Taking a stab at Whole30

I have decided to do a Whole30 challenge. Time for a reset!  In terms of eating, I have more bad habits than good at this point, despite knowing so much about nutrition and loving to cook.  I know I need a change, as I am impairing my health and my performance.  I just have yet to be successful at making the change.  In all my failures, I have seen that I need rules.  Whole30 = lots of rules. It promises to change my life, and while that is probably a bit extreme, I like the sound of that.

I have tried similar things before. In the past year I have done two bouts of the 21 Day Sugar Detox, and lost it by two weeks in.  This is a little more flexible, as fruits are allowed.

Whole30 is ideally how I would like to eat long term.  I realize that in the heat of Ironman training (and I picture myself being lean and mean at that point), I might need some carby things like rice to fill in the gaps, but that is a ways off.  I also know that as my training picks up, I don't want to not fuel my workouts. Gu's were created for a reason, and despite how fun it was to eat a mashed up (green) banana out of a ziplock bag last year during long runs with the 21 Day Sugar Detox, I will eventually go to the gu and Perform and whatever else. But to truly reset myself, I do plan on not using any gu's during the Whole30. 

The timing honestly couldn't be worse.  I am going to a conference this week out of state. My 30 days will also include a wedding and another conference.  But I've decided to go for it anyways.  1) I can't keep going down this road for even another day.  2) Training-wise, the timing is perfect. None of my workouts are too tough where it will be a real struggle to not have tons of carbs. 3) With my big exam coming up, I really want to have stern rules to prevent stress eating. 4) Real life happens. If I always make an excuse for some upcoming event, I won't get anywhere. Instead, if I use this to learn that I can survive, then I really won't have any excuses. 

Another caveat of Whole30 is no weighing.  I weighed myself yesterday morning, and will try my best to stay off the scale.  Honestly, if this doesn't happen, I'm not too concerned, but keep it at a once a week at most deal.

Yesterday was day 1 and now I am half-way through day 2.  I even went in both Whole Foods and Trader Joe's yesterday and didn't get a single free sample.  This morning at work there were cookies and candies galore from patients, and I found it wasn't even hard to resist them. Yay for rules!  I am probably overeating, and definitely overdid it on the nuts and nut butter, but baby steps!