The End Is The Beginning

Day 30 is here and I am so excited that I completed the Whole30 challenge without eating my arm or killing somebody. I have to give a huge shout out to Tim Wheeler - my co-worker, a Crossfit devotee and the originator of the Whole30 nutrition challenge in our office. It has been a fantastic learning experience, and I am thrilled to have gained practical knowledge about what and how I eat that I can actually use every day. It's like discovering a real world application for Algebra!

So, what did I learn? Here's a look:

• Healthy foods can be fun and filling, too!

• The more balanced the meal, the better you feel!

• Sharing is caring! Recipe sharing is awesome and it keeps healthy food from being boring.

• Listen to your body, not your head. Your body will tell you when it's full. Your head will tell you you're bored and that you want food.

• Food is fuel. It isn't happiness. It isn't comfort. It isn't your friend and it isn't going to replace something you've lost.

• Read your labels. The only way you can know 100% that the food you put in you mouth is the right kind of food is to read what's in the label. If you owned a 1967 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500, would you just put any gas you found in a can in it? No, you wouldn't. So why would you do that to your body?

Life doesn't end on day 30, and neither will my journey to lose the excess weight I've gained over the years. Midway through this month, I'd lost 13 pounds thanks to the nutrition challenge. I have yet to step on the scale to see what else I lost since then. Weight loss wasn't the goal, although it may still have occurred. I will certainly let you know the final tally when I weigh at my doctor's office again on 9/17.

It may be the end of the Whole30 nutrition challenge, but it is the beginning of something new - eating to live instead of living to eat. Now that I have spent 30 days training my brain, it's time to implement, execute and lose!

Let's see what happens next!