Nutrition

Many, will be following the Whole30 rules throughout the commitment. Here are their rules:

Yes: Eat real food.

Eat moderate portions of meat, seafood, and eggs; lots of vegetables; some fruit; plenty of natural fats; and herbs, spices, and seasonings. Eat foods with very few ingredients, all pronounceable ingredients, or better yet, no ingredients listed at all because they’re whole and unprocessed.

No: Avoid for 30 days.

Do not consume added sugar, real or artificial. No maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, coconut sugar, date syrup, stevia, Splenda, Equal, Nutrasweet, xylitol, etc. Read your labels, because companies sneak sugar into products in ways you might not recognize.

Do not consume alcohol, in any form, not even for cooking. (And ideally, no tobacco products of any sort, either.)

Do not eat grains. This includes (but is not limited to) wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, rice, millet, bulgur, sorghum, sprouted grains, and all gluten-free pseudo-cereals like quinoa, amaranth, and buckwheat. 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 of all kinds (black, red, pinto, navy, white, kidney, lima, fava, etc.), peas, chickpeas, lentils, and peanuts. No peanut butter, either. 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 cow, goat, or sheep’s milk products like milk, cream, cheese, kefir, yogurt, sour cream, ice cream, or frozen yogurt.

Do not consume carrageenan, MSG, or sulfites. If these ingredients appear in any form on the label of your processed food or beverage, it’s out for the Whole30.

Do not consume baked goods, junk foods, or treats with “approved” ingredients. Recreating or buying sweets, treats, and foods-with-no-brakes (even if the ingredients are technically compliant) is totally missing the point of the Whole30, and will compromise your life-changing results. These are the same foods that got you into health-trouble in the first place—and a pancake is still a pancake, even if it’s made with coconut flour.

All of the Whole30 foods pass the “good food standards” which mean they promote a healthy psychological response, promote a healthy hormonal response, support a healthy gut, and support immune function and minimize inflammation.

What does that mean? These foods will help reconnect delicious, rewarding food with nutrition and satiety that God intended, while breaking the connection to sweet, fatty, salty foods that provide little to no nutritional value and mess with our body’s chemistry, which some believe the food industry intended.

These foods will help the body to revert back to lower levels of insulin and leptin, as well as assist in decreasing cortisol (a stress hormone) in the body. All hormones which play a role in reducing fat and balancing hunger naturally.

These foods will help restore a healthy gut lining in the stomach, leading to less chronic disease, hypersensitivities, and autoimmune conditions in the body. A healthy gut also promotes a stronger immune system, which means being healthier overall and less susceptible to viral and bacterial infections.

Finally, these foods will also decrease systemic inflammation in the body, reducing the risk for lifestyle related diseases and conditions like acne, allergies, chronic pain, depression, eczema, fibromyalgia, thyroid dysfunctions, joint pain, migraines, obesity and Parkinson’s– to name a few. Reduced inflammation also assists the body’s immune system by allowing it to not be overloaded with inflammation, thereby not making it choose which battle it needs to “fight” if or when an “invader” comes into the picture.

As you can see, this challenge is more than just hoping to lose some extra weight we may have been carrying around for some time now. It is about getting all the junk out of our bodies that has really been inhibiting its overall function for quite some time. Once we fight through the addictions of sugar, alcohol, and simple carbs, our bodies have the chance to rest a while and begin to reconnect to the goodness God created for us.

Complete and Continue