As a Beans' Rights Activist, I'm against the Whole30

Poor, innocent legume. Who is he hurting?

This past holiday season year, I've been...how you say...hoglike. I mentioned in my last post gaining back the 12 pregnancy pounds over the course of the year. Part of it was because I'm like, Hey I'm breastfeeding, part of it was not giving a flying fig because I'm caring for four children every weekday afternoon (mine, and my niece and nephew) so it's like whatever I can cram down the hatch in a speedy manner is aces in my book. Part of it was...no, that's all of it.

So I decided to do the Whole30 challenge. I asked Noah to join me, and since he's really good at self-shaming and flagellation, he was on board immediately. We started on January 2, thinking we could get the entire 30-day program in before the Super Bowl.

It's really not all that bad. Well, correction: the first five-ish hours were really not all that bad. Then 3 p.m. hit and I was like Why Did I Do This / This Is Stupid / I Hate This / You're Not the Boss of Me. The thing is, I didn't want candy or cookies or ice cream or whatever (although, I mean, I would have taken them). What I really wanted was a slice of whole-wheat toast with some peanut butter on it. I neeeeeded some flippin flappin carbs! And not the bad kind! But that's the thing. The Whole30 made me feel like whole-wheat toast was a bad carb, mostly because that's what they told me.

And then they're like, "It's only 30 days, don't be a wimp." Which is true, to an extent. But I also believe it's disingenuous to say that because Paleolithic Man didn't eat grains—or legumes, or dairy—that our bodies will merely go through "detox" and then be gloriously at peak performance.

Paleolithic Man, let's face it, lived a long time ago. There's been a lot of wheat and dairy up in here, and humanity seems to have done just fine on average. I might even dare to say we've come to physiologically depend on the carbs in whole grains and the proteins in milk and beans. I'd like to take this moment to add that Paleolithic Man also didn't eat ghee (which is butter with the milk proteins removed), which is an approved Whole30 food.

As soon as Noah walked through the door from work on Day 1, I began my earnest Power Point presentation outlining my problems with the program, many of them already stated above.

The life of a caveman sucked, let's be honest. I mean, that's why they became human! Look at my brow line! And while we're on the subject, do I even believe in cavemen? What if I ascribe to the Young Earth model, what does the Whole30 have to say about that? I didn't realize they were against freedom of religion in addition to the carbs. Who ever found anything wrong with challah?

I'm not totally against the notion of the Whole30. It's the teetotaling of many nutritious foods and the length of time I'm really against. With that in mind, I'm proud to say that I completed the Whole5to7hours, and I feel great!