First off, I highly recommend the book –It Starts with Food– by Dallas Hartwig and Melissa Hartwig. The information in there is written out so well and is so easy to understand. This blog post is largely in my words and doesn’t compare to the book so do yourself a favor and buy the book. But since you’re here let’s talk about a few things that I think are important to grasping and prepping for the Whole30. People always ask why 30 days, why not 25 days or 15? In the book they talk something along the lines of how our bodies respond to trauma with inflammation. It is our bodies natural defense. Inflammation is your body putting a buffer around the area being attacked. I imagine this as a parent wanting to put bubble wrap around your kids to protect them. My son Caden has broken more things than any of his siblings.  We jokingly wrapped him in the bubble wrap so he was protected everywhere he went. Your body does this for you too. 😉Inflammation (bubble warp 😉)can be great, for a moment. It is great if you have a cold or break your bone, it is not great day after day after day, year after year after year. Your body is designed to protect itself but it needs to rest so it is ready for the next injury. When we give our bodies a minimum 30 days it allows our body  the chance to rest and start the healing process. Have you ever seen a person or dog who is from an abusive situation and they flinch with even a simple hand gesture? They flinch because they are so used to the -protect themselves mode. Your body responds the same way. If you have been eating the same way most Americans eat then it is highly likely your body has been in -protect yourself mode, instead of the rest and heal mode. If you go only 14 days on the Whole 30 that is awesome but as soon as you have the foods that caused the inflammation your body will still flinch and inflammation starts right back up. This is bad. This is why going the full 30 days is needed. It helps resets your body and helps it start a new pattern, a new habit. 

If your are committed to doing this, if you want to do the best for you then do this for a full 30 days. Your body will thank you. As Melissa Hartwig says “Please don’t tell us this program is hard. Quitting heroin is hard. Beating cancer is hard. Birthing a baby is hard. Drinking your coffee black. Is. Not. Hard.”

Check back later for more tips and advice as we prep for an October Whole 30. 

You can also google Whole 30 and Melissa and her team have answered every single possible question there is about Whole 30.