As I’ve posted about in the past, Jennifer and I were on the paleo diet, where the idea is that we would stop eating processed foods and grains, and eat far more organic meats, fruits, and vegetables. We were doing well for the most part, until we reached my birthday last month. Starting with my birthday party, we started being less strict due to different events like birthday parties, a New Orleans trip, Christmas meals, and others. As a result, we started gaining weight again.

We knew we had to get back into the program, so Jennifer came up with the idea of going back in with a bang: starting the New Year doing what’s called the “Whole 30”. The Whole 30 is a hardcore version of the paleo diet, which acts as a sugar detox. Absolutely no cheats are allowed, and you stay on the strict diet for 30 days. It sounded like a good idea, and we started on the 1st.

After three days, we’ve decided that we’re in hell.

While eating dinner tonight, we realized that it was the little things that made the original run bearable. We would allow ourselves small cheats, like Crystal Light lemonade, creamer in our coffee, and dark chocolate for dessert. Now, we have to do workarounds. The lemonade is totally out, and we now drink water instead. I’ve been drinking coffee black, with the exception of this morning when I tried a creamer Jennifer made with coconut milk and vanilla. Our one dessert has been that creamer concoction with blueberries. They’re not bad, per se, but we were happier with the minimal cheats and the sweetness they brought to balance everything out.

It’s just more strict, and we’re struggling. The small cheats made it much more bearable, and we’re not sure if we’ll be able to make the entire 30 days. We’re going to keep it up until Thursday at the very least, but if we’re not happy (or at least tolerant), we’ll go back to what we were doing before when we first started the paleo diet. It’s not worth it to us if we’re miserable, and we’d rather be on a less strict version than become disgruntled and give up entirely.

We’ll see what happens.