The Dirty on Whole30: The Finish Line

Hey guys! Happy post-thanksgiving!

I missed you, but I was busy doing family things and spending quality time trying to pump into my kid’s brain that I, ONLY ME, am her mother, not the daycare ladies who are probably nicer and funnier and know more stupid baby songs, whatever. They can’t compete with those 9 months of just her and I hanging out and eating egg rolls for breakfast. Special times.

Before we dive back into the gripping conclusion of my journey through the uncharted territory that was Whole30, I have a couple housekeeping things to get out of the way.

First, it has been brought to my attention by someone who may have my same last name and pay half my mortgage that my swearing has not, as promised, been kept in check. I apologize and need to do a better job if for no other reason than I don’t want my kid picking up my bad habits and telling the sweet sweet daycare ladies to “fuck off” when she’s asked to pick up her toys.

SO rule three back from blog post numero uno is now very much back in play and I will do my darndest (see, SEE what I’m doing?) to find alternative words for those four letter suckers that have taken up permanent residence in my vocabulary. In “real” life I’ve been trying to utilize the phrase “holy bananas” a lot more and I gotta say, it’s growing on me much like the long yellow fruit does on the tree… or vine or whatever they do. Sprout? Who TF knows. Ahh, and yes as you see, I’m going to use acronyms wherever possible to skirt around rule three because well, I hate it.

Second, a couple people (yes a solid TWO) asked me how they can get notified about when a new blog is posted and I figured if two asked, hell there has to be AT LEAST another two who haven’t, but are interested. So I’ve included a handy screenshot for how you subscribe via mobile. If you hit that little follow button at the bottom right it will prompt you for an email address and then you’ll get an email whenever I post a new blog.

THAT IS THE ONLY TIME you will get emailed. I’m not going to subscribe you to CatFacts™ or fill your inbox with emails about the sale I’m having on oddly patterned mom leggings. Nope! You’ll just get an email about new blog posts when they happen because that’s how I roll. And also because I have no idea how to even access the emails, so there’s that. If you unsubscribe at any point I probably won’t know that either, so rest assured if I stop liking your Instagram things or start giving you likes instead of loves on FB, it’s probably because your stuff has gotten lame and not unsubscribe related. Do better.

Oh and if you’re reading my blog on a desktop I don’t know where the subscribe button is, sorry. You lose.

NOW ON TO THE BLOG!!! because I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to be finished with this topic and move on to some more timely (and juicy) holiday stuff. So much juice.

Now where were we??? Themes, yes. I’m gonna go ahead and combine 3 and 4 because four was really just an arbitrary number that I came up with when I could remember the month of October more clearly. It’s kind of a blur now, so let’s skip to the end. All in agreement? Bully!

3 & 4. The Aftermath and Takeaways
Whole30 came to a conclusion for us at midnight on October 30th. The next day was Halloween and Dave and I had both taken the day off from work bc we wanted to be home to take the kid trick or treating while it was still light out so she didn’t get eaten by a coyote, but having the day off also meant we could choose our own adventure to bust out of Whole30 in a blaze of glory.

We chose The Cheesecake Factory.

For those of you who don’t know, I have a long complicated history with the Cheesecake Factory. I worked there for a while in college and was subsequently fired from there when I told a customer that bread doesn’t just “jump in the basket on its own” after she accused me of daring to graze the side of her sourdough with my hand.

After that fateful day, I desperately wanted to hate the castle of cake made from cheese and tried to stay away. I padded my days with Red Lobster and The Olive Garden hoping to fill the mediocre restaurant chain-sized hole in my heart, but it was useless. The Factory beckoned and after a short boycott period, I went home. The CF doesn’t judge and soon it was as if I’d never left. We were joined together once again and broke bread over family style portions for one from the Encyclopedia Britannica of menus.

I get made fun of a lot for this CF obsession and there are only two people in my life who understand the very essence of what makes it so great and I happened to marry one of them. So it made perfect sense to dive back into the world of sugar and carbs in a place that felt like the building equivalent of a warm hug topped with whip cream.

So it was.

Whole30 ended with a diet coke and little slice of heaven that was shaped like a triangle and tasted like red velvet with cheese made from cream. It was the taste equivalent of that moment when you wake up in a panic thinking it’s Monday, but then realize it’s MotherEffin’ Sunday and you ease back into your dreams with the covers pulled snug and tight.

THAT. It tasted like that.

Because I wanted to see if Whole30 had actually done anything other than make me hate every human eating a slice of bread, on Halloween morning I took what the diet folks like to call “progress pics,” which consisted of me taking photos in front of a full length mirror wearing nothing but mismatched bra and undies. I won’t post those here because I don’t think we’re all at that stage in our relationship yet, but I can say after the final weigh-in I discovered I’d lost a total of 6lbs in the month of October.

Now I know that seems like next to nothing. What’s six pounds? That’s like an average sized avocado or a really big grape, BUT my quest began 3 months prior to October with a plan to lose 15lbs and I saw ZERO progress for those three months, so needless to say it was a pretty big freakin’ deal to me.

Dave didn’t weigh himself before or after, but it’s safe to say he looked good before and even gooder after.

Our cat Poe, who’s a notorious food beggar because someone, not gonna name names, might have started sharing her bowls of soup with him at a young age, was pretty amped about the protein palooza going on at the Breh house all throughout October and definitely got his fair share of nibbles. He didn’t do a before/after weigh-in either, so the jury is still out on Whole30’s effect on cats, but rest assured it will be confirmed whenever that time of year comes around when we remember cats need to go to the vet to avoid an Old Yeller situation.

After our victory lunch and the powdered sugar dust settled, I thought long and hard about what I planned to take with me from Whole30 and keep incorporated into my daily diet. The weekday meals with Dave are going to stay because I like looking at him and sometimes he says something cool. I’m also sticking about as low carb as possible because as much as I wanted to believe the type of calorie doesn’t matter and it’s all calories in, calories out, it does. It freaking does. Or at least it does for ME at this stage in my life as evidenced by the 30-day experiment. There’s just no denying at this point that carbs are the delicious devil that kept me out of size 4 jeans for too many months post baby.

So it is.

However, that doesn’t mean I didn’t moterboat the hell out of my sister-in-law’s stuffing on Thanksgiving. There are some things and some occasions I won’t compromise. That list includes birthday cake (I don’t care who’s birthday it is, any old bullshit relative I see once a year or co-worker I mildly despise will do, I don’t discriminate) all holiday meals (OBVI!) and whip cream mainlined straight from the can – the way God intended.

The things I WON’T be taking with me from Whole30 include:

1. Using Ghee for anything. Ghee is non-dairy overpriced butter goo and it sucks. That’s all you need to know. Don’t even google it. I refuse to grant Ghee any more power than it already has. Get off the earth, Ghee. Nobody likes you.

2. Attempting to cook anything thicker than a toothpick on the stove – my GOD the number of times I cut into things after cooking them for what felt like an eternity only to see that pink flesh staring back at me in all its mocking glory was infuriating. Fuck the stove. Yes, I said it.

3. Cutting out dairy. Guys, cheese is awesome and an invention that should be celebrated in all its many forms. Unless you have an allergy, if you don’t support cheese, I’m sorry we just can’t hang out.

That brings me to the end of all I have to say about Whole30. Will I ever do it again? Eh. I feel like it’s one of those things you have to do just to say you did it and then move on with your life. However I said the same thing about running a marathon and we all know how that story went (if you don’t: spoiler alert, I was training for my second full marathon when I got pregnant and the kid ruined everything, but it will happen again) So who knows. Maybe another Whole30 is in my future and maybe next time I’ll actually do it perfectly.

Yeah, I failed to mention that I went on a trip to LA in the middle of October and at one point was served a salad with parmesan cheese, which I ate because I didn’t want to be THAT girl with my co-workers sending back food and making them wait to devour their delicious California meals.

When I got home, I sulked into the living room, sat down next to Dave with my tail between my legs and told him my nasty parmesan secret that occurred during my time away.

His response: “Uh yeah that’s cool… I ate a pizza.”

FIN.