Life after Whole30 can be both exciting and confusing. If you have completed a Whole30 and you are finding balance, I highly suggest reading Melissa Hartwig’s Food Freedom Forever. It gives great tips, tricks, and strategies on how to achieve and live your best life without guilt and shame. Through 16 rounds of Whole30, I have learned something new through each round completed. Here are my 6 tips for Life After Whole30 and how I continue to find my freedom.

Consistent Daily Habits

Find three things every day that will allow you to create healthy habits. Our bodies usually crave consistency and thrive when we keep our priorities in check. For me, working out, eating breakfast and consuming 64oz of water every day keeps me feeling normal and at peace with my journey. If I miss one of these things, my whole day will be thrown off and I will crave it, even more, the next day. Craving good practices is a great feeling to have.

This same type of thinking can be explained on the opposite end of the spectrum also. If you eat crap and junk food daily, your body is going to crave unhealthy food. If you sleep in and skip breakfast, your body is probably going to adjust and crave that behavior too. Our bodies crave what we eat and do on a daily basis, so make your habits meaningful and healthy.

Choose Your “Worth It”

Don’t compare your Food Freedom to someone else. Enjoy the foods YOU like in a balanced and healthy way. For me, I love grilled cheese sandwiches, donuts, and beer. I really try to add them into my lifestyle in a way I can enjoy them without the feeling of bondage and guilt. It’s also important to judge others in their food freedom. I have seen others on social media bullying others based on their food choices. We all are on a different journey and it is vital to focus on yourself and not others around you.

Food Freedom is a journey and won’t be accomplished after one round of Whole30. I have done 16 rounds and I continue to learn more about my food freedom every single day. By using a growth mindset and reflecting on the foods you find “worth it” will allow for continual growth.

Don’t Revert Back to “Diet” Thinking

This is the hardest tip of them all. Since a young child the “diet” mindset as literally been ingrained in my brain. I was completely obsessed with the thought of food and how I could use it to reward my behavior. My relationship with food was a constant battle and I was exhausted every Sunday with the guilt of how I used food to reward my good food behavior during the week. This was so toxic and it resulted in me gaining a lot of weight.

For me, I was on this diet/binge cycle that was not only exhausting, but it seemed like I could never break the never-ending cycle. This “diet” mindset brought so much negative energy to my life and totally consumed every part of my thought process. I became completely addicted to food and using unhealthy food to reward healthy food behaviors. Healthy living is a learning process and you won’t figure it out overnight. It will take practice, hard work, and a positive outlook. I am sure there will be a time that you slip back into this mindset and the best thing to do is acknowledge the thinking and reflect on why it is not a healthy mindset to have. Whenever I feel this way, I love to make a list of goals for the next day. It not only gives me time to reflect, but it also gets a plan in place that gives me peace of mind.

Mini Reset It

This goes back to the previous tip. If you find yourself slipping into bad habits and feeling like your sugar dragon is rearing it’s ugly head too much in your food choices, then plan a quick reset. If you are in a season of being out of control in other aspects of your life, find control in the foods you eat. It will actually calm you down and allow you to focus on doing something meaningful and good for your body.

Every week I like to evaluate where I am in my food freedom. I will ask myself the following?

• Did I make smart choices this week?
• Did any of the foods I ate have a negative effect on me mentally or physically?
• Did I fuel my body to support my performance in the gym?
• Did you feel in control or out of control?

Growth Mindset

You may be wondering what a growth mindset is.

“In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.”

I have seen so many positive outcomes from using a growth mindset consistently. I use this type of thinking not only in my health journey but in all aspects of my life. I try to reflect daily and continue to grow and become the best version of myself. There is always room for improvement, ALWAYS.

This type of thinking can be a hard in the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, it will help you grow.  It teaches you how to recognize when something is not working and to learn a different approach for success and not to dwell on failure. Use failure as a way to reflect to see how you can do it better next time. This correlates with how we approach food. If you slip and fail in a pile of donuts and eat all the things, reflect and takes notes as to why it happened and learn and grow for the next time. Please, don’t beat yourself up for having a bad day, whether it be with food or life. Find a way and a strategy to make it better the next time around.

Live with Purpose and Be Happy!

It is so important to enjoy your health journey and not obsess over the number on the scale. I find that changing bad habits will lead to weight loss in the long run. Make sure you are enjoying what you are eating and don’t make yourself miserable in the process. I found that when I researched and really found the reason as to why I was changing my bad habits made my journey so much easier. I have grown to love eating the Whole30 and Paleo lifestyle. My body and mind thrives with this way of eating and I am happy without guilt and I am happy.