You may be reading this and thinking I’m crazy for waiting two years to start Whole 30, but hear me out. Shortly after being introduced to my new healthier lifestyle I heard about the Whole 30 plan. It sounded amazing as far as results go, but miserable as far as giving up cheese and creamed coffee. I was already concerned with my new lifestyle changes because I was using these hippie oils and watching for toxic chemicals in my home. I’d already gone off the deep end as far as I was concerned so making a HUGE diet change wasn’t happening for me.

Friend after friend continued to check out the Whole 30 plan and I continued to be intrigued, but the baby steps I was already taking were frightening enough. I mean I had switched from whole wheat bread to whole grain bread with significantly fewer ingredients. I had switched to nearly everything organic that I could. I drank raw milk for crying out loud–like straight from a cow raw milk! I got myself on Weight Watchers to lose weight, but instead of being sneaky with fewer unhealthy ingredients I decided to actually learn how to eat good foods and lots of them since I could eat as many fruits and veggies as I wanted. I turned to Gina from Skinny Taste for all of my recipes to survive Weight Watchers. I was feeling pretty good about the changes I had made but still the thought of Whole 30 overwhelmed me. I was making plenty of baby steps and was proud of them! The fact that our dinners didn’t consist of boxes or frozen lasagna was impressive enough. Let’s face it–I was drinking La Croix instead of Dr. Pepper, that’s HUGE! I’m a Texan after all.

Then this summer I met a new friend and she asked if I had considered a diet change in regards to my infertility. My response was simply “I’ve done enough and if I want to do something drastic I’m going to need to have cancer or something.” This was yet again, another baby step and push I needed to even come close to considering more changes. This was the beginning of series of conversations regarding my diet and not that my diet is terrible, but there are things that could be eliminated that might surprise me. In fact, the same day this friend ask about my diet another friend was in the car, her mom a Naturopath.  I’ve been considering going to see her mom about our infertility but knew diet was something she’d want to talk about and I’d made enough changes already and was frankly being stubborn. She’ll probably read this and be saying ‘yep and amen’ as she reads. I know full well that there are 3 things that I could eliminate that could turn my health around…gluten, sugar and dairy.

Gluten? Not too bad. I mean we’ve practically taken it out of the majority of our meals any way so why not. Sugar? Okay, so I’ll be sad at first but I think I’ll get over it. Thankfully I don’t really love desserts and if I keep sugary snacks out of the house I’m pretty good. It will take some adjusting but I can do it. Dairy? Nope, can’t do it. I’ll die. What is it about dairy that I go weak at the knees for? Cheese needs to be on top of all the foods, all of them. Queso, quesadillas, tacos, cheese on top of chili, on sandwiches, by itself. Just give me all the cheese. No creamer?! Welp, there goes my coffee (thankfully I survived a month without it and know I won’t die). Milk? No big deal. Yogurt? No big deal. But the cheese, I’ll be dreaming about it for weeks I’m sure. So, if you are my friend and we hang out in the month of January please don’t eat cheese in front of me or I might accidentally stab you.

So, why has it taken me two years? Why couldn’t I just pull myself up by my bootstraps? Well, for me, I like to take everything a step at a time (A Drop at a Thyme, remember?). So, I’ve managed to give up coffee once and didn’t die. I reduced significantly our gluten intake and am still breathing. I gave up Dr. Pepper mostly and still enjoy my life. But all these things had to happen one at a time for me. I couldn’t give up Dr. Pepper and rolls with every meal the same week. I had to get rid of one first and get used to it. Then the next and so on and so on. I had to get used to meal planning and actually getting said meals on the table. We used to dine out for like 70% of our meals so how was I going to go from dining out all the time to preparing meals, healthy meals for my family ALL the time?! It wasn’t going to happen.

So here I am nearly two years later ready to make this bold for me change. I’ve been mentally preparing myself (and my husband) for this for a couple of months now. I didn’t really know when I would do it, but after running into a friend at the grocery store recently and seeing how amazing she looked and felt I decided to go for it. I’ve been pinning recipes to prepare myself and ordered the Whole 30 book. I will spend the month of December preparing myself for success and then January 1st I’ll dive in. If we’re friends, you may want to avoid me the first 5 days or so or offer me delicious Whole 30 approved “treats”. Do treats exist on Whole 30? I hope so!

I’ll be sharing my journey with you on the blog (menu plan), instagram and facebook. Would love for you to join me if you dare. We can cry together over the cheese we can no longer eat.

Have you done the Whole 30? If so, please share your favorite recipes with me and tips for survival!