If you might have noticed, and as I drew attention to earlier this month, 2015 was not a great blogging year for me, or if I’m being honest, particularly good in general as it pertained to food, fitness, creativity or any of the other snippets of Ginger I generally share around here.  The calendar was jam-packed with events and my health wasn’t the greatest. I was hit by a car in April that I’m still fighting to bounce back from, dealt with a broken toe (a surprisingly disruptive injury!) in August, and a kidney infection in October. Fun.

TMI? Complaining? Maybe a little, but what’s a blog if not a little personal? Ups and downs are real. The point is pulling your shit together once you realize that it’s happening. As ShareABitOfLove told me recently: 

The last year saw a dramatic decrease in my dedication to exercise and a moderate increase in my wine consumption (let’s be honest, the wine devotion always ran deep). I believe in balance but right now the scale is about ready to stop using numbers and just give me the middle finger. My sleep is off (even more than usual). And I just don’t have the right energy at the gym that goes beyond the existing injuries.

So. Time to reset.

I read about the Whole30 via recipes hunts, as the plan is inherently gluten free. Then, I read along at this exact time last year when one of my local blogger favorites Christina at Hungry Meets Healthy took on the challenge and I totally identified with her champagne withdrawals. I like the idea of the “diet” because it’s not really a diet at all. There’s a lot of science behind the nutrition and while it seems initially restrictive, it doesn’t cut major macro groups or foods long term. Rather it restricts a few groups short term to reset your body and digestion. At the end of 30 days you slowly reintroduce each group as a control to discover what fuels your particular biology best. 

Yes: All meat, seafood, eggs, vegetables (including starches like potatoes), fruit, most fat (oil, ghee), even coffee!

No: WINEEEE… Grains (including the pseudo grains like quinoa and amaranth), corn, legumes (including everything soy based), alcohol of any sort, added sugar, and dairy. 

I’ve wanted to do this for quite some time, but the idea of no wine and no cheese seemed insurmountable. What seems even harder right now is making it through the treadmill portion of a Barry’s class. I’ve reach my “get your shit” together come-to-Jesus moment (and so have my pants).

I began reading the book It Starts With Food, and had a ‘practice’ week last week where I obsessively read labels, slowly getting my head around what the 30 day menu would look like, getting the remaining dairy out of my face, and yes, savoring a few glasses of wine. I’ve had several label surprises. Have you ever tried to find sugar free bacon? Or did you know there is soy lecithin in Sambazon Acai puree? (And I thought that would be my superfood breakfast.) Some of the additives it tells you to avoid are going to be a pain. (But, I think discovering where they hide is kind of the point.)

I’ll give a weekly rundown of what I ate and how I’m feeling. You can have the numbers at the end.

Have you done the Whole30? Any recipes? Thoughts? Is there a paleo version of wine nobody told me about?