole 30 is to do just that again, to learn something new to enhance my quality of life and those around me. A few other goals I have include:
- To allow my body to internally heal from the foods that sometimes upset it and from my digestion issues this past July.
- To journey with you all who have decided to do it with me, and encourage you as we venture on this journey together.
One way I plan to encourage you is to share some daily thoughts, encouragement, or struggles from my own personal Whole 30 with the hope that it will enable you to keep going as well.
And listen, by no means am I perfect or will do this Whole 30 perfect, but I will try my best – which is exactly what I encourage you to do.
How to Prepare Your Home and Yourself
So here are a few tips to prepare yourself for these next 30 days. In addition to the below, I would advice checking out the Whole 30 website here (particularly steps 4-8) as well for more tips.
1. Prepare your house: Try to get rid of all non-compliant foods that can trigger cravings or non-Whole 30 choices. If you are living with someone who isn’t doing Whole 30, try to find a row in the fridge or cabinet for your compliant foods.
2. Write down some goals for your Whole 30 (beyond just the physical): As I said, Whole 30 is more than just about your relationship with food and the physical, but is about a healthy lifestyle overall. I advise you to sign up to the Whole 30 Daily emails here for encouragement delivered to your email box each day and more information about how to live well in every area of life. In particular, make your goals focus on the following areas: Nutrition, Exercise, Personal Growth, Fun/Adventure, Stress Management, Active Recovery, Spirituality (if you would like), Social, Sleep, etc. For example, one of my goals in Nutrition is to try a new recipe or use a new cookware once a week (my birthday was yesterday and I asked for cookware! SWEET).One of my goals in Active Recovery is to stretch/mobilize my body at least 5 minutes pre-workout and 10 minutes post-workout. Let me know if you need more help on this!
3. Get a support system: Some people are going to look at you weird for doing Whole 30, and that’s okay. You aren’t doing this for them, you are doing this for you. However, find someone in your life or even in the Whole 30 forum that will encourage you along the way, you are going to need it – trust me.
4. Meal Planning and Preparation: This is super important because when you are really hungry or eating out, it can be easy to make poor food choices. ALSO, make sure when planning your meals, you include ALL THREE MACRO-NUTRIENTS which are protein, carb and fat. Visit the Whole 30 website for more details on how your plate should look.
5. Have fun with this: It’s scary, I know. I’m nervous too even after doing this challenge twice and eating like this normally. But just know, you can do this and it’s not impossible. Also know that this can be fun! During Whole 30, I’ve experimented with new fruits ,veggies, meats, recipes, and even created my own skin products from scratch! See this as an adventure and not as boot-camp or punishment. Enjoy this 🙂
Do you have any tips for preparing for the Whole 30? If so, be sure to leave a comment and let us all know!
Well my dear friends, I will leave you now. But once again I tell you that this is not impossible, you are capable, and this is going to be hard, but really fun. Let not the challenge scare you but encourage you to take a hold of your health and restore what’s been broken. Journey with me to 30 days of healing, fun, restoration, adventure, and being made well.
