Whole 30 Done – Here’s my best advice!

Well – Just like that our Whole30 is over.  It’s tempting to dive straight into a container of ice cream or (and?!) a basket of fries for breakfast, but that would be a little counterproductive after the great results we had.  Josh is down a whopping 22 pounds for the 30 days, wow!  I am down about 7 pounds so I’m pretty happy too.

This weekend is Avery’s 7th birthday and we are going to Great Wolf Lodge, which is a crazy awesome resort with a huge indoor water park.  We’ll probably splurge a little and have some french fries and a drink, but we really plan on sticking to this for awhile for the majority of our meals.  We both still have some more progress to make and this has been by far the most effective program we’ve tried.

This week we had two days where we had crazy evenings and didn’t have dinner until after 9.  It would have been really easy to say it was impossible and stop somewhere to grab food but we didn’t.  One night we bbq’d some steaks and the other we did burgers – quick and easy and tasty!

 Burgers with salad topped with avocado, eggs, caramelized onions, and bacon!

Another day we were stuck at the bakery a lot longer than we expected and I wasn’t prepared for us to need lunch there.  Makeshift trail mix to the rescue!  Certainly not an ideal meal, but it tided us over until we could get home to eat some meat and veggies.

 Cranberries, raisins, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and shredded coconut.

Here’s my best advice for doing a Whole30 –

1. Eat Paleo for awhile first.  This makes the transition so much easier.  We skipped the whole headache/feeling terrible for the first two weeks because we already eat mostly Paleo so we didn’t shock our bodies too much when we started the Whole30.
2. Try recipes BEFORE you start.  Find at least a few that you really like so that you have some go-to recipes when you have days where you need to make something that you know will taste good.
3. Soda water saved us on the weekends when we were tired of water and really wanted to go to happy hour 🙂
4. Prep at least a little each week – Even just making a big tray of roasted veggies once a week makes a big difference in your ability to make a quick meal when you are short on time.
5. Don’t forget to read your spice labels!  We were surprised to find that several of the spice blends we have in our cupboard contain sugar.

Next up for Paleo Challenges – I’m not sure!  We are through the major holidays and birthdays for our family now, but we are coming up on camping season so there will definitely be some challenges there.  I also plan to do some posts on eating out, but that requires me remembering to take pictures of what I’m eating 🙂