After completing Whole30 and the Reintroduction process, here is Step 3 which is Sharing Your Story and Step 4 Your Life After Strategy. I found all this information on the Whole30 website and just complied it into one document. Congratulations for making it through your first round of Whole30!
STEP THREE: SHARE YOUR STORY
You’ve finished your Whole30, and are tallying all of the amazing, life-changing results you’ve experienced. Your story (and results) may be different than anyone else’s, but you’d be surprised how many people are in a situation similar to yours. They come to our community looking for a kindred spirit–someone just like them, who experienced the results on the Whole30 that they, too, are hoping to experience.
Big or small, dramatic or simple, you need to share your story. Your starting point, your path, your struggles, your triumphs are relevant to someone. Maybe more than a few people. And if just one person reads your story and says, “He’s just like me. If he can do it, I can do it,” then you have, in that moment, changed someone’s life.
Before and After
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and your Whole30 experience may prove that to be true. But your Whole30 before and after photos doesn’t tell the full story (neither does that number on the scale). While 95% of people who take on the Whole30 lose weight or improve their body composition*, there are so many amazing experiences that can’t be seen in a photo.
Being in control of your food for the first time in your life
Eliminating the symptoms of your disease or condition
Improving biomarkers like triglycerides, blood sugar, or blood pressure
Gaining self-confidence
Improving your relationship with your spouse and children
Finally getting pregnant (it happens more often than you’d think)
Being “strangely happy” (as reported by many Whole30’ers)
Having these new healthy dietary habits carry over into other areas of your life
*According to a 2012 survey of more than 2,000 Whole30 participants
Write It Up
For these reasons, we encourage you to share your Whole30 experience with us, and with our community. There are a number of ways you can do this:
Send us your story and some chosen photos to be featured on our our website, and the chance to be heard by nearly 1 million people that month.
Submit a paragraph about how the Whole30 impacted your medical disease or lifestyle condition for our Whole30 A-Z page
Share your experience with others on our Whole30 Forum, in the Success Stories
Write a few sentences or upload your before-and-after photo to be featured on our Whole30 Facebook page
Tag your Whole30 transformation photo with #Whole30 and @Whole30 on Instagram
You’ve finished your Whole30, and are tallying all of the amazing, life-changing results you’ve experienced. Your story (and results) may be different than anyone else’s, but you’d be surprised how many people are in a situation similar to yours. They come to our community looking for a kindred spirit–someone just like them, who experienced the results on the Whole30 that they, too, are hoping to experience.
Big or small, dramatic or simple, you need to share your story. Your starting point, your path, your struggles, your triumphs are relevant to someone. Maybe more than a few people. And if just one person reads your story and says, “He’s just like me. If he can do it, I can do it,” then you have, in that moment, changed someone’s life.
Before and After
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and your Whole30 experience may prove that to be true. But your Whole30 before and after photos doesn’t tell the full story (neither does that number on the scale). While 95% of people who take on the Whole30 lose weight or improve their body composition*, there are so many amazing experiences that can’t be seen in a photo.
Being in control of your food for the first time in your life
Eliminating the symptoms of your disease or condition
Improving biomarkers like triglycerides, blood sugar, or blood pressure
Gaining self-confidence
Improving your relationship with your spouse and children
Finally getting pregnant (it happens more often than you’d think)
Being “strangely happy” (as reported by many Whole30’ers)
Having these new healthy dietary habits carry over into other areas of your life
*According to a 2012 survey of more than 2,000 Whole30 participants
Write It Up
For these reasons, we encourage you to share your Whole30 experience with us, and with our community. There are a number of ways you can do this:
Send us your story and some chosen photos to be featured on our our website, and the chance to be heard by nearly 1 million people that month.
Submit a paragraph about how the Whole30 impacted your medical disease or lifestyle condition for our Whole30 A-Z page
Share your experience with others on our Whole30 Forum, in the Success Stories
Write a few sentences or upload your before-and-after photo to be featured on our Whole30 Facebook page
Tag your Whole30 transformation photo with #Whole30 and @Whole30 on Instagram
Take Action!
Take your “after” photos and measurements
Share your Whole30 success story with us, any way you like
Take your “after” photos and measurements
Share your Whole30 success story with us, any way you like
STEP FOUR: LIFE AFTER YOUR WHOLE30
We could devote an entire website’s worth of content to maintaining your new, healthy habits after your Whole30 is over. In fact, we’ve devoted an entire chapter in It Starts With Food to just that–so if you’ve read Chapter 20 already, you’re in good shape. Well, at least you’ll know how we think you should approach life after your Whole30. Enacting that strategy may prove more difficult.
The truth is, it’s much harder to make good choices out there in the real world (we call this “riding your own bike”) than it is from within the confines of the Whole30. So we’re going to outline our basic strategy to keep you moving continually towards More Healthy while finding a balanced, sustainable diet that works for you.
Your Life After Strategy
All in all, we want you to understand three very important things about Life After. First, the Whole30 was just a starting point. You cannot erase decades of unhealthy food choices and damaging behaviors in just a month. Our program gives you an amazing jump-start, but you’re not “done” yet. Second, you will slip back into old habits. At some point, no matter how good you feel now, no matter how much you swear you’ve left those less bad foods behind… they’ll creep back in, maybe a little, maybe a lot. And finally, this is okay. Expected, even. (See point #1.) And it does not mean that you have failed. Hear us clearly on that one.
So how do you allow yourself to indulge in less healthy (but totally worth it) foods without turning back into a Cookie Monster? Here’s our basic strategy; but first, a word from our sponsor: Do not plan cheat days. That is just setting yourself up for failure. Do not decide ahead of time that on Saturday, you’re going to want pancakes, brownies, ice cream, and movie theater popcorn. Because when Saturday rolls around, even if you don’t want pancakes, brownies, ice cream, or popcorn… you will eat them anyway, because you told yourself you could. This is the opposite of the strategy we want you to follow.
So what should you do instead?
Continue eating Whole30-ish every meal, every day, as long as that feels good to you. (We say “Whole30-ish” because added sugar may creep back in, like ketchup with your burger. That seems reasonable to us. If ketchup is the worst thing in your diet, you’re doing okay.)
We could devote an entire website’s worth of content to maintaining your new, healthy habits after your Whole30 is over. In fact, we’ve devoted an entire chapter in It Starts With Food to just that–so if you’ve read Chapter 20 already, you’re in good shape. Well, at least you’ll know how we think you should approach life after your Whole30. Enacting that strategy may prove more difficult.
The truth is, it’s much harder to make good choices out there in the real world (we call this “riding your own bike”) than it is from within the confines of the Whole30. So we’re going to outline our basic strategy to keep you moving continually towards More Healthy while finding a balanced, sustainable diet that works for you.
Your Life After Strategy
All in all, we want you to understand three very important things about Life After. First, the Whole30 was just a starting point. You cannot erase decades of unhealthy food choices and damaging behaviors in just a month. Our program gives you an amazing jump-start, but you’re not “done” yet. Second, you will slip back into old habits. At some point, no matter how good you feel now, no matter how much you swear you’ve left those less bad foods behind… they’ll creep back in, maybe a little, maybe a lot. And finally, this is okay. Expected, even. (See point #1.) And it does not mean that you have failed. Hear us clearly on that one.
So how do you allow yourself to indulge in less healthy (but totally worth it) foods without turning back into a Cookie Monster? Here’s our basic strategy; but first, a word from our sponsor: Do not plan cheat days. That is just setting yourself up for failure. Do not decide ahead of time that on Saturday, you’re going to want pancakes, brownies, ice cream, and movie theater popcorn. Because when Saturday rolls around, even if you don’t want pancakes, brownies, ice cream, or popcorn… you will eat them anyway, because you told yourself you could. This is the opposite of the strategy we want you to follow.
So what should you do instead?
Continue eating Whole30-ish every meal, every day, as long as that feels good to you. (We say “Whole30-ish” because added sugar may creep back in, like ketchup with your burger. That seems reasonable to us. If ketchup is the worst thing in your diet, you’re doing okay.)
When something comes around that is too good to pass up—too special, too sentimental, to important culturally, or simply too darn delicious—make a conscious, deliberate choice as to whether or not you are going to indulge. (Use our Guide to Off-Roading if you need a little help developing your own “worth it” thought process.)
If you choose to indulge, take your time. Savor it. Eat consciously. And eat only as little as you need to satisfy the situation, your experience, or your taste buds. Maybe that’s a bite, maybe it’s the whole cookie, maybe it’s 6 cookies—just make sure you don’t fall into automatic consumption.
When you’re done, move the heck on. No guilt, no shame, no remorse. You made a conscious decision to eat something you deemed worth it. Good for you. Now let’s move on back to our normally scheduled healthy meals.If you choose to indulge, take your time. Savor it. Eat consciously. And eat only as little as you need to satisfy the situation, your experience, or your taste buds. Maybe that’s a bite, maybe it’s the whole cookie, maybe it’s 6 cookies—just make sure you don’t fall into automatic consumption.
You may find that you indulge once every few weeks, because nothing really amazing comes up in between. Or you may find that you indulge every day for 12 days, like on a vacation in Europe. Both are okay, as long as you are following this protocol. Conscious, deliberate decisions. Honest evaluations of “worth it.” And then a return to your normal healthy habits, no beating yourself up.
Whole30 to the Rescue
This all sounds fine and good, but what if you find yourself sliding down that slippery slope of a vacation, holiday, or stressful time? Before you know it, you’re eating more “dirty” than “clean,” and you’re no longer in full control of your food choices. If this happens, you know exactly what to do: another Whole30. And it doesn’t even have to be a full Whole30—maybe you do a Whole14 or a Whole7, just long enough to get back to feeling awesome and reminding yourself why you usually pass on those less healthy foods-with-no-brakes.
Give yourself another reset, start over with your Life After strategy, and watch those periods of less healthy get shorter and shorter as the years go on. Congratulations! You are officially riding your own bike—and looking pretty darn good, we think.
Take Action!
Re-read Chapter 20 in It Starts With Food for our full “life after” strategy
Download our Guide to Nutritional Off-Roading for handy consultations
Read our articles about life after your Whole30, including strategies for holidays, weddings, and vacations.
No comments:
Post a Comment