Don't Be a Hater

 Yesterday I was checking out Instagram and realized that one of the people I am following because she is Whole30, is not Whole30. If I read her correctly, she was Whole30 at some point, but recently quit. She of course has several followers who found her, as I did, by searching for Whole30. So now others like myself who are looking for support, recipes, meal plans... are finding her. Instead of finding Whole30 support you find just the opposite. I'm not the type to start flooding her with negative comments, but I do think that she is misrepresenting herself and the Whole30 lifestyle which can, in my opinion, have damaging effects on someone who is trying to change their bad eating habits. Am I wrong to think she should change her name XXXXXeastsWhole? Am I wrong to think her page should begin with a disclaimer?

Yesterday, I saw that she posted an article from the blog of another Whole30 dropout. This is how I discovered that she is NOT Whole30. This one made me extremely angry. She called Whole30 an eating disorder. According to the author, if you do "Paleo Challenges" like Whole30, you have an eating disorder. Apparently now that she has decided that she cannot maintain a Whole30 lifestyle she will trash it and start supporting being able to push big tires, yes she brags about being able to push around a tractor tire. She talks about people being held hostage by their scales (not sure she used those exact words, but I cannot bring myself to read it again). That's great that she is happy with whatever weight she may be at, but she has no right to make others feel bad for wanting to look a certain, healthy way.

Here's my take as a Whole30 follower with absolutely no education or experience in the medical field. 

Whole30 is set up in increments of 30 days to give you a frame of reference. There is also Whole9, 21 Day Fix and others. The number is there to encourage you to try it for that period of time before you start measuring your success. I am on my 5th round of 30 because I love the way I am eating, how I feel and what it is doing to my body health wise. I know what an eating disorder is because I have suffered from both bulimia and anorexia. Whole30 is NOT an eating disorder. It will not kill you.Your muscles will not deteriorate. Your hair will not fall out. Your period will not stop. It will improve your health if you suffer from certain health issues. As I have stated before, I have Crohn's disease - since beginning Whole30 I have not had a single flareup. Not one. I have  psoriatic arthritis - since beginning Whole30 I have not taken a single injection of Humira ($1,200 a pop weekly, thank God for insurance) and the only negative side effect of stopping the injections is that my hands are starting to show signs of the psoriasis, but not the arthritis. I can use Taclonex topical cream for it and it's all good. I have suffered for years with debilitating migraines (2 -3 a week) – I no longer take Topirmate or Relpax and I have had 3 migraines since beginning Whole30. That's 3 in 5 months. I have sciatica. I have had two back surgeries and have at one time or another been on some pretty intense pain relief medications. I have taken Narco for 14 years. I hate taking it and only take enough to be able to function. I am never pain free. My pain management doctor is amazed that after 14 years I have only progressed to taking 8 – 10 a day, but as I said, I am never pain free, just functioning. Since beginning Whole30 I have reduced the number of pills to 5 – 6 a day. My goal is to wean myself off of them completely within a year. My doctor says it won’t be possible without further surgery, we’ll see. One of the medications I can’t do anything about it is my thyroid medication. I have been hypothyroid for 25 years. I can live with that. Finally, I have a tiny little brown bottle that goes everywhere I go. I have angina and I do carry my nitro tablets with me at all times. I will ask for a complete physical next January and am hoping that the cardiologist will be amazed that I no longer need to worry about my heart. Finally, my family has a history of liver disease, my brother had a liver transplant a few years ago. I take 50,000 m of vitamin D, because my liver count is always bad. I can’t wait until August when I go for lab work. I am hoping that vitamin D will be an option, not a requirement.

So all that boring medical stuff aside where is this woman coming from? Whole30 is NOT an eating disorder. It is a quality of life giving, life-saving, eating lifestyle. I love every meal of it. Do I ever slip? Yes. Do I start back at Day 1 when I slip? Never. 30 days is just a frame of reference. What do I do at the end of 30 days? I ask myself if there is something I want to eat that is not Whole30 compliant. This month I will eat some Indian food, malai kofta, saag paneer and tandoori chicken with a piece of naan. The next day I will return to the lifestyle that has been life renewing for me. What I won't do is try to push around a big tractor tire and use that as a measure for healthy. What I really won't do is put down what works for someone else. I won't make someone feel bad about feeling good. I will look in the mirror and like what I see. I will continue running at I prepare for a 10K on the 27th of June. Most importantly I will love my life more than I have in years. .