Whole30 Week 2 1/2: I Have to Keep Doing This How Long?

Tomato soup with sauteed shrimp and fresh basil -- and no baguette

The first few weeks of any new self-discipline are always a perverse sort of fun. You're just so proud of yourself for jogging/cutting caffeine/giving up cigarettes -- the deprivation, the self-denial. You're just such a good person. You're a frickin' hero. You are doing this.

And then the boredom sets in. You are doing this ... and you have to keep doing this forever. Uuuuuuuuuuuugggghhhh. It's like getting to the end of a great two-week vacation and being informed that no, you can't go home, you have to keep on vacationing. Forever. And this hotel is lovely but man, what you wouldn't give for a night in your own bed.

That's how I feel about Whole30 at this point.

It's been a fun challenge, and I still get a little thrill of self-satisfaction when I go to a Tibetan restaurant with friends and completely refuse rice and naan, despite getting them laughingly pushed on me again and again by my fellow diners (and despite my cleanse buddy Margaret taking a diet sabbatical for herself -- THAT'S RIGHT, MARGARET, I'M OUTING YOU ON THE INTERNET, OOOOOOOO). On the other hand, it's hard not to be sort of painfully aware of my privilege when I'm eating this meal with a pair of Ugandan friends who work to raise money for orphans back home, many of whom have living parents who just can't afford to feed them. But here I am, all, I'm sorry, I have too many calories available to me on a daily basis so now I'm only eating the most expensive ones, fresh meat and vegetables. You understand.

But enough about orphans starving in Africa. I'm talking about how bored I am with my diet.

Part of the problem, too, is the one question people keep asking me: Do you feel better? And honestly, no. I mean, I don't feel worse or anything, but I can't quantifiably say I feel healthier or more energetic. I've accomplished other things, I know: I've lost weight (yes, you're not supposed to weigh yourself while you're on Whole30; I guess Margaret's not the only cheater around here), and my skin is maybe a wee bit clearer. Which is what I was looking for, yay! But then, I can't help feeling that both those accomplishments deserve asterisks, like home runs hit on steroids: weight lost on a cleanse. Except runs hit don't come back ... or something, listen, we may have passed the limits of this metaphor. The point is, I don't trust the little positive changes I've accomplished to be permanent, so it's hard to get excited about them.

Because I'm not going eat like this forever. I mean, I'm going to try to keep my sugar intake low, and be very judicious about what kind of and how many carbs I consume; I'm even willing to experiment and see if I have an adverse reaction to dairy when I start eating it again. But the fact is, I believe booze and baked goods are some of the best things human civilization has accomplished. Think of the scene in the Epic of Gilgamesh, when Enkidu, the wild man, becomes civilized: first he has sex. Then he has bread and beer, the twin achievements of the Bronze Age's brand new invention, agriculture. Partaking of these things doesn't just mark him as civilized, they make him civilized. And while I don't have the same dietary needs as Enkidu did 4,800 years ago (for one, he did a lot more monster-wrestling than I do), eating a nice crusty baguette doesn't just give me an insulin spike; it isn't even just delicious. Eating a good baguette connects me to history and culture, to places as far apart as Paris and Hanoi and New Orleans. Baguettes are good. Baguettes mean something in the scheme of things.

(Now you want a baguette, don't you.)

No, I'm going to have to work out a balance between, on the one hand, what tastes good and excites me as an eater and lover of culture and pleasurable experiences (*here she loses half an hour reading about Epicurus on Wikipedia*), and on the other what best assures my physical and psychological well-being and longevity. Which is going to be a long process. Which I can't really start until this cleanse is over.

So I'm two and a half weeks into the Whole30 cleanse, and I'm doing really well, completely virtuous in my restraint and all that -- and I'm ready for it to be over. But who knows, maybe the next two weeks will take me somewhere new and I just don't know it yet. Reason enough to keep going: it just might be worth it. What else do we do anything for?

--SA