Whole30 in Mexico

So, after eating nothing but tacos and junk food for the first six months of my life here, I had gained a few pounds. I started trying to improve my diet in January, but still found myself eating rather poorly most of the time and especially eating too much sugar.

My brother introduced me to the Whole30 program, and after initially thinking, "no dairy? no hummus? no drinks for a whole month? No way!," I just kept coming back to it. I wanted to see if I could do it. I wanted to experience the benefits everyone talks about. So I convinced my husband to join me and we started in May, even though his birthday, our anniversary, and my son's birthday all fell within this month. I didn't want to wait.

A quick overview: the Whole30 involves cutting out sugar, dairy, alcohol, legumes, grains, and most additives for 30 days. Basically, you eat vegetables, protein, limited fruits, and some healthy fats at each meal. The idea is to change your relationship with food so that you make better choices and are not ruled by cravings.

First breakfast!

Many people try this program to deal with intestinal upset and to try to figure out what foods are causing them distress. For us, the main motivation was to reduce sugar in our diets and eliminate the cravings.

First dinner!

I want to acknowledge that we have a wonderful housekeeper/cook who did a LOT of the work. Eating more veggies requires a lot of cleaning and chopping and in Mexico, there is an extra layer added because we have to disinfect vegetables first with purified water. She made our meals during the week and prepared salads for lunch, to which I added whatever proteins and healthy fats (olives and seeds/nuts) were available. I cooked on the weekend and found some great new recipes.

My housekeeper already made this amazing shredded chicken recipe I loved- even better in a lettuce wrap!

I'm not sure how people do this where quality avocados are not attainable. They were a HUGE part of our Whole30. My history with avocados on the east coast is that you buy three, wait impatiently until they are soft enough, cut into them, and find that two are rotten. Here in MEX, they are all perfect. Such a delight.

Also, being able to eat white and sweet potatoes made it more bearable. Maybe I ate too many...

I must say, it really wasn't that hard. My biggest problem was drinking my coffee with almond milk. I really like a nice creamy, sweet coffee in the morning and a vanilla latte in the afternoon. I missed that a lot. And as the temperature warmed up here, I also really longed for ice cream.

For D's birthday, we went out to a steakhouse where we ate salad with oil and vinegar, steak, and potatoes. It was lovely, but we didn't want to do exactly the same thing for our anniversary, so we are going to celebrate that this week, now that we're done. There are a lot of almost compliant restaurants, but they add a sugary sauce to their fish or something like that and it is just too complicated. As my brother advised me, it's pretty easy to do Whole30 in your home. We ate wonderful food and never felt deprived. It's a lot harder to do it outside the house- we definitely felt deprived by not being able to have a glass of wine, a cupcake (me), or a donut (D). Also, even when you find a place that is mostly compliant, they surely use vegetable oil to cook their burgers or something like that. It's impossible to be 100% compliant when eating out, in my opinion (or at least in Mexico).

We also stayed Whole30 while on a camping trip! I brought most of our food because pretty much everything the scout troop planned to eat was non-compliant. Very proud of us.

Interestingly, I found I really love lettuce-wrapped burgers and tacos! I used to feel absolutely stuffed when I ate a full burger- it was just too much with the bun, burger, and toppings. A burger in lettuce with veggie toppings and guac? Exactly the right amount of food and I was able to enjoy the other flavors more w/o the bun disguising them. I'm not going back!

So, the pluses:

• Daniel's blood pressure went down. 
• We became much more mindful about eating only when we are hungry. I found this really interesting because at work I would really want to eat something, and when I stopped to analyze why, it was almost never because I was hungry, but because I was bored or whatever I was doing was challenging and I wanted a distraction. My husband used to snack a lot at night. We both used to pop things in our mouths when preparing lunches or cleaning up after dinner- no longer. 
• I love fruit now! For some reason, I was really not that into fruit before. Now, it's such a treat. 
• I don't think about food that much anymore. I eat three times a day, and sometimes include a small snack, but I'm not really hungry outside of those meals. 
• I no longer have the 2/3pm crash where I just have to go get a coffee or something sweet. My energy is more consistent throughout the day. 
• I sleep really well. I'm also REALLY tired by 9pm, but that's probably because I wake up at 5am. 
• I learned to drink coffee with no sugar. Milk is a must for me, though. 
• I am committed to only eating less healthy things when they are 'worth it.' A scoop of gelato on a hot day is worth it. The random oreos I used to consume at 9pm? Not worth it. 
• And.....I lost 4 pounds and 2 inches around my waist. 
• D lost 10 pounds and 2 inches around his waist. 

Things that didn't happen or the cons:

• We realized how much social life both with the kids and our friends centers around eating out, and eating out is hard on the Whole30. 
• I still am struggling with using food/coffee as a treat/reward for something. The idea with Whole30 is to look for other ways to reward yourself. Although I don't think we have a real problem with this (I don't binge eat every time I have a hard day at work), I'm going to be more conscious of it now. 
• Many participants experience incredible energy or "tiger blood" by the end, but sadly, we did not experience that. I do think my energy is more consistent, though.

So, what next?

We are going to keep eating this way, overall. We plan to make allowances for special events, going out with friends, and occasionally less healthy things that are worth it (for me, vanilla lattes and warm chocolate chip cookies. For D, fresh Krispy Kreme donuts)- and we will savor those special foods.

We will also add back a few things that we don't think are problematic for us: dairy, legumes, whole grains. Overall, I'm so glad we tried the Whole30. I'm really proud of us for sticking to it and making a big change in our lives.

Below, some more food pics.

Breakfasts were usually eggs plus vegetable leftovers and fruit. They encourage you to think of it as "meal one" and eat anything compliant, not just breakfasty foods, but I could only go so far with that. Luckily, we like eggs. Smoked salmon also saved us.

I made a few recipes I liked a lot, but mostly our meals were pretty simple.