This is our third… maybe fourth time to do Whole 30 and I always get the same questions over and over again, so I thought it was high time to a Whole 30 FAQ on the blog!
I remember the first time we did Whole 30, I had 1000 questions for my good friend Callie and she was SO helpful! I was texting her constantly – does this work? Is this compliant? Have you tried this? Every time we do a Whole 30 I share it with my community over on Instagram and Facebook and I get the same questions over and over again there. So I thought I would combine all my “knowledge” on the subject and share it here for you, including some of my favorite go to meals that are super easy to throw together any time!
Whole 30 FAQ
Does Whole 30 provide for meals on the go?
Any meal plan or lifestyle that you choose can be as portable as you’d like it to be. While you do have to cook pretty much every meal you’re going to eat when you do Whole 30 (since most fast foods and restaurants have non-compliant ingredients in their food), you can choose to prepare meals that are easy to divy up and eat on the go.
For example, you can make a huge salad at the beginning of the week. Chop up romaine lettuce and add all kinds of veggies to it like shredded carrots, sliced radishes, chopped tomatoes and cucumber – whatever you like most – and keep it in a huge bowl with a lid in the fridge. Use a paper towel to keep the moisture from making the lettuce wilt. Prepare a few grilled chicken breasts, steaks, shrimp – whatever your favorite protein is, and make yourself a big salad for lunch every day. It also helps if you’re eating literally on the go like in your car to keep a little cooler with some dressing, fruit, and maybe a kombucha in to snack on during the day too.
It takes a little planning and dedication if you want to do this and you have a busy, on the go lifestyle. But don’t let that be an excuse for you – you can definitely do it! For starters it is just 30 days and you can literally do ANYTHING for 30 days! It also helps instill the habits you need to keep it going – you get really good at cooking things quickly, get used to eating the same things on a regular basis, and start to view food as fuel and appreciate it in that way rather than every meal being a treat.
Where can I find that Chipotle Mayo?
YAS!! It is so good – can’t recommend it enough! You can usually find it in the grocery store BUT I order it from Thrive Market because it is usually quite a bit cheaper. I stock up on several things from Thrive Market – I’ll share a blog post with our staples from there soon! Check your local grocery store on the aisle with other healthy foods – sometimes you can find it in the condiments aisle as well.
I’ve never done it but you make it look attainable!
I know this isn’t a question but I wanted to address it on this post anyways! When it comes to eating, attainability and maintainability are incredibly important to me. I don’t want to dive into anything that I can’t do easily. I don’t have a lot of time to count calories or calculate macros and I don’t have the budget to do prepared meals or anything like that.
While we initially tried Whole 30 because our friends did it and were talking about how much better they felt, we really ended up sticking with it because once you get through your first round of it, it really is the easiest lifestyle to stick to because it is simple. Eat whole foods, watch your sugar intake, and pay attention to how food makes you feel – not the number of calories or anything that you’re consuming.
Maintaining a whole 30 lifestyle seems overwhelming at first – but doesn’t any new lifestyle? The more you do it though and the more used you get to the habits you’re forming with it, the less you really have to think about it. At this point I don’t even really meal plan for it anymore and just keep ingredients in our house that I know I can put together for a tasty meal. We also have a few tried and true recipes that we always fall back on:
Shepherds Pie from Vodka & Biscuits
Buffalo Chicken Meatballs from Physical Kitchness
Sweet Potato Crust Pizza with BBQ Kitchen from The Soccer Mom Blog
Egg Roll in a Bowl from 40 Aprons
“Cheeseburger” Skillet from A Dash of Dolly
Taco Chicken Salad from Whole Kitchen Sink
Chicken Stir Fry with Veggies & Garlic Sauce from Paleo Running Momma
IP Paleo Chili from Well Plated
Classic Meatloaf from The Defined Dish
Cashew Chicken from Whole Kitchen Sink
Bacon Ranch Chicken Poppers from Unbound Wellness
Steak Fajitas from The Movement Menu
Another way that we have made this attainable for us is that we generally eat a version of the same thing every day for breakfast and then stick with one or two big meals that we split up for lunch and dinner. That way I’m not cooking three meals a day, seven days a week! Heating up leftovers becomes a daily thing for us! For breakfast we usually have some kind of hash bowl – potatoes, veggies, and scrambled eggs with avocado and salsa, and of course Chipotle Lime mayo! So find a rhythm that works for you and stick to it!
Why and when do you do Whole 30?
I go into why we did it the first time in this blog post, but at this point we will throw a round of Whole 30 into the mix when we really need a reset on our diet. We all get busy, overwhelmed, and a little burned out with the day to day living we are required to plug into – and usually the first thing to go as far as priorities is our eating. We start eating out more, especially fast food, and when we do eat at home it is typically not the greatest for our overall healthy. So when we seem to be caught up in the cycle and need a total body & mind reset, we will do a round of Whole 30.
Do you eat out when you’re on it?
We do not generally eat out when we are doing a round of Whole 30. The main reason is that you don’t have a lot of control over what ingredients are used in restaurant meals and it can be a bit of a hassle to get there and ask one zillion questions, make 100 modifications, and still enjoy yourself in the process. However, the occasions do arise where you don’t have an option – you have to take a client to lunch, celebrate a birthday or other milestone, or you get caught out and don’t have any other option but to grab something to go. So here are a few tips for that:
When possible, plan, plan, plan ahead, and then plan some more. If you know about this eating out occasion beforehand, call the restaurant and ask questions about the menu. A lot of the time they are happy to answer them for you, especially if you call before, because it isn’t in the moment and stressing out one of their servers during the evening rush. Look up their menu online, pick a couple of things, and then call and ask how they are prepared. If you can’t prepare ahead of time, stick with grilled proteins, veggies, and a plain baked potato. While you’re there, focus on the conversation and relationship of the dinner guests rather than your food. Drink lots of water (or, unsweet tea, my fave) and avoid any alcohol.
If you have to hit a drive through, which may happen!!, find one that does hamburgers! You can get a bunless burger, top it with lots of veggies and mayo or mustard, and have a side of fries. This is definitely NOT the best option, and decidedly not purely Whole 30, but in a pinch you are still making a thoughtful decision about what you’re eating.
There are also a few restaurants that I know of that do have a “Whole 30” menu, like Zoe’s Kitchen and Chipotle. If you can grab something from there, you’re good to go.
What are your thoughts on Thrive Market? Do you use it while you’re not on Whole 30 too?
We truly love Thrive Market! When it comes to getting organic or diet specific shelf stable or pantry items, Thrive Market is a great resource to have in your arsenal. I love that you can shop based in your dietary needs or restrictions (like keto, dairy-free, gluten free, etc) and that not only do they carry basics like almond flour and cooking oils, but fun new things to try like organic sprouted cereal (Jett loves cereal so I’m on a mission to find one with less sugar in it) and hazelnut butter chocolate bars (who else loves Nutella??). It is about $60 a year but my suggestion is to split it with a friend and you can both use it to order from. You’ll save that $30 in your first two orders, if not your first, so it is a win either way!
Do you notice a difference in how you feel overall?
AB.SO.LU.TE.LY. That is the number one main reason we try to stick to a mostly Whole 30 lifestyle! When we aren’t eating junk all the time we feel SO much better overall. Less groggy, less brain fog, more energy, etc. The first time we did it we didn’t realize how crappy we felt but once we kind of “detoxed” all of the junk out of our system it was eye opening to see how food really effects you overall! Then when you are finished with the 30 days and you start slowly adding things back in to see how they effect you, you can decide what you want to add back to your diet. You would be amazed at how much you’ll learn about your body in this process.
The other side benefit of doing this is to learn that you really do have control over your cravings and hunger and it will reveal if you have an unhealthy relationship with food. Spoiler alert – I definitely did. I didn’t realize how often I self-medicated through negative emotions, situations, and relationships with food. Healthy food or junk food, it is not a good habit to eat when you feel sad, bored, stressed, or overwhelmed. I’ve learned to recognize actual HUNGER vs. eating to get through something I don’t really want to deal with.
How does Whole 30 effect your grocery budget?
I believe that if you make a meal plan and stick to it that you can do a round of Whole 30 OR transition over to a more Whole 30 lifestyle without blowing up your grocery budget. While we were paying off our debt, our grocery budget was $75/week. That might sound insane, but we meal planned down to snacks, stuck to our meal plan, never ate out, and survived – in fact I would say we thrived. It taught me how to make a meal plan and a grocery list, buy ONLY what we need, stick to a meal plan, track our spending (I still have some grocery prices memorized), and learn to eat leftovers.
All of those habits came in really handy for our first round of Whole 30. While we were learning what we liked and didn’t like, I shopped at Aldi for our produce and HEB for the rest of our groceries and still stuck a very strict budget (I doubled it to be safe, but we spent around $130-$140/week on groceries). At this point I buy a whole lot of produce, veggies, fruit, and protein and just a few specialty items. We eat a lot of grilled or pan fried protein, roasted veggies, baked potatoes, and salads. We spend around $150/week on groceries (that includes household things like dog food, laundry detergent, and food for Jett too) and don’t really spend a lot of money on eating out (less than $100/month). So I think it all balances out. Plus, since we started this lifestyle, we have been sick a lot less and been to the doctor less. I think it all balances out.
How do you balance eating Whole 30 all the time with having a life and cheat meals?
As awesome as Whole 30 is, for us it is impossible for us to do it 24/7/365. We have lives and have to attend things like birthday parties and family dinners. We get caught in situations where we have to eat out every once in a while. We are about to start living at the baseball field too, so I suspect that eating dinner at the table every night might get a little tricker in the coming months. So for us it was important to strike a balance between eating healthy as often as we can, being okay with treat (don’t call them cheat!) meals, and living our lives in the process.
If you let it, Whole 30 can create a lot of guilt and unhealthy habits when it comes to food. You are supposed to do it for 30 days, slowly introduce foods back in and see if they trigger any inflammatory response in your body, and adjust accordingly after that. It is not meant to do all the time BUT we do use it as a baseline for what we would like to eat and how we would like our diet to be. That is why this particular “round” is a little more flexible (we definitely had pizza last Friday night, with cheese and alll the good stuff on it) because our ultimate goal is to create new habits and relationship with food, not make ourselves miserable and guilty with it.
I really believe in creating a healthy baseline as your habit but not letting it rule your life. Another reason I feel this way is because in order for me to get Chris on board, I had to make an exception for him to continue to have a Dr. Pepper in the mornings. He doesn’t drink coffee so DP is his caffeine that gets him going in the morning. I was fine with that because one DP is better than three or four, which is what he was usually having. So be willing to make a few exceptions to get and keep your people on board because overall the main goal is to change your lifestyle, not fight over one soft drink a day. And for what it is worth, this round, Chris has only had 2-3 Dr. Peppers TOTAL, so that is a great improvement.
Is (insert food/ingredient here) compliant with Whole 30?
I must have asked Callie this one. hundred. times. I finally found this website where you can check to see what is and isn’t compliant when you are doing a round of Whole 30. You can also just google the question and you’ll find the thread on that website too. You basically need to eliminate dairy, gluten, grains, soy, alcohol, legumes, and sugar from your diet. What is left to eat then? Whole foods, hence the title whole 30. Fruits, vegetables, protein, and healthy fats like avocados and oils.
Does Jett eat the same meals that you do?
The short answer is no. But the long answer is that he always is required to try what I’ve cooked. He does like some of the food we prepare on Whole 30 and this round he has learned he likes roasted brussel sprouts and sweet potatoes. Most of the time he has a portion of what I’ve cooked, usually the protein, a taste of the vegetable, and then he has macaroni and cheese with it, usually. Jett is starting to grow out of his picky eater phase and, though he has always been good at trying new foods, he is finally starting to LIKE the new foods that he tries.
This means that most nights I am a bit of a short order cook. However, it has gotten easier as he has gotten older because at least now he can cook his own macaroni and cheese in the microwave or put together a ham and cheese sandwich.
What does a typical grocery trip look like for you?
As I mentioned earlier, I focus on buying a lot of produce, fruits, protein, and healthy fats. At this point we have a few tried and true recipes that we always use and I have a pretty good rotating list of things I know we will eat so as long as I buy the same things every time, I can always make some kind of meal!
Is there anything you DON’T like about Whole 30?
Yes – two things. So much cooking. So many dishes. Otherwise, I love it.
As always, I am an open book when it comes to most things so if you have any other questions, feel free to drop them in the comments below. If you found this post helpful, I would love it if you shared it to your Facebook page or Pinterest account using the image below!
