{This post contains affiliate links}
Holidays spark awareness and inspire action. As I scanned the calendar, I noticed a few health and wellness holidays:
- Family Health & Fitness Day
- Better Breakfast Day
- Self-Improvement Month
- National Cholesterol Education Month
- National Cooking Day
As a nation, we know the importance of healthy living, but we struggle to make it a lifestyle. That’s where the Whole30 comes in and transforms your outlook on healthy living. Boost your health with the Whole30 by eliminating certain foods as a way to identify specific triggers and sensitivities.
Even though you won’t see Whole30 marked as a national health and wellness holiday, it’s a great way to make better food choices and eating habits.
Whole30 Will Help You Learn to Make Wise Food Choices
It’s easy to observe health and wellness for a day or maybe even a week, with enthusiasm. It’s those month-long health and wellness holidays that require commitment. The quick-fix mentality is the Achilles’ Heel that keeps us as one of the unhealthiest nations in the world.
The Whole30 is a resource to change that.
The program helps you to make better food choices and develop healthy food and lifestyle habits.
The Whole30 provides a path to follow toward a healthy living lifestyle, not a lifetime of food rules and restrictions.
Learning to undo a lifetime of poor food choices in 30 days seems impossible. It’s not. Here’s why. The Whole30 is not a fad diet or food trend. The program is free, with no fees to join, powders to purchase, or membership to sign. Food and perseverance are the only two things you need to succeed in the program.
Whole30 Inspires Counter Culture Eating
A pastor lamented that most people don’t devote adequate time to scripture study during a recent sermon. I would agree.
It’s not because we don’t want to dig down deep. We just don’t know-how. Our microwave, drive-thru culture conditions us to expect fast results by pressing a button.
That same mentality stains every aspect of our life, including the way we eat.
Because the Whole30 program requires you to eat clean, real food, drive-thru eating becomes a habit of your past. Throughout the month, you will sharpen your cooking skills, maybe come to enjoy it.
When you shop for food, you will spend less time and money in your supermarket’s middle aisles.
Instead, your cart will frequent the perimeter of the grocery store where the real food lives.
Whole30 Cultivates Gratitude and Appreciation for Food
Yes, the program’s premise is to reset your health and examine the foods that harm your body. The other crucial food style change will be your perspective on food.
The Whole30 alters the way you think about food—in a positive way. Quite possibly, the Whole30 eating plan “has the potential to change the way you eat for the rest of your life.”
Mealtimes will become sacred and soulful gatherings. You will look forward to the unhurried conversations with the people seated around your table.
Every time you express gratitude for food, offer a benediction or prayer before a meal, you acknowledge that food is a gift.
Whole30 Helps Combat Emotional Eating and Food Pitfalls
I like to think of Whole30 as a temporary eating plan that has a defined beginning and end. The program offers guidelines to build a healthy eating lifestyle of whole foods that nourish your body.
Norman Wirzba, Professor of Theology and Ecology at Duke University, explains, “when we eat well, consuming a diet of whole foods that reflects a healthy food chain of well-nourished plants and animals, we stand the best chance of being whole and healthy too.”
When we develop a lifestyle of consuming wholesome, real foods, we build a positive relationship with food.
The Whole30 develops a clear understanding of what and how much to eat, which places food in its proper perspective. Rather than viewing food as an enemy born out of guilt and self-denial with every forkful, learn to prepare and eat wholesome, clean food.
Food is a tool to nourish your body and nurture relationships.
Whole30 Prepares You to Become the Keeper of Your Health
The program intends to reshape your eating habits. At the end of the 30 days and the reintroduction period, you will be ready to make responsible and mindful food choices.
Health is one of God’s greatest gifts, but it’s easy to take it for granted. Healthful foods offer the advantage of nourishment as God intended.
Kitchen tables are the places we cultivate conversations that build trust and intimacy. The place we feast, without guilt, on the abundance of real food graciously provided for our good and God’s glory.
Obediently and mindfully caring for your health helps to avoid chronic illnesses and diseases. It is easier to fulfill your God-given duties in good health.
Here’s the Boost to getting ready for the Whole30
B- Buy or borrow as many of the Whole30 books as you can.
Learn as much as you can about the program. Gaining insight into the program will help you stand on your own at the end of the program. It’s not a diet. Ditch the scales. It’s not about your weight. The goal is to eliminate foods that may have a damaging effect on your body.
Check out the Whole30 Library below!
O- Organize Your Kitchen, Pantry, and Refrigerator for the Whole30
Clear out all foods that are not Whole30 compliant. Remove all of the processed foods that tempt you into returning to your former ways of eating.
A recent study on effective ways to help people stop smoking explained that smokers had to change their environment. The study participants found that removing triggers and obstacles associated with smoking moved them closer to their goal.
The same intervention can be applied to eating. Become aware of the potential triggers and remove the obstacles. If the aroma of certain fast-food triggers your senses for that non-compliant food, then, for now, change where you eat lunch.
O- Open your heart to learning ways to eat and live soulfully.
For some of you reading this, the Whole30 may be a new and challenging journey, but only at first. By the end of the month, you will gain a new perspective on food.
Often, a health crisis forces people to pay attention to their eating habits and food choices. It happened to me.
If I wanted to beat Lyme disease, then I had to alter my lifestyle drastically. And that’s what I did. I devoted time to prayer, changed my eating plan, added supplements, eliminated toxic products, and engaged in regular exercise.
Eventually, my body responded.
S- Success is in the planning
Meal Planning is crucial during the Whole30. Sign up for my free Whole30 meal plans to get you through the month.
T- Tell others about your journey.
It always helps to be among friends who are forging a similar path or who have already ventured. Join my circle of friends who gather on Instagram and my Facebook page to cultivate a healthy living lifestyle together.
Share your victories as well as your defeats with the community. We offer support, prayers, and resources along the way.
Resources to help boost your health with the Whole30
Leave a Reply