Whole30

I am always striving to be as healthy as I can be.  Sometimes I fail at it, and I try not to beat myself up about it.  I think that we should go easy on ourselves, be forgiving of ourselves, and simply learn from those experiences.  As I said yesterday, this past year was a huge learning experience for me.  A very hard one at that.

I am here to say that starting next week, I will be doing Whole30.  I want to iterate that I am not doing Whole30 as a means to diet.  Not at all.  I honestly want to clean up my eating, find out how certain foods affect me negatively, and still eat my favorite foods, except within moderation.  Yes, for 30 days I will be very limited in what I can eat, but those 30 days are about learning how your body feels off of those foods (grains, legumes, sugar, alcohol, dairy).  And then learning how your body reacts as you re-introduce them.  From there I will decide how much and how often I will want those foods in my diet.

Like I said, it's not about a diet.  I am very much eager to be the very best version of myself that I can be.  I want to be stronger.  I want to feel healthy and alive every day.  I want to be the best I can be mentally, emotionally, physically, and the food we eat has such a strong effect on that.  I also have had psoriasis since I was 9 years old, and am quite curious as to how certain foods I eat may or may not worsen the condition.  Yeah, I realize that I will probably become leaner throughout the process, and that's definitely a positive.  But that's not my main focus.  I will not be restricting calories or portion sizes.  I plan on eating when  I am hungry and eating until I'm not hungry anymore.

And through this process, I will be compassionate toward myself.  There will be trial and error, I am sure.  Yes, the 30 days is pretty restrictive in that you can't cheat because you have to get yourself off of those particular foods.  So I am pretty dead set on following the plan.

I just wanted to write it down that this is what I am doing, so I can be held accountable to actually starting it.  I will be doing it with one of my good friends at work, so the accountability with her will be good as well.  We've already talked about taking turns bringing in lunch for work so that we each don't have to pack a lunch every day.  I'm very excited, even if I'm dreading this a bit as well.  I frequent my favorite bakeries at least once or twice a week if not more... and I certainly do love my sweets.  And eventually I may reincorporate those things but much less frequently.

Anyway, meal planning is in the works right now... wish me luck!