This Whole 30 Is a Whole Bunch of Crap

A few months ago, my sister and I were chatting about weight loss. She was having some success on a program that she had to pay for, but I wanted something that I could do with regular food and nothing mail-ordered. I'd heard about the Whole30 from a friend, and I picked up the book "It Starts With Food." While parts of it seemed like pseudoscience, other parts spoke to me and were incredibly compelling. And I felt like crap at the time -- my joints ache, I'm way way way overweight, I'm tired and slightly fuzzy almost all day. What did I have to lose? Even with all that, though, I might have put off Whole30 longer if I hadn't seen some relatives at an event, and it was like looking at My Darkest Timeline. Two big guys, neither of whom could get out of chairs without help. Both in support stockings with sores on their legs, both diabetic (or close to it). And neither one old enough to look as old as they looked.

So I mostly blame these last 11 days on the fear that seeing those guys instilled in me.

There's so much shit to read about Whole30 that I won't get into it too much, but it's mostly that you can't eat dairy, grains, sugar (even artificial sweeteners) and processed foods for 30 days. Technically, if you screw it up, you're supposed to go back to day one. You're not supposed to weigh yourself, and instead you should focus on things like your energy level, your skin, your digestion, blah blah blah. The book is all like "This is not hard. Saving lives is hard. Beating cancer is hard."

Screw you, Whole30 book. This shit is HARD.

I'm at day 11 and I've been compliant the entire 11 days. Except I weigh myself, because I would have quit on the first day if I hadn't noticed a big bump off the scale. Here's how eating this way has worked for me so far.

• Day 1: Not too bad because it was a Sunday. Whee! This is exciting.
• Day 2: Almost vomit when confronted with a compliant breakfast (must contain veggies, protein and fat.) Turns out, I cannot stomach eggs before noon, especially when I can't put cheese on them. I get depressed, but I persevere. 
• Day 3: I figure the breakfast thing out. Realize sweet potato fries in my air fryer might be my saving grace. Also, salsa. Get super sick after dinner and start sweating. The internet tells me it could be "carb withdrawal."
• Day 4: I am a limp noodle with a messed up digestive system. Yet I do not quit. Instead, I eat some potatoes (which are allowed.)
• Day 5: I manage to grocery shop without being seduced by "noncompliant" foods. I roast a chicken. It's good. I feel not awful.
• Day 6: Eh. At this point I've lost at least five pounds and I've realized raw spinach is great with almost everything. Just call me Popeye. In my first dining out experience of this experiment, I order a salad with no croutons or dressing, a burger with no bun or cheese, and a side of fruit salad. Yawn. 
• Day 7: I sit on the porch swing all day because I feel disgusting and have no energy.
• Day 8: Repeat of the day before, except I have a burst of energy when I first get up. Then my sweating kicks into high gear and I just sweat and sweat and sweat. Also, I get some random lady issues that were nowhere on the horizon. Also, I want to kill everyone I see. So I don't leave the house much.
• Day 9: Down about seven pounds, most of it bodily fluids, I'm sure. I feel slightly more perky. I'm chattier at work. But I miss cheese so much. So very very much. God, I miss cheese. I want cheese more than almost anything in the world right now. (I do not eat cheese.)
• Day 10: I awake horrified from a dream in which I not only ate a ham sandwich, but I continued to eat cheese until there was no cheese, even though Dream Me knew it was off limits. By evening, I have a sore throat. Uh oh.
• Day 11 (today): I have a sore throat and congestion. So I'm either getting a cold or coming off all the bad shit I used to eat is making me snotty. This is probably not scientifically possible, but since I'm pottying all the time AND having trouble with the girl parts, I figure I'll blame Whole30 for all the trouble with all my orifices. 

I'm over a third of the way to the finish line, and it's nice to see that I'm down about seven pounds. But honestly, I feel like absolute terribleness. I miss cheese. I'd commit murder for a Diet Coke. And I still have 19 more days of this. 

I won't quit, because quitting feels like giving in to some kind of awful beast (right now, the beast is the whole stupid program, but it could also be construed as my own cravings and bad habits). From what I've read, days 10 and 11 and the ones when you're most likely to quit. And day 14 should bring some improvement in my horrid physical symptoms. I'm no quitter and I'm committed to this. But I am also sick, tired and hungry for a sandwich. There's no way I am resetting my counter to one, though, and starting all over again. So it's you and me, Whole30. And I'm going to finish this even if I start leaking snot out of my ears.