At the beginning of January after we returned from our holiday travels, we started on a clean eating journey to help discover what might be some triggers for Josh's annoying heart burn and I was just also very curious to see how eating better would change the way we felt.
We officially ended our initial phase of eating better on Super Bowl Sunday and I'm eager to share what we have discovered. Now, I wasn't 110% die hard sticking to any particular plan. It was vaguely whole 30 and kinda paleo, but not completely. For instance, hummus. I think hummus is good for you. But it is not whole 30 or paleo compliant. Also on whole 30 you are not supposed to create a dessert "substitute" - even if it is only made of nutritious and healthy things. But you know what, life is too short to not have healthy dessert alternatives. So yeah. We weren't perfect, but we did really well for ourselves.
Here's what we discovered so far:
(1) Josh misses bread the most. I miss sugar the most. So we found our emotional eating triggers, lol!
(2) Josh's heart burn was significantly reduced. So far we think the culprits are sugar, chocolate, and sadly for josh (because he loves it) peppermint. We don't think that tomatoes are a huge problem for him, nor do we think dairy or gluten is overly horrible for his heartburn.
(3) My energy levels have been amazing eating cleaner. I used to drag through the mornings and want an afternoon pick me up. I really have good energy levels all through the day, but I'm always ready for bed time, lol. Josh didn't feel a difference in the mornings but he said he noticed the most difference in how he felt during the afternoons. He just didn't feel that after lunch lull that you can experience sometimes.
(4) I lost about 7 pounds and josh lost about 12 pounds. That's all sugar and carbs. We didn't do any additional exercise during this time (I'm still figuring out what is our best work out plan for 2017). That's pretty good for just change in diet over the course of 4 weeks.
(5) Our taste buds have pretty much re-adjusted. It doesn't take much salt or flavor to really pack a powerful punch. I think one of the most shocking snacks I fell in love with was raw almonds. They are absolutely delicious. I like them better than roasted and salted almonds!! It's amazing how good simple food can taste when you cut out all the excess stuff.
(6) I um...well...I pooped less. I know, TMI. But it makes sense. If one is eating more stuff that can be used and less excess crap, well then there will be less excess crap, ya know?!
It's our goal to continue to eat cleanly but have one cheat day we allow ourselves. We also won't go nuts if we go to dinner at someone's house and everything isn't paleo/whole 30 menu wise. It's about balance for us, not being sticklers. That being said, since the flu hit our home this past week we have not at all stuck to it. However, we have also not eaten much of anything other than chicken soup and saltines, lol. So we will hopefully jump back on the bandwagon this week, as our stomachs are finally back up to the task of eating.
I greatly encourage anyone to look into trying out a diet like this just to see how your body does with it. I was always super skeptical when people said they felt better when they ate whole based foods. I thought - well I don't feel bad, so why even bother? And yes, I didn't feel bad - I didn't suffer from any ailments from the food I was eating, but I also didn't realize that I could feel even BETTER! And with two little people full of energy constantly needing to be attended to, I need every ounce of energy I can get!
