As I mentioned yesterday, a friend asked whether I could point out any practical results I’ve seen so far now that I’m more than halfway through my participation in this 60-day Whole30 program.

In at least one big sense, reporting results is a little premature. One of the Whole30 strictures is to give up weighing yourself for the duration of the program — and, frankly, as a longtime member of the ranks of the morbidly obese, I’d be lying if I said weight wasn’t a primary concern for me. I understand that overall health is the goal here, and that weight is a terrible variable to use as a primary marker for health — the difference in density between fat and muscle is one important reason why that’s true. Still, though, I’ve been more than 300 pounds for a long, long time, and although it’s a huge drop from my top weight of 439 pounds, I’d like to see that number keep dropping.

The Whole30 restriction on use of scales seems to have been established entirely for psychological reasons, so people won’t be discouraged by ordinary fluctuations or get fixated on a number that may not have much of anything to do with their actual health. That being the case, I don’t think this restriction applies to me. I don’t have the kind of temperament that gets disappointed by fluctuating data points or gets fixated on one measurement to the detriment of more important ones. Still, though, I signed up to follow the rules, and I’m game to do it.

So, I can say that it feels like I’ve dropped a few pounds in the past month, but I don’t know that for sure because I haven’t weighed myself since the morning of day 1. My shirt and pants feel a little looser, but I could be imagining that. I should have used a tape measure for a few circumference measurements when I started, but I never did.

I usually have a pretty even temperament, so I’m not sure I can detect any improvements in mood. I feel fine. I usually felt fine before the program, too. It’s like Lisa Simpson once pointed out on The Simpsons:

Lisa: You can’t upset us. We’re the MTV generation — we feel neither highs nor lows.
Homer: Really? What’s it like?
Lisa: Meh.

But, I should point out, I’ve basically been eating paleo (or, rather, primal) for a long time now. For this particular two-month program, I’ve given up all dairy and trace amounts of sugar, preservatives, industrial vegetable oils, etc., but I was eating only tiny amounts of those things as it was. So this isn’t an entirely radical departure from the way I’ve been eating for the past couple of years.

Before I started eating paleo-ish at all, though, I felt terrible. As I mentioned on day 8, I frequently used to feel like I could die at any moment, whether from lack of simple carbs, or climbing a few stairs, or even just walking down the block. That’s long in the past, though, thanks to the change in the way I eat. These days, I never feel like I’m in a hurry to eat. I get hungry, but it’s not a panicky, fearful hunger. I could miss a meal without feeling any physiological urgency.

I also used to have terrible acid reflux, and I’d frequently wake up choking in the middle of the night from some sudden reflux that made it to my windpipe. That’s also ancient history, and its absence from my life is also precisely correlated with the change in my diet composition.

I feel like I’m maybe slightly more productive since starting Whole30, but I’m not sure how to measure that — and I feel like it could just be because I’m starting to be more focused on a consistent evening routine before bedtime, which requires me to get work done earlier and quit putting it off until later. If an improvement along those lines exists, I can’t confidently attribute it to a change in the way I’m eating.

I’m hoping that establishing a consistent sleep schedule may help me see even better and more noticeable results. The jacked-up cortisol levels that result from lack of sleep are known to inhibit weight loss, and I’ve been an inveterate night owl since high school in the late 1980s, at least. This will be the single most difficult part of the program, and will represent the biggest lifestyle change by far.

Here are my food photos for day 34:

Monday, Feb. 17

I woke up at 10:25 a.m. (after heading to bed at 1:25 a.m.). That’s a whole nine hours! Granted, I set my alarm for 8:25 a.m. and overslept it by two hours, but I felt fantastic after I finally woke up.

Breakfast: 11:10 a.m. | 4 oz. beef, 1 1/4 beets, 1 1/4 large rainbow chard leaves & stems, 1/4 sweet onion, 1 Tbsp. coconut oil, herbs & spices

I ate half of the contents of the skillet below, saving the other half for lunch.

Lunch: 4:00 p.m. | 4 oz. beef, 1 1/4 beets, 1 1/4 large rainbow chard leaves & stems, 1/4 sweet onion, 1 Tbsp. coconut oil, herbs & spices

I neglected to take another photo for lunch, but it’s the other half of the contents of the skillet I had for breakfast, pictured again below.

Dinner: 9:30 p.m. | 8 oz. beef, 1/4 butternut squash, 1 oz. greens mix, 1/2 sweet onion, 4 cloves garlic, 2 Tbsp. coconut oil, herbs & spices

I ate half of the contents of the skillet below, saving the other half for breakfast.