The second half of the Whole 30 challenge proved to be much easier than the first half.  The BJJ Cavewife and I had gotten used to all of the different rules and were no longer craving all the foods we couldn’t eat as much.

I was getting used to drinking only black coffee with cinnamon and didn’t miss my usual added heavy cream anymore.

The BJJ Cavewife and I continued to observe that eating this way made us full really quickly and it was hard on some days to get enough calories!

(Here’s my post from the Days 1-15)

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Some of the Scrumptious Dishes I Ate

The BJJ Cavewife remained amazing in the kitchen and continued to use her favorite cookbook, Nom Nom Paleo cookbook for new recipes.

Organic filet mignon with a side of broccoli, onions, and cherry tomatoes cooked in ghee.  We also had a side salad with lemon vinagrette.  Dessert was a blueberry RxBar.

Lazy Devil-ed eggs consisting of pastured eggs, a dollop of primal mayo, and a slice of prosciutto di Parma.  This is now one of my favorite snacks of all time.

My go to meal when eating out was a Mexican restaurant where I could order a plate of Al pastor (a sort of BBQ pork) with a side of veggies and avocado.  This isn’t strictly Whole 30 approved since the oil they cook the pork in is probably some form of vegetable or peanut oil, but for my purposes it was close enough.

The convenience far outweighed the need to be perfect, especially since the entire reason for avoiding bad oils is to limit inflammation, and my inflammation markers (HS-CRP) have always been low.

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Supplements I Took:

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

Tools I Used:

Precision Xtra Ketone strips to continue testing my blood ketones
Freestyle Lite Blood Sugar strips to test my glucoseKetonix Breath Acetone device to track my breath ketones
Breezing Metabolism Tracker to measure my metabolic rate

Average Macronutrient and Caloric Intake for Days 16-30

Calories: 1859
Carbs: 84 gm
Fat: 103 gm
Protein:  104 gm
Sat Fat: 30 gm

My carbs went up from 79 gm in the first 15 days to 84 gm and my protein intake also increased from 142 gm to 147 gm during the last half of the Whole 30.

I attribute these changes to  the additional RxBars I was eating.  They tasted so good I was eating 2 at a time at some points.  They specifically say not to do this on the Whole 30 website…

My overall calories also dropped from 1986 to 1859, again showing how easily eating this way filled me up.  This was despite regular Crossfit and BJJ training.

Average Macronutrient and Caloric Intake for The Whole 30 Days

Calories: 1922
Carbs: 82 gm
Fat: 115 gm
Protein:  144 gm
Sat Fat: 39 gm

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Blood Sugar

Interesting to see that things trended up near the end.  I blame all the RxBars I ate… they tasted TOO GOOD!

Blood Ketones

It looks like the small amount of added carbs I was eating was enough to push me out of ketosis for almost the entire last half of the Whole 30.

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Breath Acetone

My breath acetone stayed relatively low agreeing with what my blood ketones showed.

Conclusions

The Whole 30 really is a fantastic way of eating.  After the initial hump of learning and adjusting to all the rules and getting over all of the cravings, it’s surprisingly easy to get used to.  It’s extremely satiating and if one of your goals is to lose fat, can be a very effective way to do so.

The Whole 30 actually specifies a food re-introduction protocol where you bring back certain foods to see how they effect you.  If you continue to do fine, you can likely continue to eat those foods.  If you develop problems, then at least you know what foods you don’t tolerate.

The BJJ Cavewife and I completely ignored this.

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On the day immediately following the end of this challenge we had a wedding to attend.  The BJJ Cavewife and I celebrated both the nuptials of our dear friends and the end of the Whole 30 by cutting lose.  We drank alcohol and ate pastries and consumed dinner rolls with complete abandon.  Reintroduction protocol be damned.

Then we both felt terrible the next day and agreed to start the Whole 30 again the following week.

Again, I highly recommend the book this is based on: It Starts with Food

If you’d like a shortcut with brief explanations about the reasoning behind all of the Whole 30 rules you can check out my review here: The Whole 30

*Image taken from here