the whole30, day twenty-eight

At work today,  I was thinking about this process and realized the next time I'm at my desk, next Monday, I will have completed the thirty days of the Whole30. I have also realized that my body, while responding very nicely to this program, will take well over 30 days to heal. It is quite possible that the only concession I will make to completing these 30 days is to step on my scale.

I would be remiss to avoid mentioning missteps along the way to what I hope will be a successful conclusion of my first Whole30. Yesterday I stopped by Lassens, a local natural foods store, to pick up organic carrots for my soup. It always takes me by surprise when I run out of carrots, yet somehow they still don't replenish themselves. While there I picked up a package of Applegate bacon. I'd not tried it before but had read others' comments. People said nice things about it, and it's always mentioned when speaking of uncured, high-end products. Ridiculously, I didn't read the label, or if I did, nothing registered. Nothing as in the cane juice. I paid no attention either when I popped it into the oven this morning, happily congratulating myself on being all the way to Day 28 of the Whole30. Only later, after eating a few pieces and noticing my stomach was not feeling so happy, only then did I carefully look at that label.

Yikes! Not the end of the world maybe, but would this be the end of my Whole30? I stressed. I worried. I went to Whole9's site and searched "bacon." Jeez! They have a whole, nicely written section about why they don't routinely recommend it. They don't demonize it; they just don't sing its praises, and they recommend other options for regular protein sources. Of course, that is only IF you can find any pastured and well-cared for without sugar, nitrites, nitrates, and so forth. Why didn't I read this before? Why didn't I pay more attention to my rarely opened Survival Guide? What was I going to do now? Crap! I've been writing blog posts for almost four weeks, counting down my Whole30, no thought ever of slipping up.

Fortunately, I remembered how great Whole9 is about answering questions. I took a deep breath, clinched my fists once or twice, and wrote to them, publicly, in the comments of the newest Whole30 5.0 update. With two and a half days to go, was I about to start over? Melissa replied in less than five minutes. That was cool. The first time I read her response I misread the words and thought she said "the cane sugar in your bacon is going to mess up your 'reset' process." Somehow in my panic, I'd missed that little word "not" in her sentence. First I missed the stupid sugar on the bacon package and now possibly the most critical word in her response. Bottom line, I'm okay---feeling stupid, but okay with the healing process and the Whole30. Whew!

Thanks Melissa, thanks Whole9.