Whole 30 Day 10

About a year ago I got interested in the Paleo diet, which led me to Mark's Daily Apple and a pile of books about food and nutrition. Which inevitably led me to the Whole 30, a 30-day strict Paleo regimen that cuts out all grains, sugar, dairy, alcohol, and legumes. I completed my first Whole 30 on March 19 of last year, and I can honestly say I had never felt better. I didn't even find it particularly difficult—I'm definitely an abstainer, not a moderator. CM and I ate mostly Paleo for a while afterwards, falling off the wagon spectacularly during our 2 months in Europe and never figuring out quite how to get back on.

Fast forward to 2013, with both of us feeling sluggish and plump. We decided to try a Whole 30 together, and now we're 10 days in! Mostly it's been pretty easy, although we do miss stopping in somewhere for cocktail hour on the way home from work.

Here's what we've been eating:

In the mornings, we start with coffee (duh). I drink mine with some coconut milk frothed in the Aeroccino, and CM drinks his black. With our second cup we eat eggs of some kind—scrambled, omelettes, etc., with vegetables or avocado or a side of berries.

For lunch we generally have leftovers of meat and veggies from dinner the night before. If we feel like getting out of the office, we go to Chipotle for salad with veggies, meat, salsa, and guacamole on top (no dressing, beans, or rice) or we get a no-bun burger with veggies instead of fries. Yum.

We've been cooking dinners at home a lot, experimenting with recipes from the Well Fed cookbook or throwing things together. Mostly meat with vegetables, trying to mix it up with different kinds of each. Occasionally I make green juice for both of us, and CM is a good sport about drinking it.

We haven't quite fallen out of the habit of snacking, so we're well-stocked with nuts, almond butter, fruit, coconut for coconut chips, and Lärabars.

It feels great to know everything we're putting in our bodies is real food, and mostly I don't miss the other stuff (although I had to forbid CM from making cookies on Day 4 because I knew the temptation would be too much for me). The Whole 30 isn't designed to be a long-term way of eating, but it's the perfect reset to remind us of healthy habits.

Would you try it?