And Beyond

I made it.  Thirty whole days.  Thirty days of working to cultivate healthy habits.  I am not perfect, and my Whole 30 was not perfect, but I completed it!  I ate too much fruit, and not enough vegetables.  I ate snacks several days, but I still stuck to the food rules and worked hard to cultivate new habits.  I didn't have any dreams of binging on sweets, which is unusual for me, and I'm feeling healthier and happier than I have in a long time. 

Without stepping on the scale or taking measurements I recognize that my pants feel a little better, I can buckle my belt one hole tighter with ease.  My energy crashes have disappeared, and my energy is staying sustained longer throughout the day.  That doesn't mean that I don't still feel tired, because I often do, but I don't feel like I have to sleep in the middle of the day.  I'm finding that movement in general is a bit easier, and not quite as laborious as it used to be.  It's definite improvement.  Certainly not all the way, but a good leap in the right direction.  It took me 8 months to get to where I was before I started Whole 30, it is going to take longer than 30 days to fix the damage.

So now for the part I know you are all dying to hear: before and after stats

                Before             After

Weight     184 lbs            177.4
Body fat   38.4                 38.6
water        44.9                 44.8
BMI         30.7                 30.2
Muscle     57                    55.8

Waist        43"                 39"
Hips          46 1/2"           45 1/2"
Chest        39"                  38"
Legs         25 1/2"            25 1/2"
Arms        13 1/4"            13 1/4"

A lot of this makes sense, some of it doesn't.  I blame what doesn't make sense on my scale, which isn't that high of quality for a scale that is supposed to measure body fat and muscle mass, my scale has always acted funny.  For instance, I'm pretty sure my muscle mass didn't decrease by two pounds since my activity actually increased during my whole 30, so that affects my body fat percentage numbers.  So I'm sure those two are not correct, but I'm not going to dwell on it much.  My scale stinks when measuring body fat and muscle, I wish I had a more accurate way to measure those factors but I don't, oh well time to move on.  I lost 6.6 pounds.  This is good, and I am now at my lowest I have been in several months but still I had really hoped to be under 175 because that is the line where I go from being obese to being overweight.  So while I can't say I'm disappointed, losing weight without calorie counting, and without feeling hungry is always a good thing.  But at the same time, I had hoped for a little better.  But it is a good start, and the only way from here is forward.  Going back doesn't afford any benefits whatsoever. 

Looking at my measurements I would say they make a lot of sense.  My body always loses inches in my waist and torso first and legs last.  Also, I haven't noticed any visual difference in my arms, so I'm not surprised they haven't changed.  The measurements support the observation of being able to buckle my pants tighter around my waist while the legs still fit fine.  Before Whole 30 I didn't really use a belt, and now they won't stay up without one.  That's the problem with having my body shape I suppose, having a smaller waist and larger legs means my pants always fall down unless I'm wearing an elastic waistband. 

Last time I did the whole 30 I was very excited to do introduction and to get back to eating a lot of foods that I couldn't eat on the plan.  This time around, I'm not even doing introduction, I'm just sticking to eating Whole 30 foods, and I'm going to add in a few other Paleo foods that aren't allowed on Whole 30 for some meals, just so I have more options available to me.  I'm going to order at a restaurant as close to Whole 30 as possible, but they always add something that isn't approved, like sugar, or corn starch, or soy sauce.  But I'm not going to worry about that too much.  I'm not going to weigh myself for another 30 days, and just continue to work on eating healthy and increasing my exercise.

I made sushi!  It uses avocado as a base instead of rice to make it perfectly whole 30 compliant.  It was so amazingly good, I didn't miss the rice at all.