Whole 30 results and thoughts

Starting September 1st Becca decided to adopt the Whole 30 diet. You can read about her experiences here and here. I jumped on board as it basically was a healthy and easy way to improve my diet. To be honest it wasn’t that bad but there was room for improvement. I have to confess I wasn’t 100% committed, I still had milk in tea and H&H in my coffee and Splenda in both.

There is a long list of things that are eliminated, the big ticket items are; grains, dairy, legumes, anything with sugar added (most fruit is ok), alcohol. I reduced but didn’t eliminate beer altogether and I still had plain Greek 2% yogurt with homemade granola 2 or 3 times a week. Rice porridge is still a weekend staple. Beyond that I ate whatever Becca put in front of me.

With Becca’s broken collar bone she has become whirling Diva in the Kitchen and with my Sunday rides extended out another month it’s all tied in really nicely timing wise. The results have been pretty staggering to be honest. My weight had averaged 175lb for the last 18 months, sometimes I dipped below 170 after a big workout and occasionally I hit 178 after a big blowout. I wrote in March of last year that my ideal racing weight was 166lb and that figure was impossible to reach yet alone maintain and that I was really aiming for 168lb.

Yeah about that! In the last 6 weeks my weight has averaged 163lb, sometimes I’ll drop below 160lb after a 5-6 hour ride and that effect may linger a few days but I haven’t been above 170 since August 19th.

Obviously my weight was being focused on before September and the start of the Whole 30 plan but the consistency in keeping the weight off has been since then. My training volume hasn’t decreased and with the weight lost my performance has improved, most noticeably I am not dragging the extra 10-12lb up every hill I ride. Trust me it makes a difference! The nice thing is that the weight has been dropped from where it usually accumulates, my belly. I have gone from a 32/33” waist to a 30”ish. The flipside of this is now it is a pain to find 30x34 pants!

The ongoing transition and maintenance hasn’t been all that hard. I have a pretty high tolerance for the same food and as a result my lunches at work have become a plate of color and crunch! It makes me laugh that the same people who say wow that looks good as they walk past me preparing it come back carrying a Carl’s Jnr bag!

With the Everesting attempt now scheduled for the weekend of Thanksgiving it’s time to double down and keep my eye on the prize, so I will be strictly sticking to my 80% rule and focus on the motivation of not having to drag those 12lb over 250 miles is sure going to help!