Whole30 Wrap Up: Creating a Powerful Body, Mind, and Spirit

Today is the last day of my Whole30. Finally! After trying Whole30 at least 5 times, I actually finished it. Woo Hoo!! Here is my Whole30 Wrap Up:

Why Did I Do a Whole30?

• I have a terrible relationship with food and I needed to change that. Normally I am just worried about loosing weight, but all the other weight loss methods that worked for me just had me eating low fat, sugar-free, ice cream, and bread all day. I lost weight but still had a bad relationship with food, and then a few years later I gained the weight back.
• What I eat helps regulate my bipolar disorder better than medications do. I needed to figure out what was best for my treatment plan.
• I wanted to have choice in my life rather than letting my illness take control of me.
• I wanted to finally stick up for myself and to say that I am worth this amount of work.
• For my family. I wanted my son to learn what is healthy. Not see that you eat healthy to be a certain size, but you eat, sleep, recover, play, learn, and grow spiritually so you can be play hard, learn more, and be strong.

What Were The Hardest Things About Whole30?

• Meal planning. You need a TON of food prepared in order to eat Whole30 because you really can't eat out anywhere. (Or at least I could not because I did not want to risk it.) Sometimes we ate the same meal for breakfast lunch and dinner. 
• The "Sugar Dragon." I craved sugar, dreamed about sugar, and a few times overate dates or sweet potatoes.
• Binge eating healthy food! I didn't know that if I had no options, I really would overeat veggies and meat. 
• Taking food everywhere. Every meeting, every dinner party, every play date for our son, we brought our own food.
• I am not cured. I have had Irritable Bowel (IBS) my whole life and really thought if I just ate Whole30 it would go away. It got better but didn't go away completly. There must still be more I am sensitive too. Also, my bipolar is much better regulated but I don't have more than 3-4 days where I am really stable. 

Two of our favorite books. Photo by Jeff Norris.

What Were The Best Things About Whole30?

• While I am not cured of IBS or bipolar, they are both significantly better. And, I no longer fear cutting out foods in order to get even more healthy. I always thought "I don't have enough willpower to be better." Whole30 made me realize willpower is a myth. I can do it if I have a good support system, we are better prepared, and I know I am worth it. It was not until week 3 that I really realized I could do this. I think you just have to force yourself to do it for at least 3 weeks before you know you can do it. 
• Cooking with my husband. We used to drive each other nuts trying to cook in the same kitchen. But this time we both were working towards the same goal and it was great.
• My son learned about being healthy and is actually interested in it! He remained almost completely Whole30 compliant, and he wanted to do it. Gone are the previous days of him complaining that he can't have pizza, bread, dairy, sweets, candy, and "eat what everyone else eats." He likes to just eat healthy. He wants to be stronger, faster, and better in school. He started CrossFit kids in the last few weeks and is really loving the whole healthy lifestyle.
• We had fun doing this together as a family. We cooked new things, ruined some dishes that made our son laugh at us, went to visit the farm where our meat comes from, worked out together, and we became far more encouraging of each other not only with eating but work, school, and life.
• I learned that my eating disorder is perpetuated by eating bad food. It Starts With Food, the book about Whole 30, has a great chapter on the science behind the addictive nature of processed foods. 
• Supplements, sleep, and other things had been suggested to me by my doctor for my treatment but it was so hard to figure out what helped, what was causing problems, because I just had so much bad food in my body. I have a better idea of what supplements help, how much sleep I need, and that there are still a lot more lifestyle changes to go before my treatment plan is compete. Now doing the Whole30, I know I can do all of these things. 
• I proved to myself that I matter. I did not cave and put myself last just to make other people more comfortable. I did not doubt my intuition on how best to care for myself. I gave myself power that I thought I did not have before.

"Measurable" Results From the Whole30

•  Mental Illness: Less Ativan needed, bit better sleep (still working on this), more stable moods, times that would have set me over the edge were not as bad, on the path to recovery from binge eating, happier, sense of self worth.
• Physical: Better at CrossFit and better at sticking with working out, lost weight and inches (I went down two notches on my belt), skin clearing up, eczema not gone but better, IBS not as bad.
• Family: We became closer as a family, we support each other more, healthy living has almost defined us and what we think is important, even our dogs are on a better diet.
• Spiritual: Much better connection to the earth, animals, and farmers who bring us our food. More gratitude, less waste, more understanding of how to help others who are working on being healthy, easier to stick to our ethics, more connected with the Spirit of Love around us. 

What Is Next?

•  Sticking with a strict Paleo base following the Whole30 concept of not eating a ton of Paleofied foods, and not using any refined sugar, and only small amounts of honey or maple syrup. 
• Whole30 has a reintroduction plan, but instead I will be eliminating some more foods to see what still bothers my stomach and I never want to reintroduce wheat, sugar, processed foods, etc...
• More focus on sleep, timing of eating, exercise, and meditation.

Overall, the Whole30 experience was great. True, sometimes I wanted to pull my hair out, scream, yell, and quit. However, the power you gain from doing something like this is so great. You become stronger in body, mind, and spirit.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

Some of our most used items this month: It Starts With Food, Practical Paleo, Well Fed, and recipe for Slow Cooker Italian Pork Roast.

Vitamins for Mental Illness: Making a Responsible Decision

You can find all sorts of places that recommend different vitamin supplements to help with treating mental illness. Since I have had such a hard time taking regular medications, I have a new doctor who is adding in some supplements for me. I know the research really is not out there to prove the positive effects of supplements mental illnesses. The most recent studies have been done on the effect of Omega-3's on depression, indicating that it may be beneficial, but is is still not a widely used treatment. Overall, extensive research studies have just not been done on the many supplements people are recommending and doctors are really suggesting these things based on small preliminary research studies and evidence from what they have seen with their own patients. That is not to say supplements do not work, it just means we have a lot of research to do to prove, to our Western scientific satisfaction, that they do.

If you are working with a Psychiatrist that you have researched and trust who prescribes supplements, I think it is safe to try them. However, I think far more people take them on their own than really work with a MD and I think that is risky for a few reasons.

First, there is a misunderstanding that supplements and they are completely safe and both adults and children can use them because they are "all natural." That is simply not true. Supplements change the chemistry of your brain, that is why you would be using them to treat mental illness, so clearly they have an effect on you and it is possible the effect could be negative. You can take too much of a supplement and supplements can have dangerous interactions with each other and prescription medications. Also, even our doctors do not know how much is a "safe" dose of a supplement because there are really no regulations around them. 

Photo by Katie Norris

There is also a myth that supplements have no side effects. But really, anything you put into your body can have a side effect. We try supplements in order to make us better, which means they have an effect on our body, which means they can have negative side effects as well as positive. One supplement my doctor gave me to help me sleep did make me tired but also gave me extreme stomach pain about four hours after I took it, which lasted for about twelve hours. So, even though it helped me fall asleep, I woke up four hours later in pain, could not sleep, and then had to try and get through half of my work day with a chronic, sometimes immobilizing stomach ache. One thing you also have to be sure of with side effects of supplements is that many of the supplements are combinations of a few different things in  one pill. When you research side effects look up each individual ingredient to find more accurate information.

Lastly, one of the arguments against using supplements is that often some of the supplements your doctor will prescribe for you are supplements that they sell from a company they make money from. True, this could be a red flag, but at the same time, doctors also get rewards from the prescription medications they give you. I have had a few doctors that change my medication to the "latest" new drug, which often is not covered by insurance and not available in generic form often causing us to spend $600 for one drug per month. (But of course the first month is free due to the samples the doctor gives me brought to them by the drug representatives.) You really have to research your doctor to see if they are suggesting supplements because they really believe they work, or because they can make a lot of money off of them.

My point in this post is not to make you fear supplements. Obviously I think they can work as I am willing to try them. It is just to warn you from getting caught up in the hype that supplements are so natural that there are no risks in taking them and you can even prescribe things for yourself since you can go to any drug store and pick them up. If you want to try supplements, my advice is to only do so under the supervision of a Psychiatrist who takes a truly holistic and responsible approach to mental health. How do you find a Psychiatrist like that? It's hard. It takes a lot of research to find the one doctor of hundreds who truly understands and is willing to use both regular and non-pharmacological treatments.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie