Post Whole30 Halloween Hangover?

I’ve always enjoyed Halloween. Not in the go all out and decorate, or even go all out and dress up… it’s more of a go all out and eat all the things. But this year, had to be different.  You see, we at Northglenn Health and Fitness started a “Whole30” Nutrition Challenge on October 1st. Which means, if you want to do some easy math, it ended on October 30th. So Halloween means it’s “no holds barred” right? Not so fast.

Whole30

If you haven’t done a Whole30 before, there are unlimited resources available on the intertubes. I’ll just give you my quick summary – it’s a 30 day detox for your body. Think meat, veggies and limited fruits. It starts with, depending on how bad/good your diet is before you start, a nice 2 day hangover where you think, if this is good for me, why is my body trying to destroy me! For me it’s the caffeine. While you don’t need to cut out caffeine, you DO need to cut out all that makes caffeine good (hashtag PSL anyone?). I like a little coffee with my milk, sugar, flavor and whip cream.

It is very restrictive, but there is a good reason. You go back to basics of what we were meant to be eating for 30 days. Then when you finish you are supposed to reintroduce different off limits food groups one at a time so you can see the side effects they have on your body. Let’s say this again – one at a time. Do you know how many off limit food groups are in a Twix?? Well, I’m hear to tell ya:

Milk Chocolate (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Chocolate, Skim Milk, Lactose, Milkfat, Soy Lecithin, Pgpr, Artificial Flavor), Sugar, Enriched Wheat Flour (wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Palm Oil, Corn Syrup, Skim Milk, Dextrose, Less Than 2% – Salt, Cocoa Powder, Soy Lecithin, Food Starch-modified, Baking Soda, Artificial Flavor.

Post Whole30

Let’s do some math here.  Yes, there is math in CrossFit and nutrition. Started on Oct 1, ends on Oct 30th.  Halloween is no holds barred!  We are eating all the things ya’ll, bring it on Soy Lecithin!!  Woah, let’s back this train up.  What do you think your body will do to you if you feed it perfectly healthy for 30 days.  You feel the energy, you’re sleeping better than you have in a long time, your skin is fabulous, and then you eat all the junk, all the processed foods, all the non food, food.  You guessed it, you get hit by a freight train and you are up all night and when you do finally fall asleep, you awake to a headache.

Introduce new food groups slowly

There is a ton of advice on the interwebs about how to reintroduce food.  My advice?  Introduce foods that you do not think will bother you.  Most people have an idea on how certain things affect them.  I think milk bothers me.  I think butter and cheese (within limits) is fine for me.  How will I know if butter and cheese bother me if I throw milk in there too?  For that reason, I reintroduced butter and cheese yesterday.  Excited to be scrambling eggs with butter instead of ghee, adding 3/4 of a slice of cheddar cheese, then taking that first bite….

I didn’t like it.  It wasn’t all I had built up in my head.  The result of my test however was that I had no side effects.  Now I know butter and cheese, at least in moderation, aren’t going to drag me down.  I will stick with ghee for taste if nothing else.  We can meet with you about what kind of a nutrition program might look like for you that would work for you and your circumstances.  It’s about a lifestyle, not a 30 day diet.

Food Addiction?

So in conclusion, all I had was a little bit of butter & some cheese, on Halloween!  So much willpower!!  Haha, nope.  I ate a Twix.  The sugar, the cocoa butter, the soy whatchamacallit, the enriched wheat flower, etc.  But then, every bite I took I thought, why am I doing this?  It doesn’t even taste good. I put it down and didn’t stop there.  I tried a Reese’s peanut butter cup too. It wasn’t the taste that had me going back for me.  It was the 45 years of eating whatever I wanted on Halloween.  It was memories of going through candy bags with my kids and eating all the good stuff.  (well sometimes it was WITH my kids).  It was an emotional thing, an addiction I would say for sure. I finally had to tell myself that it wasn’t worth it.  Food isn’t the answer to happiness.

As a result, I have to watch myself because I can get swept up in at all.  At Whole30 they want you to stay away from things that they call ‘Food with no brakes’, that usually was Halloween for me.  In contrast to previous years, I did very well last night and I will give myself credit for that.  I am not perfect.  No one is.  The guy with the 6 pack abs showing is not perfect.  We are human.  As a result of the Whole30 Nutrition Challenge I am thinking about the food that I eat.  Therefore, I am making a conscious choice versus mindless eating.  I am weighing pros and cons.  Also, the supportive community we have at Northglenn Health and Fitness really helps keep me in check.

Halloween Hangover?

I am happy to report, I woke up feeling pretty good.  If you did the Whole30 Nutrition Challenge in October, do you have a Halloween Hangover, or did you make it through?

While I do not have a Halloween Hangover, I do have a wine party to go to tomorrow night that a couple of our members are having.  We’ll see about a Wine Party Hangover on Sunday.  Certainly, it’s about weighing choices.  I think I’ll be ok.