Day 38, we finally got back home to where our scale is.  First time on in 38 days, I knew my clothes fit better, my skinny jeans with lycra in them didn’t have quite as far to stretch around my belly and hips and my sleeves were getting longer, something I’ve never experienced before.  I felt a bit like the dinosaur with “little, bitty arms”.  The revelation was 9 pounds down.

Rich followed me on the scales, his reveal was 20.1 pounds. ( I hate my husband sometimes.)  So combined, almost 30 pounds in 38 days.  There is something to celebrate.  But there was more, we didn’t do this as a weight loss thing, although that definitely had some appeal, neither of us are at a healthy weight.  Our goal was to see what we could do to feel better…ask yourself, how do you feel when you get out of bed in the morning?  Are you stiff? sore? Do your joints ache?  Yeah, us too – that was the part we didn’t like.

A year ago I went on blood pressure meds, they helped enough to get rid of the headaches, but not really enough to put my blood pressure in a healthy, accepted range. Something had to change.

We had a little setback, a couple of days before we got home again, we ran out of vitamin C, something we take pretty faithfully in the winter months.  I stopped at the local drugstore and picked up the C and some Fish Oil.  I had read in the It Starts With Food book that fish oil was a good addition.  We started taking it and three days later, Rich could barely move.  He couldn’t walk very far, he had severe joint pain.  We talked about what we had changed and realized it was only the different vitamins.  Back at the hotel that afternoon we looked at those bottles.  The first ingredient is the Fish Oil was Soy, the Vitamin C had all kinds of binders in it.  Both bottles went in the garbage and I went and bought new.  Within two days, he was back to feeling good.  Who knew you had to read the ingredients on supplements as well, I won’t make that mistake again.

We have added back one little treat, but that is all…we are back at the coffee shop just a couple of days a week for Vanilla Lattes…this time made with Almond Milk, still no dairy in our world.  The vanilla flavoring with its’ sugar is our one vice.

I’m beginning the Whole 30 fresh again, the scale has been put away – no peeking for 30 days, and I’m focused on two things I’ve not been focused on before ( now that I have the food part down).  This next 30 are going to include portion control and the mid-day meal.  I couldn’t do it all before, this is the next challenge.

To re-cap – 38 days = 30 pounds; no joint pain, lower blood pressure – all while eating good, clean healthy foods.  Why not?  You only get one body, why not treat it right!