As much as I love cooking and eating healthy I am definitely no chef! I have a fairly limited palate and some food sensitivities / aversions so sadly I don’t think I’ll ever be a food blogger. I do however love to learn new recipes and cooking tips and tricks from those who have mastered the art of cooking. Here is a roundup of my favorite instagram food bloggers who ensure that we always have new and exciting recipes to try! Eating clean, healthy foods does not need to be boring and you will never run out of fresh ideas if you connect with the right people.

{Click on the bloggers name to be linked to their website}

Whole30

Melissa’s Food Freedom

Melissa will be your Whole30 guru! She has a very easy to use website with tons of Whole30 and Food Freedom recipes. She has amazing stories and gives tons of tips for Food Freedom, ordering out on the Whole30 and just general encouragement.

Just Jessie B

Jessie shares lots of great recipes and natural beauty tips. She also has a great sense of style and is an all around fun person to follow!

The Define Dish – Alex Snodgrass

Alex shares tons of great recipes and does helpful cooking demonstrations. She also has a gorgeous house and two very cute daughters.

Primal Gourmet – Ronny Joseph

Ronny’s step-by-step cooking stories on instagram are like no other. Learn to cook like a pro and create beautiful dishes while listening to great music.

Physical Kitchness – Chrissa Benson

Chrissa has tons of Whole30 and Food Freedom recipes and does all of her blogging from home with her two boys. I love how candid she is about #momlife and her solo dance parties are pretty epic!

The Natural Nurturer – Taesha

Taesha offers lots of great family friendly recipes as well as natural tips and tricks. As a school teacher she has a great take on helping introduce healthy foods to kids without feeling overwhelmed.

The Whole Smiths – Michelle Smith 

Michelle is a recipe developer and author of a brand new cookbook. She has tons of great Whole30 recipes and is super real and funny.

Against All Grain – Danielle Walker 

Danielle is a best selling cookbook author and is successfully fighting an autoimmune disease through diet and lifestyle changes. She has the most adorable little family and her recipes are amazing!

Nom Nom Paleo – Michelle Tam

Michelle is a best selling paleo cookbook author. She has great cooking tutorials and lots of family friendly recipes including my favorite Instantpot Beef Stew recipe.

No Crumbs Left – Teri Turner

Teri is a professional chef with tons of amazing recipes. She is famous for her marinated onions one of her” magic elixirs”.

In March of 2017 my kiddos and I embarked on a family Whole30

The kids did a slightly modified version with plenty of snacking and fresh fruit desserts while I stuck to the programs rules to a tee {aside from one accidental Epic Bison Bar which has a tiny amount of sugar.. haha}. I found the Whole30 program after searching for countless hours for an elimination diet to determine if my then three year olds chronic ear infections were being caused by a food sensitivity. Finally I landed on the Whole30 and decided we could all benefit from determining what foods work best for each of us individually. I was also struggling with some health issues including chronic fatigue plus a lot of anxiety and I wanted to figure out if the food I was eating played a role in that.

Organic Whole Foods

Prior to our Whole30 we were eating a mainly organic diet with a whole foods / clean eating mindset. I felt like I was doing everything “right” but still I wasn’t happy with how I felt or my kids health especially my boys. I began questioning everything. Was the grass-fed diary and kefir I was making really working for us? What about gluten? Beans? I wasn’t sure about anything but one thing I did know was that it was time to make some changes. I couldn’t let my son suffer through one more infection or the related sensory issues without knowing for sure if diet was a factor.

Enter The Whole30

We dived right in and the first thing I noticed was the change in our taste buds. Suddenly real food tasted so good to me and the kids started asking for extra veggies and thoroughly enjoyed their frozen fruit desserts. I won’t lie the beginning was a little rough. The kids complained about wanting their favorite foods and I felt tired and cranky and my digestion was a little off. But about ten days in I started feeling better. Way better in fact. I had so much energy! I finally understood what this Tiger Blood everyone was talking about was. It felt like a miracle.

And then it happened

About two weeks into the program Emmett’s ears cleared. He could finally hear us clearly. He stopped complaining that his clothes were too tight. He stopped grinding his teeth at night. He stopped screaming every time he had to get buckled into his car seat.

We even noticed improvements in our one year old. He started sleeping better. He was a lot less grouchy. His tantrums were minimized.

Our five year old was having less mood swings and anxiety. She seemed to be more outgoing.

So then came the tough part

Now we needed to figure out what the problems foods were. The legume and non-gluten grain reintros went fine. There was no noticeable difference with our digestion, mood or behavior. Next came the dairy. The boys and I did not do well. I immediately became congested and had digestive issues. Emmett’s ear pain came back with a vengeance and he had horrible diarrhea. Weston also got the diarrhea and was super moody. Then we had the same results with the gluten reintro. As for Reese she didn’t have any immediate negative consequences from any of the reintros but she does seem to do best with limited gluten and dairy in terms of overall health and mood.

Life After the Whole30

So we have been dairy free and gluten free for a year now and it still amazes me how much it has changed our lives. Emmett has been ear pain/infection free and I feel 1000x better. We have attempted reintros at different times each time we get the same results so we just know now that those foods don’t work for us. I personally tend to stick with a more paleo based diet because it gives me the most energy and even my husband cut diary and he completely stopped snoring and his psoriasis cleared. It can be complicated at times to navigate our food choices but being healthy is so worth the inconvenience of making this lifestyle work.

If you are still on the fence about trying a Whole30 I highly recommend it! I think each and every person should go through the process of figuring out what foods work best for their individual bodies.

Wishing you health and happiness!

Kaitlyn McCarthy

Curious what we ate for 30 days? Head to my instagram page and scroll all the way to the beginning but please don’t judge my photography skills! I was just trying to journal our experience through pictures so I wasn’t worried about them looking good.

Have you done a Whole30? If not what are your biggest fears?

Each year new diets make the headlines. They promise weight loss, clear skin, anti-aging and even happiness but one thing they often have in common is a one size fits all mentality. Certain foods are to be eaten and certain foods are to be avoided. Period. Exclamation point. This is where the Whole30 is different…

The premise of the Whole30 program is that the foods we eat either make us more healthy or less healthy and there is no in between. Within that there are certain foods that we know aren’t good for anyone such as fast food and soda but the tough part is figuring out whether foods that are considered “healthy” work for your individual body.

While the Whole30 is technically a diet in the form of a reset it is not intended as a long term “diet” (a special course of food to which one restricts oneself, either to lose weight or for medical reasons). The easiest way to understand the rules of the program is to focus on what you can eat rather than what you cannot.

During the 30 day reset you will be eating high quality meat and fish, vegetables, healthy fats, fruits and small amounts of nuts and seeds. This means you are eliminating all sugars/sweeteners (natural or not), alcohol and additives in addition to all grains, legumes, dairy and gluten. It is also important to note that Melissa recommends paying close attention to even compliant foods such as eggs and nightshades because those foods can have a negative impact on a small percentage of people.

Tiger Blood Say What?!

During the 30 days of heavy restriction you will hopefully start feeling really amazing. You will have beaten your sugar dragon and tiger blood will start to kick in and you will realize that you’ve been missing out on so much energy strictly because of what you are eating. Once you get a taste of feeling this great you will want to figure out how to keep it going!

Reintroduction

This is where the Reintroduction comes in! You reintroduce key foods back into your diet and assess how they make YOU feel. Did dairy make you feel congested? Was your headache and gloomy mood because of the gluten you ate? Maybe legumes caused your IBS symptoms to flair up? You will take the time to reintroduce key foods back into your diet one at a time and then take the time to reflect on what foods you want to incorporate back into your regular diet moving forward.

Worth It Foods

Then once you have the major foods figured out you can begin to explore how you feel with a glass of wine, paleo treats, natural sugars and even take out.  Then as Melissa Hartwig explains in Food Freedom Forever you can then play around with “worth it” foods for when you feel that a food that makes you less healthy is worth it. For example having a slice of your Grandma’s homemade apple pie on Thanksgiving. You know you will probably feel yucky the next day but you consciously decide that it is worth it for you at that particular moment. It’s not about eating the “perfect” diet all the time is about optimizing your health by knowing what foods are making you more healthy or less healthy. Its all about bio-individuality. As Joshua Rosenthal says “One Person’s Food is Another Person’s Poison”.

Food Freedom Forever

Another huge benefit of the program is learning your hunger cues, getting off the snacking cycle and eliminating food as a reward/punishment. In Food Freedom Forever Melissa teaches everything you need to navigate your new Food Freedom. This process takes a lifetime but you’ll be on a good path to creating sustainable, healthy habits around your food choices.

For many years I researched all different types of diets. Paleo. Plant Based. Clean Eating. Bulletproof. The more I learned the more confused I became. When I discovered the Whole30 it was the piece I had been missing. I was finally able to figure out which foods fuel my specific body best. Just because something works for one person does not mean it will work for everyone. This program teaches you to connect with your body and listen to it intently. Your body will tell you when its unhappy you just have be listening!

For more info about the program check out Whole30.com

Wishing you health and happiness!

Kaitlyn McCarthy