Lessons Learned from Whole 30

As I reflect on my Whole30 experience, I'm always surprised by how emotional fasting can be.  What began as a journey to health inevitably ends up teaching me more about who I am mentally and emotionally, forcing me to unearth an unhealthy relationship with food that goes back years.  I detailed a good bit of that in this post.  Whole30 requires as much mental toughness and discipline as it does physical, and the program taught me a great deal about my ability to persevere even the toughest challenges, so here are a few of the key lessons Whole30 taught me.

1.  It may seem the whole world is plotting against your desire to eat more healthfully.  

Yup, in a backroom somewhere, the "world" schemes ways to sidetrack the most diligent among us. Perhaps that's a bit overblown, but for those of us who have decided to go Paleo and exhibit a small desire not to cook every meal for the rest of our lives, eating out is near impossible.  Even if Paleo isn't your thing and you just want to eat more vegetables, I dare you to find a conveniently located fast-food restaurant that meets your standard of serving one vegetable that isn't a French fry or overcooked, salty green beans.  Most places offer salads, but many of those are laden with cheese, corn, or other non-Paleo fare.  For most of my Whole30 experience, I chose to avoid restaurants.  I discovered quickly that most meats are soaked in soy-based or sulfite-containing marinades.  I doubt grass-fed meats grace most menus and almost all vegetables were sprinkled with a processed butter substitute.  It seems that though we swear to jumping on the healthy bandwagon, it's little more than lip-service.  If there were an actual public demand for healthier fare at most restaurants, it would be offered.  The truth is most of us aren't willing to part with our Big Macs.  If we speak with our wallets, the restaurant industry will listen.

2.  Prepare, prepare, prepare

Whole30 requires an inordinate amount of planning, and I've discovered so does healthy eating in general.  If you aren't willing to plan meals, shop strategically, and cook some things ahead of time then you are setting yourself up for failure.  This type of lifestyle change is possible, but it isn't easy.  As with most worthy goals, work is required to achieve success.  It simply isn't possible to create real change without effort, and a healthier lifestyle is no different.  If you wait until eight o'clock at night after a long day of work to think about what you're going to eat for dinner, you'll grab whatever is convenient, regardless of its nutritional value.  If you want to succeed in making a significant lifestyle change, commit to doing the work required to succeed.  There's no shortcut to health.  

3.  Seek out resources to help you on your journey

Though difficult, living Paleo doesn't have to be impossible.  I learned quickly that there was no reason to try and navigate a new, unexplored path.  Thousands of people have been successfully living a healthy, whole-food Paleo lifestyle for years, and glory, they have shared their tips for success, common pitfalls, and recipes....tons and tons of recipes.  You don't have to travel alone, friend.  Subscribe to one of the hundreds of excellent blogs like Mark's Daily Apple, Paleo Parents (especially if you have children), NomNom Paleo, or Rubies and Radishes.  And that's just a sampling.  Subscribe to a magazine like Paleo Magazine.  All of these offer recipes, advice, and support, which are critical to success.

4.  Whole30 will make you feel and look great, leading to more body confidence.

Okay, I'll admit, my only disappointment with the initial thirty days of Whole30 was that I only lost five pounds.  First of all, I realize Whole30 is a lifestyle change to improve my health longterm, not a quick-loss fad diet, but I was expecting a few more pounds to melt away.  That being said, one of the big benefits of Whole30 is a noticeably flatter stomach, in addition to glowing skin, fewer breakouts, and energy through the roof.

I was so impressed with my flatter stomach that one morning while shopping, I decided to try a smaller size in a skirt.  I waltzed into Banana Republic, grabbed an adorable skirt off the rack, skipped into the fitting room, and easily slipped it on. After admiring my slimmer physique in the three-way mirror, I walked back into the fitting room and began to unzip the skirt.  It wouldn't budge.  I yanked a little harder but to no avail.  After fighting with the zipper for several minutes, I meekly tiptoed out to the sales floor and caught the attention of a clerk.  "Ma'am, I can't get this skirt to unzip."  She confidently strode over to me and gave the zipper a yank.  Still, the stubborn zipper didn't budge.  "Greg," she called, "Come give this zipper a try."  Color flushed my cheeks as the young man wrestled unsuccessfully with the zipper.  Finally, the manager came over and attempted to free me from the skirt.  After a few seconds of tugging on the zipper, she took both hands and forcefully yanked, ripping the skirt off of my body in the middle of the sales floor.  I quickly grabbed the remains of the material wrapped it around my waist and fled to the fitting room.  I'm not saying the skirt was too snug, but perhaps I shouldn't have been so quick to grab a smaller size.  Whole30 might give you body confidence.  Use it wisely.

5.  Whole30 will change your relationship with food.  

Once my thirty days were complete, I surprisingly didn't run to the nearest Chick-fil-A and order a frosted lemonade.  In fact, I pretty much ate the same way I'd been eating for the previous thirty days.  Why?  I felt fantastic.  I'd finally learned to appreciate the art of cooking, the satisfaction of a meal prepared with whole food, free of preservatives and junk.  My body was responding in ways I'd never imagined:  better sleep, more energy, clearer skin, less brain fog.  I found myself not wanting to go back to eating as usual.  Granted, I don't imagine I'll be as dogmatic as I was during Whole30, I can't imagine completely returning to eating the way I did one month ago.  The benefits far outweigh the inconveniences.  I appreciate the taste of real food now, and with proper planning, it's become easier and easier to prepare meals.  My crockpot and I are now best friends, and I even know what to eat in a pinch.  Whole30 has transformed the way I think about eating, and I like it.  I enjoy living this way.

Whole30 and the Paleo lifestyle aren't for everyone.  I get the reluctance to give up pasta and cinnamon rolls.  While I once craved these foods, now I look forward to a plate of grilled steak and roasted brussels sprouts.  Seriously.  If you're looking for an eating plan that can transform your health, consider Whole30.  

The One Where I Open Up About My Struggle with Body Image

I quickly post pictures of me taken at the finish line of the Gulf Coast Triathlon without examining them too closely.  I just completed my first triathlon, and these pictures need to get to the world wide web as soon as possible.  The people need to know.  Later, when I've had time to recover, I scroll through the photographs taken by family and friends.  I pause on the one of me proudly holding up my finisher's medal, and I am disgusted.  My first thought isn't, "Look at what you just accomplished after years of battling injury.  You go girl!"  No, sadly, my first thought is, "Who is that big girl?  I look so fat." What should be my most triumphant moment in a long time reduces me to tears of frustration as I pore over every flaw, picking apart each inch of my body with a negativity I wouldn't reserve for my nemesis.

Me at the finish line of the Gulf Coast Tri

The old critic, the one I thought I'd long buried, resurges with as much vigor as she had when I was struggling to make it as a model in my early twenties.  Rather than see the athlete who survived, what I, perhaps dramatically, like to refer to as the near-death drowning experience on the 300 yard swim, finished third in her age group on a ten-mile bike ride, and hammered out two miles to come in fourth overall in my age group, I see a fat girl, and I've worked too damn hard on staying healthy to allow that girl back into my head.  

To understand my story, we must travel back to my middle school days, the place where tall, awkward, nerdy kids like me thrive.  This is where my body image issues began.  As a junior high cheerleader, I was at least two inches taller than the next tallest girl.  While my teammates' tiny, athletic bodies tumbled and flew through the air, I more or less thudded.  I recall on photo day, the photographer pointing to me and saying, "Big girl.  You line up in the back."  I'm sure he meant tall, but "big girl" echoed through my head the rest of the day.  (I was also the only person who forgot to bring white socks, so tan sock girl would have also been appropriate, but alas, big girl it was.)  No matter what the occasion, I was always a giant among tiny, muscular athletic people.  

As I entered high school, someone, perhaps noticing my discomfort with my Amazon-ish-ness, mentioned that models were tall, so I began to appreciate my height a little more.  I had also been told that I looked better in pictures than I did in person, so I began to send my photos to agents, hoping to get noticed.  I also knew models were ultra-thin, so I began dieting, and by dieting, I mean starving myself, and when the starvation become too much, binging and purging.  I knew exactly where to place my finger in my throat to bring up any meal.  Running water hid the sound of my retching, so no one was the wiser.  My weight fluctuated based on my level of determination.  Once I began pursuing modeling in earnest, though, I became so strict with my diet that I only allowed myself a few pretzel sticks each day.  Anything more and I dealt with an inordinate amount of guilt.  I also exercised for hours a day.  I dropped from 145 to 130, but that still wasn't good enough.  Any professional I met insisted that I still needed to lose weight.  I remember speaking with someone I had met in California and her first greeting was, "How's your weight?"  In the following photographs, I was still deemed too heavy for high fashion.

When I once looked at these photos I picked apart every flaw, every ounce of flab, a maelstrom of  self-condemnation.  Now I see a beautiful, young woman who needed a healthy relationship with food.

So, I dropped another 22 pounds, weighing a paltry 108 when I left home and moved to Atlanta to pursue modeling full-time.  I remember dancing in the fitting room the first time I buttoned a pair of size 3 Calvin Klein jeans.  I was exhilarated!  My dance was short-lived, though, when the exertion almost caused me to pass out.  My family grew so concerned with my weight that my mom forced me to watch the Karen Carpenter story and explained how talented she was, yet how her life was cut short from anorexia, but for once, I felt powerful and in control.  I couldn't control the responses of agents or that sense of restlessness and uncertainty about my purpose, but I could control my weight, and I controlled it like a czar.  I didn't care that I was listless or losing hair by the handful; I ignored the anxious pleas of those who loved me.  For once, I was skinny, and as a result, "beautiful".

I continued this ridiculous lifestyle for months.  I spent my time trying to book fashion shows or print jobs.  No matter how small I became there was always someone there to remind me of any flaws.  Then one day I woke up and simply decided to step off this crazy train.  I was sick.  I was tired.  I was dying inside, and I needed something to bring me back to life.  For years, food had been my enemy, not fuel for my body.  It was my foe, and I needed to learn the delicate balance of friendship, so I moved home and began college.  I also discovered a love of distance running, one that most likely saved my life.  It's impossible to starve yourself and run, so I began reading about nutrition.  Slowly, through prayer and the love of those around me, I began to see my body as the miracle it was.  My legs grew strong and muscular and propelled me through ten mile runs.  I threw out my scale, and to this day, rarely weigh myself.  I could be perfectly fine and at ease with my body, but one wrong number on the scale would send my day spiraling out of control, and a maelstrom of self-condemnation would suck me into a frenzy, ruining my day, so I tossed it and used the fit of my clothing as a gauge.  Bit by bit, I began to make peace with my body.

By the time I married and began to have children, I felt healthy and whole.  I arrived at the place where I  honestly didn't think about my weight.  For the first time in my life, I liked myself and my body.  From time to time, I'd see a photograph and cringe, but I would quickly quiet the critic in my head and move on.  Now, I focused on my marathon and half-marathon finishes, the twenty-six hours of labor that produced two beautiful children, the power it took to cycle 67 miles of a hilly course.  So, my response to my photograph at the finish of my first triathlon shocked me.  I thought I was finally over this body image nightmare, but I'm not.  I still have moments where I long to be that 108 pound girl in the size 3 Calvin Kleins, and you know what, that matters more now than ever because I have a daughter.

I've fought so hard for her to maintain a healthy view of my body.  I've never allowed fashion magazines into our home because I know how easily it is to fall into society's trap that shouts from every newsstand and grocery store aisle in the country:  This is true beauty.  We see it every time we walk into a store and find "skinny" jeans staring at us from every table.  I've never used the word fat or referred to my body as anything but strong and healthy, but that doesn't mean the self-loathing doesn't sneak back into my mind when I step out of the shower and notice the paunch that greets me in the mirror or the dimply thighs peeking out from my swimsuit.  I don't want my daughter to feel that way about her body.  I desperately want A and me to believe that we are beautifully and wonderfully made.

No matter how hard I fight, it's so difficult to prevent my daughter from internalizing society's idea of beauty.  Recently, she came to me and asked why her legs got fat when she sat, and I wanted to scream at the stupid fashion industry and ask where she heard the word "fat".   Instead, I explained to her that it wasn't fat she was seeing, it was muscle, and those muscles propel her through the water when she's swimming her 50 yard breast stroke, they are powering her forward as she bikes up a hill, they are providing her the strength she needs to cross the finish line of a 5K.  I flexed my thighs and showed her my running/cycling muscles then we compared who had the biggest muscles.  Because that's what I want her to see when she looks at her body:  power, promise, potential.  I long for her to see a capable, beautiful body that has the ability to bear children, run marathons, and inspire others.  But, it will be an uphill battle.

Right now, my girl doesn't know, but she's learning.  She doesn't quite fully understand that "thinner is better" or that she can only be accepted and loved if she's perfect, and I'm fighting hard not to send her that message.  Yet, the truth is she will listen more closely to my actions than my words.  Moms, it's time we stop spreading that message with the way we treat ourselves with the way we speak about ourselves.  Every time we look in the mirror and scowl because we don't measure up, regardless of what we speak, we say to our daughters, "I must look a certain way to be satisfied."  While we can't protect our daughters from the messages that society sends, we can equip them with the truth that their value is not based on their body type.  We can build within them a mindset that sees the impossible standards of beauty as a ridiculous myth that no longer needs to be perpetuated.

I'm realizing that as a mom and woman, I personally cannot transform what society values as the standard for perfection in beauty, so my child will grow up in a world that values women for our brains and contributions rather than our bodies, but I can transform my values.  And you can control yours.  What if, when we looked in the mirror, we practiced seeing what was beautiful? What if we start there?  What if we list every day all the things our bodies are capable of accomplishing?  What if we stop using the word fat or disgusting or hideous when talking to ourselves about our bodies?  What if we focused on a healthy relationship with food?  What if we exercised for strength and fitness rather than to sculpt an ideal that has been airbrushed beyond recognition and DOESN'T EVEN EXIST?

What if we learned to love ourselves and see our bodies as God sees them?  What if we sent a message with our money and stopped shopping at Victoria's Secret and Aerie and any other retailer that uses the sexualization of women and preteens' bodies to sell something?  What if we purchased from companies that revere women and use real women to advertise their products like Dove?  What if we stopped buying the lies and started rewarding those who are honest?  You and I individually might not make a difference but if we collectively shouted then maybe someone would start listening.

I don't share my struggle with many people; in fact, outside of my family and close friends, I've never shared it with anyone because I fight to keep it buried in the past where I hope it will let me alone.  I'm realizing, though, that I'm wasting my experience by keeping it to myself.  I believe that God never allows us to walk through a difficulty without somehow using that experience to help, to inspire, or to heal someone else.  My journey, though painful and frustrating, has value.  All of our stories do.  It's through the sharing that we heal and grow stronger and understand that we often fight the same battles.  I grow tired of hiding the flaws and fighting alone, so moms, let's fight this one together for the sake of our daughters and our sons.  Let's encourage and remind each other that each of us is beautifully and wonderfully made.

What Are You So Afraid Of?

My daughter rushes to where I am working and exclaims, "Mommy, I want to go to camp this summer."  I nod, noncommittally and respond, "I'll check into it."  It's still a couple of months until camp, so there's still time for her to change her mind, right?

Time throttles closer and each week, A asks, "Mommy, have you signed me up, yet?"  I look at my nine-year-old and sigh.  "Are you sure you're ready to spend an entire week at camp?  You won't be able to call or see us at all.  No texting either."  Way to crush her joy, Scrooge.  Should I mention the bears?

"Oh, I know.  I really want to go."  Hesitantly, I fill out the online form then sit with my finger perched precariously above the send button.  An entire week at camp.  My mind checks off the list of all that could go wrong: she could become homesick, she could get injured, bitten by a spider, or worse, a snake.  What if a crazed maniac rampages through the camp.....why is my head even going there?  She could throw a tantrum and embarrass herself.  What if she doesn't know how to make her bed, put on her sunscreen, spell a simple word?  What if there's nothing she'll eat?  What if the other girls are unkind to her?  What if those socialization fears others have about homeschoolers are founded?  What if I miss her?  The silent litany continues as my finger wavers between the close button and the send button.  Finally, I take a deep breath and press send, registering my baby girl for camp.

As I ponder my hesitancy to send my daughter to camp, I realize that many of my fears are rooted in a deep-seated insecurity about my own parenting skills and how her behavior will reflect on my own lacking as a mom.  The other fears are genuine concerns about her welfare so far from home (really camp was an entire hour and a half away.)  Most, though, lie in an inability to let go and come to terms with a daughter who is growing into a young woman.  I'm halfway through the critical years of parenting, and this will be the first real test of how well we are preparing our girl for the real world.  I suddenly find myself wanting to cling and hover rather than release, which is pretty much the point of parenting, the releasing, not the hovering.

It seems that I'm not the only parent who struggles with releasing my grip on my children.  One need not look too far to see the disturbing headlines.  From Psychology Today, "Helicopter Parenting:  It's Worse Than You Think."  This article proceeds to detail how the parents of 25-year-old graduate students are calling admissions offices to assist their child in getting admitted.  Parents are actually tagging along on job interviews, and the kids are welcoming it.  I can just picture the mom dabbing her tongue to a napkin and wiping Johnny's mouth half-way during the questioning.

The Washington Post paints the same bleak picture with its article "How Helicopter Parents are Ruining College Students."  Colleges have become surrogate parents for kids who can't resolve conflict with roommates.  Deans are dealing with "she took my shirt without asking."  Police are being called to set mouse traps for skittish coeds.  We're paralyzing our children.  Rates of anxiety and depression are skyrocketing among children because we aren't allowing them to fail, risk, or make decisions.  Colleges can't keep up with the demand for counseling.

I find myself caught in this trap so often as a mom.  It's so easy to coddle and protect.  Society is so obsessed with coddling and protecting that I sometimes find myself questioning parenting decisions like sitting at a picnic table reading while my children play one hundred yards away at the playground.  I remember walking to the park with my siblings from my grandparents while the adults chatted and canned vegetables.  My mom couldn't see us or hear us.  My cousins and I spent our days winding through the countryside not to return home until dusk with narry an adult.  Is it really that dangerous for our children or are we watching too much CSI?  Isn't it ridiculous when "free range" parents are arrested for allowing their preteens to ride the subway alone?  The damage from micromanaging everything
from our children's science projects to career decisions isn't minor or short-term.  It's affecting them well into the future, leaving employers and future spouses baffled.

Every day offers a new opportunity to allow my children to safely take risks and to fail.  We, as a society, must change our attitude concerning failure.  We've begun celebrating failure when it forces us to try harder.  Our homeschool mantra is mistakes are ok because that's how we learn.  Children who are allowed to fail in the safety of their homes become more resilient adults.  Of course, we shouldn't allow our children to take dangerous, life-threatening risks, but most risks aren't that dramatic.  How we teach our children to handle failure is critical, which means despite a deep desire to prevent them from ever feeling pain, we have to sometimes watch them fall.  Preparing a path filled with lollipops and daisies is not preparing our children for the dog-eat-dog real world.

So often, I find myself stepping in to rescue my daughter from messes she created herself, but I have to remind myself that I'm not preparing her for life.  I'm handicapping her.  When she doesn't practice piano or finish a project, I must allow her to bear the brunt of the consequence that choice brings.  Sometimes its easier to save our children because it preserves the peace.  We don't have to deal with tantrums or breakdowns or bad grades, but that short-term ease will result in long-term detriment.  I often find myself praying for the courage to stop taking the path of least resistance.

My own mom taught me two very valuable lessons as a young woman.  When I tried out for cheerleader my junior year, I didn't make the squad, and I was devastated.  I lived in the era before parents filed lawsuits to get their kids onto teams.  If you weren't good enough, you didn't make the team, and that year I simply wasn't good enough.  My mom empathized and encouraged me to try again next year.  That afternoon, a male friend had sent flowers and stopped by to see how tryouts went.  My ego was so bruised that I refused to respond.  Rather than excusing my behavior or filling my head with a bunch of nonsense about how I was robbed and how I should have been chosen/the judges were blind, my mom called me out and reminded me that the world didn't revolve around whether or not I made cheerleader.  I learned to graciously accept disappointment and moved on to a very satisfying year as junior class president.  I wasn't placed on the team when I didn't deserve to be, but I survived and learned to deal with disappointment and embarrassment.  My mom taught me the world wasn't just about me and when at first I don't succeed to try again or to try something new.  My mom chose not to create in me an attitude of entitlement but one of humility.  (Thanks, mom!)

When I was a freshman in college, a naive eighteen year old, my mom allowed my sister, who was a junior in high school, and me to drive to Virginia to visit a friend at UVA during spring break.  I remember my mom handing us my dad's giant bag cell phone, explaining roaming charges, then waving as we backed down the driveway.  This is the point where I would have run headlong down the drive and jumped onto the back of my sister's little red BMW and tagged along, (mother/daughter weekend anyone?) but if my mom had concerns, she didn't register them.  She stoically stood by as my sister and I drove off into the sunrise.  My mom gave us the gift of a lifetime, and despite her desire to hang on, she chose to let go, and I'm sure pray without ceasing, allowing my sister and me to reap the benefits that weeklong road trip.  My mom taught me to trust God and to trust my children.

When it comes down to it, my children aren't really my own.  They are entrusted to me by a loving God who loves them even more than I.  He's asked me to prepare them for the world.  He's assured us that in this world there will be trouble.  Our heavenly father doesn't smooth the path for us, so why do we think we should smooth the path for our children?  Yet, he does reassure us that He's overcome the world and that He will never leave us or forsake us.  He even reminds us that trials develop endurance, endurance develops character, and character develops hope.  The Creator of the Universe designed life so that the trials and obstacles develop our character and ultimately our hope.  Those don't come without the trial.  This is what I cling to whenever I find myself parenting from a place of fear rather than from a place of trust.  Each time I choose fear, self-preservation, or ease, I rob God the opportunity to develop my character and the character of my children.  I also exhibit a lack of trust.  My children are going to get hurt; my focus needs to be on helping them learn to handle it, not preventing it from happening.
Think on your own life.  When have the biggest breakthroughs come or the most valuable lessons been learned?  Is it through the trials or in the ease?

I arrive at camp at the end of the week to find my baby girl beaming.  She's eager to introduce me to new friends.  (See homeschooling kids aren't socially awkward.)  She isn't sunburned or stinky.  In fact, she's glowing and is eager to tell me all about movie night, canoeing, swimming, singing, and all the other adventures she experienced that week.  She did get homesick, and not only did she get homesick, she threw up when she ate something that didn't settle with her.  And, you know what else, she survived.  It was through the homesickness that her friends were able to rally around her and show her support, thus deepening the friendships.  She survived a moment of vulnerability and learned to lean on others.  She learned that she can survive a week without her mommy, and I learned that I must be doing something right because the counselors shared what a lovely, polite girl she is.  Most importantly, A learned that she is resilient, capable, and strong.  Lessons she would probably not have learned sitting in the safety of her home.