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| All diet posts should be required to feature at least a three-quarters shot. Let's know what we're really talking about here, am I right? The grenade launcher, as always, is just a bonus. |
Real talk: not everything worth do is really worthy of being on a bucket list. I have never dreamed of going on a particular fad diet before I die, know what I mean? (Making out with a cowboy, on the other hand—there might have been a dream …) So I figure once in a while I’ll do what I’ll call a micro-challenge: not a bucket list item, exactly, but not a day at the beach, either. I’m envisioning a combination of hare-brained schemes I concoct on my own and the occasional recommendation (or, probably, flat-out dares) from friends. Today’s micro-challenge is pretty much the latter.
My friend Margaret is an awesome gal with much more on the ball then I’ve got. She’s particularly into diet and exercise and their effects on one’s physical and mental health. She drinks smoothies, she lifts kettlebells (is it “lifts”? Is that what one does with a kettlebell? Or “swings,” maybe? I’ll be honest, this whole trend has caught me completely off guard. Whatever it is one does with kettlebells, when properly doing kettlebell things, that’s what she does). She’s kind of a superwoman, but in a nice, non-scary way. Well, occasionally she’s scary, but not about my preference for watching Korean soap operas over doing anything that might get me all gross and sweaty. And I respect that, I really do.
However! Recently a friend of ours, Rinn, got engaged—actually, as I’m writing this, she’s not yet engaged. Her boyfriend has alerted a select group of us to his super-duper-secret plans, and it’s all going down immanently. But rest assured, but the time I actually publish this, our friend will know, the ring will be on her finger, and I will be giving nothing away—and my first thought, of course, was: I’m going to be in pictures. I mean, congratulations, dear friend, of course, all my best to you on this important occasion, but meanwhile: me.
It’s like that old Hitchcock theory about know the ticking time bomb: a scene of two people talking at a table? Eh. But show beforehand that there’s a ticking time bomb underneath that table, and suddenly the scene is a real nail-biter. There’s a bomb, you fools! Quit yakking and get the bleep out of there! And all the love and respect to my dear, nearly/recently affianced friend, but: your wedding is my ticking time bomb. For the next several months to a year I’ll be going about my normal, boring life, and then suddenly, KABOOM! PICTURES! Of the sort that people keep forever and ever! It’s really a very, very pressing issue, and one that does not at all make me sound like a cliché Sex & the City character from a week when the writers were all exhausted and like, “What do women care about? Looking hot at weddings? Sure, that sounds good. Just write it and we can all get back to the Hamptons in time for pre-dinner cocktails on the lanai.” Ahem.
Anywho, I mentioned something about mumble-mumble-somebody-might-photograph-this-thing, mumble-mumble-probably-a-good-time-to-start-drinking-more-water-or-something to superwoman Margaret, and somehow, in the course of a dizzying and now dimly remembered conversation (we weren’t drinking, but all talk of physical exertion or sugar deprivation makes me a little faint), she decided I should do the Whole30 Diet, which is basically paleo for people who think paleo is too lenient. Naturally, Margaret has done this 30-day detox-cum-self-torture-regimen multiple times. She feels I could benefit from it. I feel she probably knows more about the matter than I do.
And so here we are: Starting Monday, i.e., right after the big surprise engagement party, I’m starting the Whole30. (I wanted to wait until after the engagement party because it occurred to me there might be cake. And I really like cake. And would you believe it’s not allowed on this diet thingy?) The timing works out nicely, since I can complete my 30 days (sounds so much like a prison sentence, doesn’t it?) in time to hopefully go to Vegas with my lady friends over Labor Day weekend. And everyone knows there’s no better way to celebrate the end of a diet than going to Vegas and hitting a string of buffets and wandering the streets with open containers of fruity, slushy booze. Yay, America!
In all seriousness, or at least slightly more of it, I do have certain hopes and aspirations for the next 30 days. I’d like to see if I can get my skin to clear up some, or a lot, even. I’d like to have more energy. I’d like all those business trousers I recently dug out of boxes after my big move to fit a little looser. And ultimately, as with any crazy physical and psychological challenge, I’d like to see if I can actually do it. I guess we’re all about to find out.
--SA
Whole30 Rules:
- No grains (not even quinoa, baby)
- No dairy
- No soy
- No legumes (and you thought beans were a health food! You fool!)
- No white potatoes
- No added sugar (not even the fake stuff—so long, Sweet ‘n Low, my old friend)
- No booze
- No carrageenan, MSG or sulfites
- No fake dessert or junk food made from “approved” ingredients (like those paleo pansies are wont to make)
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