My personal story of why I decided to do the Whole30 food challenge.
Those of you reading this that know me best are probably picking your jaw up off the floor right now. WHAT? Kimber is doing a diet?! If you don’t know me personally your guess would probably be I am doing it to lose weight or get healthy. My reason is neither, but I am happy if those are fringe benefits.
I am not a diet person. I think I live a healthy lifestyle and in general make good food choices. I believe in moderation. I also really like to live life to the fullest and since I get a lot of joy out of food and eating, I indulge in things that are delicious. I incorporate many different flavors, textures, and different kinds of food into my day. And sometimes I eat brownies for breakfast and I am not going to apologize for it.
The past year has not been the hardest year of my life, but it has been one of the harder ones. It has been good and full. It has been filled with people I love. But it has been hard a lot day to day. A year ago I was super pregnant, anemic, and tired chasing around two little ones and trying to really get my business going (my other full time job.) There was a lot of hustle at night and a lot of bodily fluids to clean up during the day. Once I gave birth my little guy my body felt so much better in some ways (ie not being a victim of gravity, carrying around a watermelon hooked straight to my core muscles) but it was also a long and hard recovery in others.
My baby didn’t sleep. For all of you mama’s out there with kids who are waking up all night. I hear you. I feel your pain. It is so hard to deal with little to no sleep period but those two other little people seemed completely oblivious to this situation. I have always been an on the go type of girl. I don’t nap because I don’t have time for it. If I lay down my mind usually moves too fast to get to sleep, so I just don’t even try. But at this point in my life I had to keep moving. If I stopped moving even for a minute my body would start to shut down and I would just nod off in whatever position.
To make a long story short, the rest of the year up to this point was comprised of crazy amounts of home improvement projects, putting the house on the market and living in a museum with 3 monkeys in tow, and then selling the house and living a nomadic lifestyle out of a suitcase for about two months. Then there was the very rocky move and transition to our new home.
Our life was BLESSED and FULL. But every day was hard.
Once we got settled and the baby FINALLY started sleeping through the night I felt so much better. I was happier. I had patience and attention to give to the kids. And I was so fulfilled with how I was able to dive back into my business {I have some REALLY great posts coming up for you!!}
Our life was still BLESSED and FULL. But every day was good!
The thing about the hard times is that you are forced to do all of these things you don’t want to do. You have to persevere though things that aren’t pleasant. And that builds character. It teaches patience. It gives you a lesson in control. You see things come out that you might not like about yourself and you have the opportunity to fix it.
I started thinking a lot about this after the hardest parts of the last year faded and things were easy and good again and in a way it made me a little sad. I love life to feel good. I love to think I have it under control. But I also want to be challenged to be a better person. To learn skills that make me a better mom, wife, friend, and better in my business.
I started thinking that I needed a challenge. Instead of letting the world dish it out on me this time, I would go ahead and do it to myself. That way maybe I could at least maintain a little control of the situation, right?
Since the goal of my challenge was truly personal development (don’t I sound so adult saying that?!… wait.. just ruined it) I knew it needed to be something that 1. Really would be a challenge, maybe not for everyone, but a real challenge for me personally. 2. I wanted there to be some core skills I could learn from it.
I thought about many things, but I knew that something that would challenge me mentally, not here and there or once in awhile, but constantly and consistently was changing my diet. Like I said before. I LOVE food. After God, my husband and kids, food is probably what my mind is on most. It sounds silly to say, but food is really important to me. It brings me a lot of joy both to cook and eat. I could have chosen to train for a marathon, organize the whole house, or purge half our belongings to simplify our lives. Whole30 would be a challenge, not to make myself exercise once a day, or do something else that requires hard work or thought once a day or week, but this challenge would in many ways consume me and change every minute of every day at least a little bit.
Doing the Whole30 isn’t about losing weight, or even a healthier lifestyle, although I figured if I was going to pick a challenge, those were some pretty stellar fringe benefits. What it was about to me is learning to control my thoughts and actions minute by minute. Learning to be purposeful about things. Training myself to become better at planning and giving things forethought. Having the willpower to do the right thing not the easy thing.
As I am writing this I am on Day 10. Some days have been really, really hard. Some days have been easier than I expected. I will be very excited to share with you at the end all of the that challenged me, but I can tell you I am learning a lot of discipline AND actually enjoying taking what I am given (which is not much on this diet) and making some food delicious enough to {almost} make me forget I can’t have carbs or butter on this diet.
So there you have it. I am doing Whole30 in hopes that I might be a better person at the end. Probably not the reason you expected or the reason anyone else has ever done it, but it is right for me right now.
If you haven’t heard of Whole30 and are wondering what this crazy food challenge is all about you can read more about it on the Whole30 website or in their Whole30 book or their original It Starts with Food Book. Once you take a look, please come back and give this cookie loving, cheese obsessed girl a pat on the back for giving it a try!
If you are currently Whole30 or Paleo, or want to give it a try, make sure and stay tuned over the next few weeks because I will be posting a lot of recipes! I didn’t really intend on it, but like I said above, I LOVE food. When I went looking for recipes as I planned my weekly meals, I had a hard time finding foods I would love. So of course I just had to create many of them myself! So if you need to change it up with some great food I have got you covered. And if you aren’t doing a food challenge, check them out anyway because really… they are that good!
***Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with the Whole30. I am not getting paid to write this post, but I am getting a lot of questions about why I am doing so I am putting a rare personal story on the blog to put it all out there and share it with you.
Holly says
{I thought I commented but I may of deleted it} Ack! Glad to see you are doing well. Whole 30 It’s tough. Very tough! Esp when you make no brainer oops like making your kids noodles and you eat one on accident ’cause you were checking to see if they were done. I do about 80% whole now, still avoid sugar and gluten most days but I still consume dairy, esp cheese and Greek yogurt. Since I work out hard on most days, I feel like my body craves this type of protein. ps- Larabar Bars where my lifesaver on Whole 30 too, btw. Look forward to reading more of your journey Hugs!!
Kimber says
I wish I would accidentally eat a noodle! That would be amazing! J/k Kind of.
Lisa says
Good for you, Kimber!
Kimber says
Thanks Lisa! I miss you friend!