Whole30 || The New Me

There is something so empowering about completing something difficult!  Happiness overcomes, the likelihood of trying something else difficult increases, and self-confidence grows.  That dang self confidence, or self love if you will. I've struggled with confidence for years. It's not something that grows overnight unfortunately. Yet it can grow when you focus on yourself & talents you may have. Sure I liked certain parts of myself, my craftiness, love for other people, my dedication to be a good mother and wife. But I don't know if I can say I truly love myself. 

A few weeks ago someone brought up the topic of loving yourself and how if you don't love yourself,  can you fully love someone else.

So how do you come to love yourself? I think the best answer to this question is becoming the best version of yourself. One of the greatest things about coming to this earth is the gift of AGENCY that we have. This means at any time in our lives we have the opportunity to make changes to our lives, big or small, at any time we choose.

I made one of those choices to make a change, which was a big change.

The end of last year I purchased "It Starts With Food" by Melissa & Dallas Hartwig. This book has changed my life &,most importantly, has changed my relationship with food. January was when I decided to start acting on the changes I wanted. 

I've shared before how I haven't had the best relationship with food since I graduated high school and it only got worse while my baby was born 3 months early and hospitalized for his first 4 months of life {which were by far the hardest most stressful 4 months of my life}. For his first 15 months of life I didn't make any changes. Being a mother of premature baby doesn't usually end at hospital discharge. and the stress that accompanies that doesn't leave either. So I often indulged in stress-eating as well as eating when I was bored, or moody. And I didn't think twice about it. Slowly I started disliking my body more and more, and was becoming less and less happy. After reading the book and knowing the science behind the whole30, I took a giant leap and decided that I was going to be healthy from here on out. After the first Whole30 I had GREAT results and was more energetic than before. I took a month off but kept eating mostly whole30 compliant foods. I knew I would do a round 2 sometime, but hadn't decided when. One day my husband said " want to start a whole30 on Monday?" and I couldn't think of a good reason not to! So I we started on March 2nd. I really enjoyed round 2 a lot more than the first go around!!  It wasn't difficult for me to make healthy choices and I wasn't tempted by non-compliant foods. We made sure to meal plan a week at a time so that I knew exactly what we were having. We found so many more recipes we love now too! I also worked out about 15/30 days.

Non Scale Victories:
Clothes are fitting better, I'm down a pant size(!!!) , my acne is even more scarce, and my ASTHMA IS GONE. GONE! This is a huge deal! I've read and heard that asthma can be caused by a dairy intolerance. After the first whole30 I noticed it was still there, but after this last 30 days there is no trace! I can breath after/during exercise now without sounding like I have a smoker's cough! I'm happier, I have more energy and I actually look forward to working out! 

So here's to being best version of me, loving myself, those around me,and loving life.

AND the moment you've been waiting for.... MY RESULTS! 

I lost another 15 lbs! Making it about 30lbs lost  between my 1st and 2nd whole30! Getting these results makes me want to keep going! My 3rd whole30 is very near!

Notice my smile gets bigger each time too!! 

Find out if the Whole30 is right for you HERE!