Mrs. Darwin was just posting about how she is not feeling the Whole 30 love. But that's okay, Mrs. Darwin, because I have enough Whole 30 love for the both of us.
Here is my deal: with the first three kids, the pregnancy weight disappeared painlessly in a few months. With the fourth kid, I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight at 4 months postpartum but I had to work at it. (Remember The Vegetable Project? I'm having a moment of nostalgia for the 2005 blogosphere.) And then with Stella, those last 10 pounds didn't want to go anywhere. I was briefly back to "my" weight when I started teaching here and was too stressed out to eat, but it all came back and it brought friends. I said, "Okay, I can do this. I've lost 20 pounds before; I can do it again." But these were 20 stubborn pounds, and I was over 40, and finally I threw up my hands and bought bigger pants.
Then one day in July of 2014, Nancy said, "Hey, who wants to do a sugar-free August with me?" I don't know what possessed me, but I said, "Sure! And I'll do a grain-free dairy-free legume-free carrageenan-free white-potato-free* probably joy-free August while I'm at it!" (*You can have white potatoes on the Whole 30 now, which, if you ask me, makes it practically the Hot Fudge Sundae Diet in comparison to that earlier version.)
This decision was motivated chiefly by vanity, but it wasn't vanity that made it stick. Somewhere in week 3 of the Whole 30 I was taken over by a peppier peaceful-er productive-er version of myself. The kids noticed, saying, "Hey, Mom, you are weirdly mellow and understanding lately." I got that article sent off for peer review, the one that had been sapping my will to live. (And guess what? Published, TYVM.) It seemed almost ancillary that I lost >11 pounds in those 30 days, without feeling hungry.
With some trepidation, I added back forbidden food categories one by one, still mostly eating according to Whole 30 rules. (No sweets, though. I'm pretty sure I've only had dessert on Christmas and Easter since I started this.) More weight fell off my body, about another 10 or 12 pounds. I did the Whole 30 again in March of 2015, and again this year, right after Epiphany. It's not going to be a full-time thing for me -- it's expensive, I have a vegetarian kid, and honestly if I ate that way all the time it would be hard for me to find pants that didn't fall off -- but it's a great way to push the reset button. My weight is stable in the range that suits me. I don't crave sweets. I might need a few stitches to deal with the dagger-eyes that just came hurtling through my computer screen after that comment about pants, but aside from the impending stab wounds I've been feeling great.
The Whole 30 is a weird and gimmicky program. Are the lectins in legumes really responsible for the malaise and malfunctions that plague us all? I doubt it. My husband, who cooks most of our dinners these days, has been super-accommodating but he does get a little grumbly about the Whole 30. I can't blame him. At the same time, I'm sure I'll do it again.
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