THE WHOLE30 COMES TO AN END!

Hooray! My W30 email today told me to do something celebratory tonight not only for my dad's birthday but also as a reward for a job well done. I taught tonight though, so, as far as relishing my W30 success was concerned, I was prepared for an anticlimactic evening.

But! I underestimated my guests! Which I should never do because they (you! YOU! GUYS!) are so rad. Lovely Naomi showed up a little early and mentioned that she'd been reading my blog and had also completed a Whole30 Challenge over a year ago. The floodgates were opened. Our class was smaller than expected - only 9 showed of 14 registered - and they were an exceptional group. Several of them had heard of W30, some had done it or experimented with other paleo diets - they all had experiences and opinions to share, all with a lot of openness and no judgment. It was a wonderful night for me. So not anticlimactic. Andrea, Josh, Naomi, Marless (sp?), Ron, Maria, Scott, Katie, and Dano: Thank you! You were all so animated, engaged, competent, and great at making and talking about food! (Ron - those carrots were unbelievable!) It was so nice to be able to share my current food baggage with you without making it all about me. (Which is what the last 30 days have been. And I'm a little tired of myself.) You made the end of my Whole30 a delight. So thank you thank you thank you. Come again! I especially love groups of men in their fifties! (Insert [wink emoticon] if I knew how to use emoticons. But as it is I don't even know how to use Instagram.)

As for the rest of you: thank you so much for reading my blog, which has taken self-indulgence to an entirely unprecedented level (the level without sugar) during the last 4+ weeks. You really are my good friends! As such, you probably wanted to know what I ate today.

Breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Kale, 2 eggs, knob of ghee, salsa, sauerkraut, 3 strawberries.

Not pictured: black half-caff coffee at about 11:30 a.m.

Lunch at 1:40 p.m. Spinach salad with sprouts, beets, carrots, kalua pork, herbed vinaigrette, and a cup of kombucha.

Dinner at 8:30 p.m. Sweet potato quesadilla of sorts (no cheese, used 2 plantain tortillas); 1 chicken apple sausage. A v. unphotogenic meal. The sausage looks like weird breadsticks. Drinking a cup of turkey stock as I type. I drink about 2 of those a day, maybe just one if it's warm out. Today I took a picture of it because it's Day 30.

Tomorrow will be mostly Whole30 but with DAIRY! I can't wait. I am going to have cream in my coffee, fry my eggs in butter, and devour cheese for dinner. Wish me luck and the opposite of indigestion. I'll do a little recap of what's been lost and what's been gained in this process. Thereafter, however, I will revert to original and curated recipes rather than just blabbering on about which ailments come out of remission as sugar, dairy, legumes, alcohol, et cetera reenter my diet and poison me forever. If you are interested in doing a Whole30 or just looking for more information on one fairly normal, typically healthy-eating, kitchen-savvy, mother-of-two, mostly vegetarian individual's experience completing the Whole30 challenge, I am happy to answer any questions you have. Feel free to email me. Thanks for listening! Being accountable to readers has helped loads.