“I have been living the Whole30 lifestyle for over a year, and it has completely changed my life. In 15 months, I went from 300 pounds to 179 pounds, and from a size 22 to a size 10. I no longer let food control me. I no longer have sugar cravings and can totally bypass anything that I know my body doesn’t need. You gave me the inspiration to believe in myself and turn my life around so that I could play with my daughter without getting tired. I am now running five days a week to help maintain my healthy lifestyle and this spring finished my first half marathon. I can’t say enough good things about the Whole30. It has changed my life for the better!”
—Katie K., Davenport, IA
The success of your Whole30 depends in large part on the 100 percent elimination of the “less healthy” foods (and beverages) we rule out for the duration of the program. We’ve chosen these foods because they fail some (or all) of the four Good Food Standards we outlined in It Starts With Food. We’ll talk about specific foods in a minute, but first, let’s talk about how the Whole30 targets each of those key areas of health.
The Whole30 is specifically designed to address any long-standing, unhealthy psychological and emotional relationships with food, helping you break free of cravings and bad habits. We eliminate nutrient-poor, calorie-dense, low-satiety foods that promote overconsumption—the stuff that once you start eating, you just can’t stop. These “foods with no brakes” are the cookies, crackers, chips, chocolates, ice creams, and other comfort foods to which you find yourself irresistibly drawn when you’re stressed, lonely, anxious, or unhappy.
Over time, overconsumption of these foods rewire reward, pleasure, emotion, and habit pathways in the brain, promoting a vicious cycle of craving, overconsumption, guilt, and remorse. The simple act of giving in to a craving (again) also stresses you out—and emotional and psychological stress have physical consequences that, in part, further exacerbates your desire for sugar.
The Whole30 rules are carefully crafted to quash your cravings (specifically for sugar and empty carbohydrates), identify your food triggers, and teach you to find other sources of comfort and reward, so that you are in control of your food, and not the other way around.
The foods that we eat should:
The Whole30 rules and meal recommendations also target a sluggish metabolism, helping you restore a healthy hormonal balance, effectively regulate blood sugar, and become “fat adapted” (able to use dietary and body fat as fuel). Over time, the overconsumption of foods with no brakes conditions your body to rely on sugar for energy, leaving you unable to burn the fat stored on your body, and requiring you to eat every few hours to maintain energy, focus, and a pleasant demeanor. It also disrupts your body’s ability to manage your blood sugar, the delicate balance of key hormones like insulin and leptin, and how well those hormones’ messages get through to your brain. These changes not only promote energy dips, excessive hunger and cravings, and weight gain, but start you down the road to chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes.
The foods you’ll eat during your Whole30 will promote stable blood sugar levels, teach your body how to utilize fat as fuel, regulate your hormones, and improve their communications with your brain. As a result, during your Whole30 you’ll likely experience an increase in energy, a reduction in hunger between meals, weight loss, and an improvement in biomarkers like blood pressure, “good” cholesterol, and fasting blood sugar.
One of the most important targets of the Whole30 program is your gut—specifically, the small intestine, where the vast majority of your food is digested and absorbed. Certain foods promote a “leaky gut,” a condition where the small intestine is no longer able to properly absorb the nutrients you eat. This means the healthy foods you chew and swallow aren’t actually nourishing your body, and things like partially digested food, bacteria, or other toxins are allowed to “leak” from your intestines into the bloodstream, where they don’t belong. This triggers an immune reaction, and promotes chronic systemic inflammation everywhere in the body, not just in the digestive tract.
The Whole30 eliminates the foods shown to cause or promote this leaky gut, allowing your digestive tract to heal and your immune system to calm. This helps to resolve a host of digestive issues (like heartburn, acid reflux, constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating, and related pain) and reduce or eliminate the wide-ranging systemic effects of chronic inflammation.
We refer to your brain’s unrelenting demand for sugar, junk foods, or simple carbs as your “Sugar Dragon.” The more you feed it, the more fire it breathes, and the stronger it gets. The only way to slay your Sugar Dragon is to starve it, which is why the Whole30 allows for no added sugar—not some, not less, but none. We’ll explain more in the official rules, but for now, know that your Sugar Dragon’s fire-breathing days are numbered if you follow our program to the letter.
Last but certainly not least, the Whole30 is an anti-inflammatory diet, designed to calm an overactive immune system and reduce or eliminate the symptoms of inflammation—aches, pains, and medical issues you may not have ever associated with your food choices. Systemic inflammation starts in your gut, but because the immune activity goes everywhere your bloodstream flows, the symptoms may appear anywhere, in any form—even in the brain.
This kind of inflammation is often referred to as “silent inflammation,” but we believe it’s not really silent if you know what you’re listening for. This is a comprehensive (but not exhaustive) list of conditions and diseases linked to systemic inflammation or having an inflammatory component. If you experience any of these conditions or symptoms, there’s a pretty good chance you have some of that “silent” inflammation.
By removing the foods most likely to contribute to both an impaired gut and chronic systemic inflammation, the Whole30 can reduce or eliminate the symptoms related to any number of lifestyle-related diseases and conditions, dramatically improving how you look, how you feel, and your quality of life.
Your immune system’s top priority is defense against outside threats, like fighting off a cold or healing tissues when you trip and sprain your ankle. This immune activity is aggressive but short-term—your immune system recognizes the threat, rapidly ramps up to deal with it, and then returns to a “resting” baseline when the job is done. During this resting baseline, your immune system plays a critical role in the repair and maintenance of various body structures. Chronic systemic inflammation is the full-body, long-term up-regulation of immune system activity. Think of chronic systemic inflammation like being a little bit sick all the time; when certain factors (like your food choices) overload the system and keep it working hard all the time, it is less effective at doing its other jobs, like healing that stubborn tendinitis or keeping your arteries clear of plaque. Chronic systemic inflammation is at the heart of an endless number of lifestyle-related diseases and conditions, like allergies, asthma, eczema, autoimmune diseases, high cholesterol, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and obesity.
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acid reflux/heartburn |
eczema |
multiple sclerosis |
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acne |
edema |
myasthenia gravis |
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allergies |
emphysema |
myositis |
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alopecia |
endometriosis |
nephritis |
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Alzheimer’s disease |
essential tremor |
obesity |
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anemia |
fibroids |
osteopenia |
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arthritis |
fibromyalgia |
osteoporosis |
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asthma |
gastroenteritis |
Parkinson’s disease |
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atherosclerosis |
gingivitis |
PCOS |
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bipolar disorder |
gout |
periodontal disease |
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bronchitis |
Graves’ disease |
polychondritis |
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chronic bursitis |
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis |
psoriasis |
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cancer |
heart disease |
Raynaud’s phenomenon |
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carditis |
hepatitis |
rheumatoid arthritis |
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celiac disease |
high blood pressure |
sarcoidosis |
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chronic pain |
high cholesterol |
scleroderma |
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circulation issues |
high triglycerides |
seizures |
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cirrhosis |
infertility |
sinusitis |
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colitis |
inflammatory bowel syndrome |
Sjögren’s syndrome |
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Crohn’s disease |
insulin resistance |
spastic colon |
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dementia |
interstitial cystitis |
chronic tendonitis |
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depression |
joint pain |
trichotillomania |
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dermatitis |
lupus |
ulcerative colitis |
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diabetes (types 1 & 2) |
Lyme disease |
vasculitis |
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diverticulitis |
migraines |
vitiligo |
Now it’s time we talk about the foods. You know, the ones that mess with your cravings, tank your metabolism, disrupt your gut, and aggravate your immune system. We’re just going to come right out and name them.
Added sugar and artificial sweeteners. All alcohol. All grains (even whole grains). Legumes, including peanuts and soy. Nearly all forms of dairy.
Don’t freak out.
We know there are a lot of fun foods in this list. Maybe some of your favorite foods. Maybe all of your favorite foods. You may be panicking. You may be thinking, “No way can I do this.” You may believe you can’t live without ________.
You may also be saying things about us that aren’t very nice.
It’s okay. We can take it.
We assure you, you can do this. And you will. We will walk you through it. We will give you all the information, support, and resources you need. We will teach you how to live without the foods you thought you couldn’t live without. We will bring you new favorite foods—foods that are just as delicious, even more satisfying, and won’t promote that awful crave-overconsume-guilt-remorse cycle from which you are so desperate to be free.
The Whole30 can bring you food freedom.
Just keep reading with an open mind.
Since the inception of our Whole30 program in April 2009, we’ve made one thing abundantly clear: This is not a weight-loss program. It’s not a diet, it’s not a quick fix, and it’s certainly not a “17 Day Get Skinnier Than Your Friends” kind of approach. But that doesn’t mean we don’t recognize or value your weight loss goals. We know most of you want to lose weight, and we want to help you do it—healthfully and sustainably, by encouraging you to focus on your health.
When you make yourself healthier from the inside out, improved body composition, self-esteem, and happiness generally follow, but it doesn’t work the other way around. In addition, scale weight is one of the fastest ways to lose motivation, even if you thought you were making great progress in other areas. (“I only lost half a pound today. This program isn’t working at all!”) It’s okay to take on the Whole30 with weight loss in the back of your mind. Just don’t allow that focus to take you to an unhealthy place with the program, mentally or physically. See Part 2 for more on weight loss and the Whole30.