After learning about The Whole 30 from our Crossfit gym and reading It Starts with Food, the BJJ Cavewife and I were ready to begin.

To kick off the Whole 30, we were asked to state our commitment on the Facebook page.

Here is my statement:

“I am committing to the Whole 30. Exception is some white rice for post workout carbs.

I’m also going to be doing some metabolic measurements which I was planning on doing already, so this might go against the whole not taking measurements thing.”

Step 1 complete.

One of the rules is to not do any measurements at all.  Since I had just received the new Breezing device to play with, this was definitely a rule I was going to break.

I also figured that since the only carbs allowed are sweet potatoes, potatoes, fruits and veggies I’d essentially be in ketosis for much of the challenge.  I estimated my carb intake to drop from 100-150 gm (pre Whole 30 semi-clean/semi-dirty eating)… to maybe 50-100 gm.

Taking into account my activity level of 3-4 days BJJ and 1-2 days Crossfit, I would quickly burn through any consumed carbs along with my glycogen stores pretty and become ketotic for most of the diet.

I thought it’d be fun to test this and since I had some extra test strips lying around, so I dusted off my Precision Xtra, Freestyle Lyte, and Ketonix and started logging my blood sugar, blood ketones, and breath ketones.

I also logged my meals in MyFitnessPal.

This was one of my first meals:

A salad bowl from Chipotle made of chorizo, lettuce, salsa, fajitas, and guac. I got a little flack from the FB community because the chorizo supposedly had some ingredients that were not Whole 30 approved. I looked into it and there was maybe a small amount amount of sugar in some of the salt and spices being used… but we’re talking less than 3 gm. I decided then and there that I wasn’t going to be militant over a few grams here and there of sugar.

Having read the book, I knew that the purpose of avoiding added sugar was to avoid the havoc it could wreak on my blood sugars and insulin.

When considering my training volume, splitting those sorts of hairs just wasn’t worthwhile. And if my blood tests confirmed ketosis, it would further reinforce that a few grams of sugar here and there were meaningless in terms of my insulin and other hormones.

One thing that did catch my attention was the amount of fat in chorizo, 18 gm of fat and 8.5 gm of sat fat.

Because of my Apo E 3/4 genotype and cholesterol issues, I’m still trying to reduce my saturated fat intake, so despite how delicious chorizo tastes… it wasn’t something I could continue.

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The next meal at Chipotle I switched the chorizo out for carnitas which has 12 gm of fat and 6.5 gm of sat fat… slightly better.

Since one of the goals of this challenge was to cook at home more, the BJJ Cavewife cracked open some of the paleo cook books lining our shelves. Her favorite is the Nom Nom Paleo book. She even followed Nom Nom’s Instagram and snapchat for even more tips.

This is one of the first things she made.

Spaghetti with grassfed ground beef and zoodles made with the OXO Good Grips Spiralizer we bought a while back.

With every new dietary challenge there are bound to be a few missteps.

My first screw up was when I was eating a salad!  I was enjoying my way through 80% of it when I realized that one of the things I liked most about the salad was the walnuts because they were a little sweet.  Then I realized this was probably because they were honeyed.  Definitely a Whole 30 no no.  I finished my salad… and the remaining 3 or 4 walnuts (why let them go to waste amirite?), and resolved to skip out on the walnuts next time.

In a near screw up, we went out to dinner with some good friends and of course this stared me in the face:

The bread was gently toasted, fresh from the oven.  Warm bread and melted butter…. two of my favorite things.  I seriously almost caved… but managed to resist.

Luckily my entree came shortly after so I ignored the gluten and just enjoyed my bone in rib eye and brussels sprouts.

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Supplements I Took:

Athletic Greens
Thorne Research Lemon Berry Flavored Fish Oil
Thorne Research Curcumin
Great Lakes Collagen Hydrolysate

Average Macronutrient and Caloric intake:

Calories: 1986
Carbs: 79
Protein: 142
Fat: 128
Sat Fat: 48

This is a sample MFP entry:

I noticed it was extremely difficult to over eat since consuming whole foods were just too satiating. I barely cracked 2000 calories on many days despite my training volume.

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Blood Sugar

Nothing to complain about here.

Blood Ketones

I was in low level ketosis for a little less than half the days.  The highest ketone level I reached was 1.1 mmol/L.  I was a little surprised that there weren’t more days in ketosis but the fact that my dinners were the most carb heavy meals probably played a role since my blood measurements were done in the first thing in the morning.

Breath Acetone

This also confirmed low level ketosis.

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Thoughts

The thing I missed the most?  Heavy cream in my coffee.  This was one of those treats I would allow myself once a week… that somehow became twice to three times a week… then every day of the week.  The Whole 30 made me quit the cream habit cold turkey.  From day 1 and on, it was only black coffee with a sprinkle of cinnamon for flavor.

It was at this midway point that I had blood tests drawn so in the next few posts we’ll go over some of those results…

* Image found here