a whole 30 days: a guest post by Mrs. Tygrett

*Over the last 30 days, Holley and I have been on an adventure. As a person who believes care of our bodies is a spiritual act, I'm excited to tell you about it. I'm also married to a woman who writes with wit and beauty so she's going to tell you this story. It's a bit of a departure from the norm, but I know you'll love it. (CT)

So the Tygrett's did Whole30 and we survived. 

No, let me rephrase that, we crushed it. 

We dominated the last 30 days and I want to tell you about it.  No, I am not selling anything.  No, I will try not to bore you all about how I could eat nothing except tree bark and sweet potatoes. 

What I want to do is tell you I have never been so glad that I did something that seemed “trendy” or “a new fad”.  What I want to tell you that it isn’t a fad, it isn’t trendy or sexy or fun but it was amazing.  30 days ago – and I do not exaggerate - I couldn’t walk upstairs without my knees aching, my Achilles in my left leg was on fire every day within 10 minutes of my treadmill routine. 

I couldn’t fit my wedding rings over my knuckles, my acid reflux was out of control, and I had no energy as of 3pm every day. 

I hadn’t slept straight through the night in months (some nights I would wake up and, in trying to be calm and go back to sleep, give myself heart palpitations and what I would say was a mild anxiety attack). 

I had a dull ache on my side from my back around to my stomach, every month I go for a massage (due to prior back injury) to attend to a huge knot on shoulder that ran up to my neck that would also give me a headache. 

Here’s the deal: today, it’s all gone….I kid you not. 

I went for a massage last week and Brian asked me what areas we needed to work on and for the first time in years I had nothing to say.  There was no knot anywhere.  My wedding rings fit, my Achilles is fine, my knees feel great, side pain – yup – gone too. 

I sleep all night and feel rested in the morning.  I can fit into a pair of jeans that have been making the circuit in my closet for the last two winters with “hopes” they might fit again.  And I feel good.  Very good – I have energy that I haven’t had in years. 

Truthfully, I would suggest this for anyone. 

You can do anything  for 30 days.  Anything.  And after doing something like this for 30 days, there is also this sense of accomplishment that I can kick butt at anything because I survived this (we may be getting t-shirts made to celebrate, maybe). 

The reason we did this was because in 2009 we got serious about what we were doing to our bodies and fueling them with.  We both lost about 60 pounds each and changed how we ate.  But you know, time wages on, you get lazy and sloppy and you start eating things that you vowed you never would again. 

So I wanted to use this as a reset for us – a way to remember how to eat properly and just what we were putting into our bodies.  And you know, when you read every single label in the grocery store you do begin to be more mindful of how many times you put 3 serving sizes of creamer in one cup of coffee which is equal to a million spoons of sugar even though you used “natural” creamer with just milk and sugar.

We jumped in and did it and I am so glad we did.  There was never going to be a good time so we chose October. 

You know, when daylight savings comes all we want to do is eat bread, cheese, and hibernate until spring. 

So we thought that getting a jump on this before the sun starts setting at 2 in the afternoon was a good idea.  We survived dinner out with friends (who even chose to start their own 30 days after we ate with them….), Casey traveled out of town for four days (but had some incredibly accommodating and lovely hosts who even cooked some Whole30 meals for him), a night in Chicago for dinner and the theatre and some other wild cards. 

But it can be done – as with anything that’s hard, it takes creativity and ingenuity.  What also helped was I do love to cook and try new things so I was able to tweak some favorites and make them compliant but I tried a lot of new things (favorites so far seem to be pumpkin chili and shrimp “tacos” over spicy slaw) and we learned to eat burgers without buns.  And we lived to tell about it. 

Again, I don’t want to be one of those obnoxious “everyone must do this now” people but I wanted to share this and encourage you that it can be done and it’s so, so good to remember what we are putting into our bodies and why. 

So what are you putting in your body today? Why? What if a season of freedom - whether through Whole30 or another method - is just a first step away?

(PS - Our library had the books and the cookbook so that was also a great free way to do research but there’s also a million resources online if you are interested. Start with https://whole30.com/)