“I was diagnosed with Mast Cell Disease (Systemic Mastocytosis) several years ago. With this condition, you can experience severe allergic types of reactions, and I have struggled with hives, joint pain, and gastro-intestinal issues for years. Within seven days of my first Whole30, I popped out of bed without joint pain. Within ten days, I had lost the GI distress and bloating that’s been a ‘normal’ part of my existence. The Whole30 has definitely changed my life! My energy is way up, my constant food demons are gone (no more cravings for the stuff that makes me sick) and I just plain old feel great!”
—AnneMarie G., Newburyport, MA
You’ve read up on the program, chosen your start date, and signed up for the Whole30 Daily. You’ve even recruited friends or family to do the program with you, or at the very least, shared your commitment with them.
It’s official: you are doing the Whole30!
But before you actually begin, we should talk about what you can expect to happen over the next 30 days: the ups and the downs.
Wait—the downs?
Yes, downs. Because despite how amazing most people feel at the end of their Whole30 journey, the path you’ll be walking for the next month will be rough in spots, and we want to be up front about that. We want you to trust us, and know that we care so much about you and your Whole30 experience that we’re willing to shine a bright light on some of the more difficult parts of the program.
In a nutshell, the next month will likely play out like a Telemundo soap opera. As one Whole30 participant put it on Twitter, “Week 1 on the #Whole30 recap: I’m starving, I’m tired, I don’t like you, I feel GREAT, I’m hungry again, I feel GREAT, this is stupid.”
We found this tweet surprisingly quite accurate.
You’ll be exhilarated! You’ll be exhausted. You’ll be happy! You’ll be Señor Crankypants. You’ll be feeling fit, healthy, and gorgeous today, and tomorrow believe this isn’t working at all. You’ll find yourself thinking at the same time that the Whole30 is the best thing that’s ever happened to you, and you cannot wait for it to be over.
All of these things will happen, because when you take on something as big as changing your life, it’s kind of a big deal. We know our Whole30 “tough love” says this is not hard, and that’s true in some ways; after all, you’ve made it through way harder things than passing up a stale muffin at your weekly staff meeting. But we also acknowledge that this is hard. Examining your emotional relationship with food is hard. Breaking habits that started in childhood is hard. Learning to love, comfort, and bond with others (and yourself) without using junk food as an offering is hard.
And that’s just the mental stuff.
Physically, you’ve been throwing your body off balance for the last five (ten? twenty?) years by overconsuming foods that promote cravings, disrupt your hormones, damage your gut, and overwork your immune system. Through your food choices, you’ve been unknowingly waging a war with your body. Starting the Whole30 is like calling a ceasefire, which means things will eventually get better . . . but first comes a massive clean up effort, which can be just as disruptive and feel just as chaotic as the war itself.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, and things may get worse before they get better.
But during the process, you will also gain confidence. You will feel proud of yourself. You will be happier, you will feel more energetic, you will “show up” more in life. Your energy will increase, you’ll be sleeping more soundly, and your cravings will diminish, if not vanish.
There is lots of sunshine and likely more than a few rainbows in your future.
Hundreds of thousands of people have already completed a Whole30 (and most have returned for more). Through their experience and our scientific research, we’ve created this Whole30 Timeline—a detailed outline of common experiences to prepare you for some of the physical and emotional challenges you may face, and give you something to look forward to if the days get hard.
Our Timeline should give you an idea of what you might expect during the next 30 days, but don’t hold us to every last detail. We created it based on feedback from thousands of Whole30 participants, and nearly everyone says it’s scarily accurate for the most part. However, your experience will likely not match our Timeline perfectly. You may find you breeze through some of these phases while being stuck in others for longer than you anticipated, or you might find your Timeline on a two-week delay. Your health history and previous diet will play an important role in this variability—your transition will be much easier if you came to us in good health, eating mostly whole, nutrient-dense foods, sleeping well, and exercising regularly. If you spent the last five years eating low-fat, high-sugar everything, and/or have a chronic medical condition, your first two weeks on the program may be less comfortable. Just remember that no two people experience the Whole30 exactly the same way, and being out of sync with what we outline here does not mean you are doing something wrong.
It’s 3 p.m. on Day 1. You effortlessly breezed past the break room donuts, feeling smug and satisfied after your breakfast frittata. Coffee with coconut milk actually isn’t that bad, and you’ve packed a big protein salad for lunch. You resisted the pull of a mid-afternoon treat and munched on some jerky and an apple instead. You have a slow cooker full of chili infusing your kitchen with a heavenly smell, and right now, you just can’t see why anyone thinks this Whole30 stuff is hard.
This delusion is somewhat akin to the first episode of any reality show where the contestants are herded together and forced to live in one house. At the end of the first episode, everyone just knows they are going to be best friends for life.
Those of us on the other side of the screen know better.
We’re thrilled that you’re feeling empowered by making one good choice after another all day long. Take note of that Rock Star feeling, stash it away, and bring it back out about an hour later.
You’ll likely need it.
Today you may spend the hours bouncing between feeling really energized and completely overwhelmed. You could be wondering how you’ll make it 30 days without your favorite foods, or maybe the general “differentness” of the coming days just freaks you out. The idea of changing your life is super exciting, but it’s also a little scary.
Our good friend Melissa Joulwan coined a term for this: “frexcited.”
This is totally normal.
Share your excitement when you’re excited. Allow yourself to feel nervous, too, but remember you have a great plan, lots of support, and some fantastic resources to see you through the next 30 days—so you really have no reason to be nervous.
Well, maybe one.
Because after years (or decades) of less-than-healthy food habits, the next few days may be seriously deficient in sunshine or rainbows.
The alarm rings on Day 2 and you pop out of bed expecting to feel great, just like you did yesterday. Instead, you feel headache-y, a little sore, foggy . . . kind of like a hangover. You’re pretty sure you didn’t down a fifth of tequila in your sleep, so what happened?
Let’s revisit what you were consuming before you started the Whole30.
Pizzas, cookies, beer or wine, fast food, potato chips, candy, muffins, bagels, bread (so much bread). This is when the ghost of your high-sugar, high-carb, nutrient-poor past comes back to kick you in the butt—and apparently, the head.
Here’s a little math equation for Days 2 to 3. The amount of suck you experience in this phase is directly proportional to the amount of junk you consumed before you began the program. Especially if you consumed it consistently. (This phase is also approximately 34 percent harder for the habitual soda drinkers, as you are eliminating not just the massive hit of sweetness, but the extra caffeine, too.)
Nearly all Whole30ers report headaches, fatigue, brain fog, and general malaise during this part of the program. Your body is having a hard time adjusting to the new foods you’re eating, and going without the sugary food-like products you used to eat. (See TARGET: A Sluggish Metabolism for a more detailed explanation.) This process lasts a day for some lucky folks, but for others it can last several. Relax, drink a lot of water, take it easy in the gym, and keep making good food choices.
Now would also be a good time to recruit the sympathy and support of friends and family, because . . .
Day 4 dawns and you tentatively step out of bed, expecting to feel like you took a headshot from Thor’s hammer. Instead, your brain is surprisingly clear. Your limbs feel functional. This could be a good day! You walk into the kitchen and, upon being greeted by the smiling face of your significant other, you are suddenly overcome with the desire to punch them in the face for being so darn cheerful this early in the morning.
Congratulations! You’ve made it to Day 4.
Over the next two days, prepare yourself for the overwhelming urge to Kill All the Things. Your kids will forever be working your last nerve, the way co-workers talk, chew, and breathe will annoy you, and chipper cashiers and baristas will cower in your crankiness.
Your brain won’t be happy when you withhold your previously generous rewards of super-sweet, salty, and fatty junk foods—and an unhappy brain is a stressed and anxious brain. Not to mention your hormones are desperately trying to keep up with your new food choices, your gut is trying to heal, you’ve had a headache for the last three days, and you really miss your diet soda.
This too shall pass.
Beg your spouse, children, parents, and co-workers for patience and forgiveness as nicely as you can, preferably before you tell them to stop breathing so loud. Take a deep breath, eat some sweet potato, and remind yourself of why you took on the Whole30 in the first place. We promise you will feel better soon.
You may also notice a desire to Eat All the Things in this stage, too. That’s pretty common, as your body demands the sugar it’s been running on, and your brain is craving the sweet, salty, fatty rewards you used to feed it. Focus on making each of your three meals a day a little bigger, include a mini-meal if needed to see you through, and use our Craving vs. Hunger test to help you distinguish between actual hunger and your brain throwing a tantrum.
It’s Day 6, and you made it through the last phase without smiting anyone. Hoorah! The thing is, today you don’t feel like you could smite anyone if your life depended on it. It’s 10 a.m. and all you can think about is crawling under your desk for a catnap. As the day drags on, your desk is morphing from hard wooden surface to snuggly warm pillow right before your eyes. You hit the gym in a daze and wonder if you fell asleep in child’s pose, would anyone notice?
You hold off crawling into bed until the reasonable hour of 8 p.m., only to drag yourself up eleven hours later feeling no more rested than you did the day before.
We know exactly what you’re thinking.
For the love of Oprah, I thought this Whole30 thing was supposed to make me feel better. Isn’t eating like this supposed to increase my energy levels?
Yes, in the long run. See, you’ve been reliant on sugar for energy for a really long time. Because of all the muffins, mocha lattes, and junk foods you’ve been eating, you trained your body to need sugar every few hours to function. Now, your body can also run very well on fat as fuel, but your mitochondria (the cellular “powerhouses”) need time to learn how to use body and dietary fat to power you. Which means you’re stuck in this limbo where you aren’t eating the energy you know how to run on, and you’re not good at using the energy you’ve got on hand. (See Troubleshooting Your Whole30 for more information.)
Studies show the process of “fat adaption” (the ability to use fat as fuel) actually starts in just a few days, but takes a few weeks to fully ramp up. The good news is that people generally experience this switch by the second week of the program, so if you can hold out just a bit longer, you’ll reap the major benefits of fat adaption—namely, consistently high energy morning, noon, and night.
Besides, you could probably use a day off from the gym anyway.
You’ve made it through the Hangover, managed not to Kill All the Things, and are feeling far more peppy.
Then, you put on your jeans.
They’re just jeans—not your skinniest jeans, just normal, comfortable jeans. In fact, they’re the jeans you wore just three days ago. (You were too tired to wash them. It’s okay, we understand.) Three days ago, they fit. But this morning you had to take a big deep breath to get that button where it ought to be.
Seriously, Whole30? Seriously?
Luckily, this phase doesn’t happen to everyone—but if it’s happening to you, here’s why: The same processes that ran over you like a truck a few days ago are still working their magic in your body. Your body composition is not actually changing for the worse, we assure you. But the enzymes that digest your food and the millions of bacteria that live in your gut are adjusting to your new intake of meat and vegetables, and the lack of easy-access sugars. This is something they do naturally, and these adjustments will go a long way to improve your gut function long-term. However, these adjustments can be a bit uncomfortable. Bloating, constipation, diarrhea, or all three may appear (or reappear) as your gut starts to heal, rebalance, and process this new food effectively.
The good news is that most people find this phase passes relatively quickly, and their pants are easy to button again within just a few days.
Your increased intake of fruits and vegetables may be the culprit here. First, while these plants are nutrient-dense, they also contain something called FODMAPs—a collection of fermentable carbohydrates and sugar alcohols found in various foods, including vegetables and fruits. FODMAPs are poorly absorbed, thereby “feeding” gut bacteria and causing a host of symptoms, including gas, bloating, digestive distress, and systemic inflammation. Plus, while fiber is healthy, the sudden increase in insoluble fiber from things like leafy greens, broccoli, and cauliflower may be irritating your digestive tract. Refer to our Troubleshooting guide if you want a little digestive help during this phase.
Fact: based on observing hundreds of thousands of people run through the program, we know you are most likely to quit your Whole30 program on day 10 or 11. By this point, the newness of the program has worn off. You’ve already experienced most of the unpleasant physical milestones, but you’ve yet to see any of the “magic” the program promises. You’re still struggling to establish a new routine (you are so. tired. of. eggs.), and while you’ve been trying really hard to have a good attitude, today you are incredibly aware of all the foods you’re “choosing not to eat right now.” Everywhere you look, you see the things you can’t have: the melted cheese on your co-worker’s burger, the creaminess of your neighbor’s coffee, the cold beer in your friend’s tailgate cooler.
Arghh! This is hard! Will the results really be as good as “they” all say it is?
You are cranky. You are impatient. You are a grown-up person who can eat cheese if you decide you want to eat cheese. And the Whole30 is just some stupid challenge anyway.
This is where you really start to experience the psychological power of your food choices and habits. You’ve put in a lot of effort to get to where you are right now. Your brain demands some kind of reward (but you deserve it!) and food has always been your go-to prize. But instead of a treat, you’re standing face-to-face with the realization that you have twenty more days of perceived deprivation ahead of you.
First, if you know these days are coming, they won’t come hurtling out of nowhere and knock you off your game. Prepare for them and you’ll have a much easier time. Yes, you do deserve a reward for working so hard and staying on point—but it’s time you redefine your idea of reward. Think long and hard about the foods you’re grieving and ask yourself what need you’re expecting them to fulfill. Are you feeling anxious and looking for reassurance? Are you feeling sad, and looking for something to cheer you up? Are you worried you won’t successfully finish the program, and it’s easier to self-sabotage than fail?
Remind yourself that food cannot fill that void for you. When has a cupcake ever made you feel truly accomplished, comforted, calm, or beautiful? So find another way to fill that need. Schedule a date with a friend, treat yourself to a new kitchen gadget (look at Whole30 Really-Nice-to-Haves for inspiration), or get a massage. Rely on support from friends, family, or our online Forum or social media community to see you through. (A quick post that says, “Help!” always has our attention.)
The good news? Just get through these two days and things will be much better.
Hurrah! The slump is over! Most people report that most of the negative symptoms we’ve been describing are gone by the end of the second week. Your pants fit again! Your energy levels are back to normal! You’re back to feeling confident in your commitment!
But something weird is happening.
You’re dreaming. Not crazy nightmare or strange surrealist dreams. Incredibly normal and realistic dreams—about donuts. Or Twinkies. Or fast-food hamburgers. Often, people dream of things they’d never actually eat or drink in real life! This experience is incredibly common on the Whole30, and some say rivals the kinds of weird cravings and dreams you get during pregnancy. (One Whole30er reported craving pickles and Doritos together during this phase! We’re pretty sure he wasn’t pregnant.)
These dreams usually go one of two ways. You either enjoy the heck out of it and wake up laughing, or you believe you’re doing something wrong in your dream, and you wake up feeling guilty.
Please. There is no guilt about what you do when you dream. The Whole30 rules are pretty comprehensive, but they can’t touch what happens in your subconscious. Which is really good news, because some of you seriously pig out while you’re REM-ing.
The trouble is, sometimes these dreams and cravings carry over into real life. The diet soda ad on the billboard is calling your name, and your co-workers’ heads transform into giant Girl Scout cookies as you gaze on in disbelief.
All joking aside, this phase can be really intense for some people. This is the part of the program where our brains are desperate to drive us back to the comfort of the foods we used to reward ourselves with. Our food relationships are deeply rooted and strongly reinforced throughout the course of our lives, and trying to change them is a difficult, emotional process.
Based on studies of people resisting temptation, the average craving lasts around three minutes, and the most effective way to get through it is to distract yourself. Go for a short walk (even if it’s just around the office), pay a bill or two, drink a glass of water, take a sniff of some peppermint essential oils, text a friend, or read a few pages of a good book. Now is not the time to indulge in a sweet Whole30 treat like a dried-fruit-and-nut bar—that’s just changing the ingredients in your reward, and it won’t help you break that giving-in-to-a-craving habit.
You’ve hit the downhill slope of your Whole30 and life is beautiful—which means different things for different people. For some (generally people who came to the program eating well, exercising regularly, and feeling pretty good to begin with), Tiger Blood means you woke up feeling like someone flipped a switch and turned on the awesome. Your energy is through the roof, cravings are under control, clothes are fitting better, workouts are stronger—you feel unstoppable!
For others, this Tiger Blood stage feels more like a real sense of self-efficacy. It doesn’t mean things are perfect or even easy, but you’re proving to yourself that you can do this, things are getting better, and you’re seeing small improvements almost daily. Your energy is steadier, you have a firmer handle on the cravings, and you’re experimenting with new, delicious foods. You may notice that your ability to focus is keener, your body composition is changing, your moods are more stable, you’re stepping up your exercise, or you’re just plain happier these days.
Of course, this may not happen like magic at the halfway point. There are a huge number of factors that influence which benefits you see and when. If you’re one of those folks who has hit the halfway mark and isn’t seeing or feeling the dramatic changes others have reported, know this:
You’re not doing it wrong.
If you began the Whole30 with a medical condition, a long history of unhealthy food habits, or a chronically stressful lifestyle, your magic may take longer to appear, and probably won’t be a “light switch” moment. So don’t stress about whether you’re feeling honest-to-goodness “Tiger Blood”—be patient, and be on the lookout for small, gradual improvements to keep you motivated. Slow and steady still wins this race.
You’ve solidly settled into week three of the program, but despite the benefits you’re seeing, you went to bed last night dreading the thought of breakfast. You weren’t much more excited about it this morning, either. Come to think of it, you’re so un-thrilled with any of your meal options right now that if Iron Chef Bobby Flay were to waltz into your kitchen and ask you what you wanted to eat, you’d probably just say, “Ugh.”
You’re loving the way your body is responding to the program, but you’re just not sure if you can make it through nine more days. The culprit? A major case of food boredom. For some folks, it gets so overwhelming that they lose their appetite altogether for a day or two.
You know that being bored and hungry is just a recipe for disaster.
The solution: don’t let the food fatigue overtake you! Rekindle your appetite and your enthusiasm for the program by making something new from the @whole30recipes Instagram feed, schedule a potluck with your Whole30 friends, or treat yourself to a new cookbook (see Resources). We guarantee you haven’t tried all the combinations of food available to you on the Whole30, so make a little effort and you’ll get over this hump all the faster.
You may also notice during this time period that your medical symptoms are getting worse again. There’s a science-y explanation for why this happens, and what you did right before your Whole30 started may play a role. Refer to Medical Conditions for more information, and know that if this is your context, symptoms almost always improve again within about a week.
In your third week, you may notice yourself pausing in front of the mirror a little more frequently, taking an embarrassing number of half-naked selfies, and staring longingly at the spot on your bathroom floor where your scale used to live. You’ve been focusing on all of your non-scale victories for the last three weeks, but now you’re just dying to know . . . has anything really changed? (And by anything, you mean your body.)
Fact: this is the period of time when you are most likely to break our “no scale” rule, or find yourself analyzing, scrutinizing, and judging whether individual body parts have shrunk, firmed up, or look any different at all. This can be very distracting. In fact, this is quite likely to pull you right out of the positive, self-confident space you’ve been occupying for the last week or so, and send you spiraling right back down into self-doubt, negative self-talk, and discouragement. (This is even more likely to happen if you’ve been white-knuckling your way through our “no scale” rule all along, continually fantasizing about stepping on the scale.)
Know this time period is coming, and resist the “craving” to weigh or over-analyze. Go back to your original Whole30 non-scale goals, and note the progress you’ve made. Create a list of everything you want to accomplish before your program is over, and focus on making it happen. Make a conscious effort to bypass the mirror unless you really need it (yes, you do have kale stuck in your teeth), and compliment your friends and family for something other than their appearance. We guarantee if you change your focus, your urge to weigh or measure will pass fast, and you’ll slip right back into your happy, confident, proud Whole30 routine.
Here’s another reason to focus on something other than the scale—many Whole30ers continue to see improvements in all kinds of things in the final days of the program, especially with respect to medical conditions, cravings, energy, athletic performance, and skin breakouts. And if all of those things keep getting better, who cares what the scale says?
It’s Day 28. DAY 28! You’re almost there! You’ve pushed through all the rough spots, fought off the food boredom, and you really love where you are right now. This Whole30 thing is like second nature by now, and you’re primed to make it through Day 28 without breaking a sweat—until you get to work.
Today is your department’s monthly birthday celebration, and at the break a co-worker teases, “You’ve been so good for 28 days! You can have just one cupcake with us to celebrate.” You brush the comment off (you’re used to them at this point), but it really gets you thinking. You have been so good. And it’s been so long. You’re practically done already.
Aren’t 28 days just as good as 30?
Um, no. Twenty-eight days is not as good as 30.
You made a commitment to give yourself 30 full days of Good Food and improved habits. You made a commitment to finish the Whole30, and reintroduce foods in a systematic, deliberate fashion. You made a commitment to changing your life, and the specific commitment you made was to last 30 full days.
Take these promises seriously. If you cop out now, you’re telling yourself that the commitments you make to yourself are open to compromise. You’re telling yourself that you are not important enough to honor your promise to you. But that is simply not true.
You are important.
You are worth the promise.
So take a deep breath, say “No, thank you,” and celebrate with a self-five for seeing your commitment through. (We promise it’s much more satisfying than a store-bought cupcake.)
If you’ve got a history of yo-yo dieting, you may be having flashbacks about other “challenges,” and what inevitably happens after the diet is over—namely, a fast-moving slide back to your old habits and your old waistline. But remember, this is not that situation. You’ve not only changed the foods on your plate, you’ve changed your habits, your tastes, your relationship with food. You’ve increased your awareness of how your body feels without these craving-inducing, metabolic-disrupting, gut-damaging, inflammation-promoting foods. After your reintroduction, you’ll also have a clear picture of how these “less healthy” foods mess with how you look, how you feel, and your quality of life. Does this sound like the last fad diet you did? Believe in yourself and trust the process. You’ve made more health progress mentally and physically in the last month than you have in the last several years (maybe even decades), and this experience will stay with you far longer than the restrictive, unsustainable rules of a crash diet.
It’s Day 29, and you are winning the Whole30. The thoughts you had yesterday of throwing in the towel were gone as fast as they arrived. You effortlessly cruise through the day and crawl into bed thinking happily, “Tomorrow is Day 30!”
Wait. TOMORROW IS DAY 30.
This small thought grows into full-blown, cold-sweat panic. Tomorrow is your last day on the Whole30! What are you going to do after that? You’ve worked so hard, fought through all the anger, the naps, the cravings to get to the awesome you’re feeling now. All the while, the rules have been your backbone, your lifeline, your excuse for being “that person” in social situations.
Now what are heck are you supposed to do on Day 31?
First, breathe, then relax.
It is totally normal to feel a twinge of panic as your Whole30 comes to a close. For the past 30 days, you’ve lived, breathed, and literally eaten the rules. You look and feel better than you have in years. It’s natural to hesitate at the thought of making any changes, especially if you’re afraid reintroducing things will knock the Tiger Blood right out of you. But keep in mind that the Whole30 was intended to be a short-term reset and learning experience, not a permanent plan. We know it’s scary, but you have to learn how to take the habits you’ve created here out into the real world—what we call “riding your own bike.”
We’ve given you two different options for your Reintroduction protocol, and both of them are really detailed, spelling out exactly what you do during this part of the program. Plus, if you’re not quite ready to dive back into some of the foods you used to eat, know that we do offer a gradual approach to this process—you certainly don’t have to bring back bread, cereal, and pasta right away if you don’t want to.
Whew.
Congratulations—you’ve finished the Whole30. It’s time to give one of our reintroduction protocols the same attention you gave the last 30 days, and be honest with yourself about your mental, physical, and emotional reactions to the foods and drinks you’re bringing back.
Tonight, that process might just start with a glass of wine. And that would be perfectly okay.
Cheers to you, Whole30 graduate!