Whole30 Home Stretch: Reintroduction

Soon, my precious.

We are in the home stretch of reintroduction right now. What I can say is: Feh. Nothing has changed, really. Chris MIGHT have a slight corn sensitivity (he got stuffy overnight after having precisely six corn chips, so it seems unlikely, but maybe?), but nothing else has changed. Dairy had no effect, alcohol is back in rotation (though more moderate than before for now), non-gluten grains nothing for me for sure. Tomorrow we do legumes, and Saturday we do gluten grains, then we'll be all done.

We slept a bit better during the middle and end of the experiment, but that's likely more not having sugar, especially in wine or end of day meals or desserts. But nothing like "I SLEPT LIKE A BABY!" Just, "Yeah, I guess I have been sleeping a little better."

We have both cut way back on sugar in our tea in the morning and are more aware of sugar in stuff than before. And I got some new recipes we like very much to carry into the future.

That's about it. Nothing life-changing like they try to promise.

Is it worth it? I am glad I did it. I don't plan to do it again (some people do it as a reset once a year or whatever). It was a lot of work. I am lucky that I don't have a lot of hangups around food and eating, but some people report feeling AWFUL emotionally/mentally on Whole30 because it makes them even more obsessed with what they're eating and increased feelings of shame, guilt, or worry about what they are cooking/eating. I can totally see that. I had to think about food a lot more than I do, and while some of it was good (aforementioned paying attention to sugar and corn in EVERYTHING), sometimes it was exhausting and/or downright frustrating.

If you want a challenge to reset some habits or thoughts around food, try it. But don't allow yourself to feel pressured and brow-beaten into doing it perfectly in every minute detail if that brings you more stress than you are ready to take on. A lot (a LOT) of people quit after a few weeks due to the stress they felt, and I can totally understand it. We made it, but barely.