Anyone interested in starting a Whole 30 challenge thread for July?

What is that???

The Whole30, Version 3.11

What is the Whole30?

Certain food groups (like grains, legumes and dairy) are probably having a negative impact on your health and fitness without you even realizing it. Are your energy levels inconsistent or non-existent? Do you have aches and pains that can’t be explained by over-use or injury? Are you having a hard time losing weight no matter how hard you try? Do you have some sort of condition (like skin problems, digestive ailments, seasonal allergies or fertility issues) that medication hasn’t helped? These symptoms may be directly related to the foods you eat – even the “healthy” stuff. So how do you know if (and how) these foods are affecting you?

Strip them from your diet completely. Cut out all the inflammatory, insulin-spiking, calorie-dense but nutritionally sparse food groups for a full 30 days. Let your body heal and recover from whatever effects those foods may be provoking. Push the “reset” button with your metabolism, systemic inflammation, and the downstream effects of the food choices you’ve been making. Learn once and for all how the foods you’ve been eating are actually affecting your day to day life, and your long term health. The most important reason to keep reading?

This will change your life.

We cannot possibly put enough emphasis on this simple fact – the next 30 days will change your life. It will change the way you think about food, it will change your tastes, it will change your habits and your cravings. It could, quite possibly, change the emotional relationship you have with food, and with your body. It has the potential to change the way you eat for the rest of your life. We know this because we did it, and thousands of people have since done it, and it changed our lives (and their lives) in a very permanent fashion.

The Whole30 Program, As Outlined

Eat real food – meat, fish, eggs, tons of vegetables, some fruit, and plenty of good fats. Eat foods with very few ingredients, all pronounceable ingredients, or better yet, no ingredients listed at all because they’re natural and unprocessed.

More importantly, here’s what NOT to eat during the duration of your Whole30 program. Omitting all of these foods and beverages will help you regain your healthy metabolism, reduce systemic inflammation, and help you discover how these foods are truly impacting your health, fitness and quality of life.

*Do not consume added sugar of any kind, real or artificial. No maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, Splenda, Equal, Nutrasweet, xylitol, stevia, etc. Read your labels, because companies sneak sugar into products in all kinds of ways.

*Do not eat processed foods. This includes protein shakes, pre-packaged snacks/meals, protein bars, milk substitutes, etc.

*Do not drink alcohol, in any form.

*Do not eat grains. This includes (but is not limited to) wheat, rye, barley, millet, oats, corn, rice, sprouted grains and all of those gluten-free pseudo-grains like quinoa. (Yes, we said corn!) This also includes all the ways we add wheat, corn and rice into our foods in the form of bran, germ, starch and so on. Again, read your labels.

*Do not eat legumes. This includes beans (black, kidney, lima, etc.), peas, lentils, and peanuts or peanut butter. This also includes all forms of soy – soy sauce, miso, tofu, tempeh, edamame, and all the ways we sneak soy into foods (like lecithin).

*Do not eat dairy. This includes all cow, goat or sheep’s milk, cream, butter, cheese, yogurt, whey, ice cream, etc.

*Do not eat white potatoes. It’s arbitrary, but they are carbohydrate-dense and nutrient poor, and also a nightshade.

***Most importantly… do not try to shove your old, unhealthy diet into a shiny new Whole30 mold. This means no “Paleo-fying” less-than-healthy recipes – no “Paleo” pancakes, “Paleo” pizza, “Paleo” fudge or “Paleo” ice cream. Don’t mimic poor food choices during your Whole30 program!

One last and final rule. You are not allowed to step on the scale for the duration of your Whole30 program. This is about so much more than just weight loss, and to focus only on your body composition means you’ll miss out on the most dramatic (and lifelong) benefits this plan has to offer. Give yourself a well-deserved, long overdue break from fixating on that number on the scale! Absolutely NO weighing yourself or taking comparative measurements during your Whole30.

The Fine Print

A few concessions, based on our experience, and those of our clients. These are less than optimal foods that we are okay with you including during your Whole30. Including these foods in moderation should not negatively impact the results of your Whole30 program.

*Fruit juice as a sweetener. Some products will use orange or apple juice as a sweetener. We have to draw the line somewhere, so we’re okay with a small amount of fruit juice as an added ingredient during your Whole30… but this doesn’t mean a cup of fruit juice is okay!

*Processed Meat. On occasion, we are okay with organic chicken sausage (those that are nitrate, dairy, gluten and dairy-free), and high quality deli meat, packaged fish (like tuna or smoked salmon) or jerky. Read your labels carefully, because Whole30-approved processed meats, especially jerky, are hard to find.

*Certain legumes. We’re fine with green beans, sugar snap peas and snow peas. While they’re technically a legume, they’re far more “pod” than “bean”, and we want you to eat your greens.

*Processed goods. We’re okay with cans or jars of olives, coconut milk, sauces and spice mixtures like tomato sauce or curry, or vegetables like sweet potato or butternut squash, but only if the labels prove they’re “clean”.

Ready to Start?

Now that you have the basic plan, you need to know how to implement it. It’s simple, actually. Start now. Today. This minute. Count out thirty days on your calendar. Plan out a week’s worth of meals, go to your local health food store, farmer’s market or grocer and stock up on things you’ll be eating. And then… go. Cold turkey, just start. Don’t put this off, not for one more day. If you give yourself excuses or reasons to delay, you may never begin. Do it now.

Your only job for the next 30 days is to focus on making good food choices. You don’t need to weigh or measure, you don’t need to count calories, you don’t need to stress about organic, grass-fed, pastured or free range. Just figure out how to stick to the Whole30 in any setting, around every special circumstance, for the next 30 days. Your only job? Eat. Good. Food.

The only way this will work is if you give it the full thirty days, no cheats, slips or special occasions. This isn’t Whole9 playing the tough guy. This is a FACT, born of education and experience. You need such a small amount of any of these inflammatory foods to break the healing cycle – one bite of a friend’s pizza, one splash of milk in your coffee, one lick of the spoon mixing the cake batter within the 30 day period and you’ve broken the “reset” button. You must commit to the full program, exactly as written. Anything less and we make no claims as to your results, or the chances of your success. Anything less and you are selling yourself – and your potential results – short.

It’s only 30 days.

It’s For Your Own Good

Here comes the tough love. This is for those of you who are considering taking on this life-changing month, but aren’t sure you can actually pull it off, cheat free, for a full 30 days. This is for the people who have tried this before, but who “slipped” or “fell off the wagon” or “just HAD to eat (fill in food here) because of this (fill in event here)”. This is for you.

It is not hard. Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. Giving up heroin is hard. Beating cancer is hard. Drinking your coffee black. Is. Not. Hard. You won’t get any coddling, and you won’t get any sympathy for your “struggles”. YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE not to complete the program as written. It’s only thirty days, and it’s for the most important cause on earth – the only physical body you will ever have in this lifetime.

Don’t even consider the possibility of a “slip”. Unless you physically tripped and your face landed in a box of donuts, there is no “slip”. You make a choice to eat something of poor quality. It is always a choice, so do not phrase it as if you had an accident. Commit to the program, 100%, for the full 30 days, and don’t give yourself an excuse to fail before you’ve even started.

You never, ever, ever HAVE to eat anything you don’t want to eat. You’re all big boys and girls. Toughen up. Learn to say no (or make your Mom proud and say, “No, thank you”). Learn to stick up for yourself. Just because it’s your sister’s birthday, or your best friend’s wedding, or your company picnic does not mean you have to eat anything. It’s always a choice, and we would hope that you stopped succumbing to peer pressure in 7th grade.

This does require a bit of effort. If you’re cutting out grains, legumes and dairy for the first time, you have to replace those calories with something. You have to make sure you’re eating enough, that your vitamins and nutrients are plentiful, that you’re getting enough protein, fat and carbohydrates. You’ll have to figure out what to eat for lunch, how to order at a restaurant and how often you’ll need to grocery shop. We’ve given you all the tools, guidelines and resources you’ll need in this Success Guide, but take responsibility for your own plan. Improved health, fitness and performance doesn’t happen just because you’re now taking a pass on bread.

In Conclusion

We want you to participate. We want you to take this seriously, and see amazing results in unexpected areas. Even if you don’t believe this will actually change your life, if you’re willing to give it 30 short days, do it. It is that important. We believe in it that much. It changed our lives, and we want it to change yours too.

There are plenty of “nutrition challenges” out there – programs that promise you’ll see quick weight loss, more energy and improved performance without missing out on the foods you really like. These plans give you more of what you want – arbitrary points for eating junk food, or an exercise penance for cheating, or acceptable alcohol choices “if you must drink”. But here at Whole9, we’ve built our entire business around telling you what you need, not what you want. We will not pander to you here. We will tell you what we know to be true, based on literally hundreds of testimonials and clients’ real results. Programs that offer built-in cheats or rationalizations for less than healthy food choices simply do not work long-term. They don’t teach you anything about how the foods you are eating are affecting you, and they don’t do anything to help you change your habits, patterns and behaviors. The Whole30 program has been in motion for 18 months now, with participants all across the world – and has measurable, real-life, sustainable results to back up our claims.

This is intriguing, and could be just what I need. OK, I'm in. Let's keep this thread going as we cheer each other on.

I've never cut out dairy before.
July 31st is my first anniversay so I'd be okay till then.
hhhmmmm

I've cut out most of my dairy, but I LOOOOOOOVE the taste of butter when I fry a steak in it, or sautee vegetables. I also use some HFWC. Still, it's just for the month of July. We can do that! If, at the end of the month we decide we really want our little bit of dairy back, we can do that.

I'm going to eat butter every day until July 1.

It looks really hard to do for somebody that has not gone low carb yet or is still gradually cutting down on carbs. I'm sure the best way to cut carbs is to do so gradually (it worked for me and have very few carbs now). This challenge looks like the kind of thing a lot of people could fail on and then give up.

Warren,
The challenge doesn't have to be low carb. I did the challenge back in March and one day I ate sweet potatoes with every meal. Any challenge has the option to fail if the person doing it doesn't really want to do it. The whole point of this challenge is that you make the decision to stick to it for 30 days.

Well I'm just going by what the challenge rules say. It looks low carb to me.

Warren, I don't understand your argument. Aren't we all here already low carb?

Warren,
One day I ate 3 whole large sweet potatoes = approximately 70+ carbs. This didn't include the non-starchy veggies I ate during the day. Some days I'm sure I got around 100+ carbs. And while that is much lower carb than SAD, it's much higher than normal low carb levels.

Since part of the Whole 30 is to not measure, I'm not sure exactly how many carbs on a daily basis, but I did not limit any starchy carbs and still lost 12lbs.

And since most people find this forum because they are doing "low carb", I'm not sure what your issue is with a challenge that allows for a larger carb allowance than something like Atkins induction.

No. Anyone can read this forum, including people that are only considering the idea of going low carb.
I really don't think it's a great idea for somebody inexperienced to jump straight into cutting so many carbs out all in one go.

My issue is with a challenge that doesn't seem to take into account that some people are totally inexperienced with cutting down on carbs. These people may try the challenge and possibly fail and then get put off low carbing altogether.
There is no mention of eating things like sweet potatoes or anything else instead of potatoes and grains. Would an inexperienced person think of sweet potatoes? I wouldn't have done when i first started.

I didn't notice what the carb allowance is in the challenge.

Re: Atkins. I don't like the look of the Atkins induction or follow the Atkins diet.

Warren,

1) This forum is called the Active Low Carb Forum.
a)While many people will come to this forum with various diet plans, the majority of the people visiting this site are aware of various forms of carb restriction.
b) If someone is just “considering” the idea of low carb, they will be unlikely to participate in a challenge without doing additional research and deciding whether they would participate in a diet that restricts carbohydrates. Most intelligent people beginning a challenge or diet that they are unfamiliar with, will do research to discover details to said diet prior to starting. They will also make the decision of whether they will follow the "rules" of said diet prior to participating.
c)In the event a person posted in this challenge, who was not familiar with the majority of low carb diets that are discussed with this forum, I would have mentioned that this was not a standard "low carb" diet challenge and was a challenge to eliminate processed foods. Which I believe is clearly spelled out in the post above.

2) The sub-forum is Paleolithic & Neanderthin and the Whole 30 challenge is a Paleo challenge.
a) I posted challenge within this forum specifically for people who would be familiar with the paleo style eating (which includes sweet potatoes)
b) If you Google Whole 30, you will find the Whole 9 website which would provide massive amounts of information on the type of diet and what foods are considered applicable to the challenge.
c) There is no specific carb allowance with the Whole 30 challenge. Each individual person decides for themselves what amounts of carbs they are fine with. The purpose of the challenge is to eat whole, unprocessed, unrefined, real food for 30 days.

4) Just because you “really don't think it's a great idea for somebody inexperienced to jump straight into cutting so many carbs out all in one go” doesn’t matter to me or to anyone else who would be participating in this challenge.
a)Numerous low carb diets promote exactly this idea.
b)If this is something that you feel deserves additional discussion on the pros and cons on whether it is or is not “appropriate” to eliminate some or all carbs and how this should be approached, you should start a new thread under “Newbie Questions” or even “Low carb War Zone”.

I hope this helps you understand why I’m confused as to why you felt it was necessary to question the tenants of a low carb lifestyle within my challenge thread instead of starting a new thread somewhere it was more appropriate.

I suspect that if they struggled through for a week, they will start to feel lighter, have less aches/pains, the brain fog lifts, have more energy, and have less depression... any number of these (or all of the above) can some times lead people to continue just to see what other good/reward is down the road.

In my humble opinion, the best way to cut carbs is go cold turkey and get it out of the system. Then you can really see how much better you feel without them.

I totally agree! cold turkey is the way to go!!

It sounds like a fun challenge and anyone can join if they want to.