Dave's Story - Part i

- Hey guys, Robby here from CrossFit South Bend. Today I'm here with Dave, who is three months through his six month nutrition coaching program, so today's gonna be part one of Dave's story, and then we're gonna do another of these in three months, when Dave's done. So Dave, thanks so much for being with us here. - Absolutely, yeah. - So Dave, we're gonna start, talking a little bit about your journey. So you had actually done the Whole30 before, right? - Correct, yeah. Probably a year and a half, two years ago. - Okay. So tell us about that. - Yeah, I just kind of did it on my own. Just trying to get a little bit healthier, so just kind of went cold turkey with the Whole30. Did it pretty clean for 30 days, but it was definitely difficult, and didn't follow the reintroduction protocol at all. Just on day 31, it was like, all the foods that I could have again. So the long term effect of it really wasn't very good. - Okay. So how's your experience then this time around, with us introducing things a little bit more gradually? - Yeah, it's been completely the opposite. Kinda 'cause we spent those first couple of months kind of gradually getting the diet better, so by the time we did Whole30, we're a couple months in. I was probably 90, 95% with a pretty clean diet at that point. So the Whole30 this time has been really pretty easy. We're, I think, getting to the 7th week. So a couple weeks past the 30, adding things back in for a few days, but I haven't had any strong desire to add stuff back in my diet this time, so it's been pretty easy to keep my diet clean. But I think it's just because of working for two months, getting the diet fairly clean before starting the Whole30. I think it made a huge difference. - Absolutely. So we just did Dave's weights, measurements, and pictures, and he lost 27 pounds, and five inches off his waist. We were talking about how you've been buying new pants. Tell us a bit about the body composition stuff. How have you been feeling in your clothes? How have you been performing in the gym? How has all that stuff been? - Yeah, it's been good. I mean the clothes is a good way to kind of judge. You know, I had clothes that I had fitted Christmastime last year that I had to take back in. I literally can't, I mean, I put them on, they almost fall off. So same thing with jeans I bought last year. So I mean, that's probably where I see the biggest difference, is putting on clothes that fit well six months ago that I literally can't wear anymore. - Yeah. - The gym workouts, probably the biggest difference I've noticed is in recovery. I recover a lot better than I used to. Very little, other than just kind of normal soreness, but very little soreness, and I had done CrossFit about a year and a half, two years ago, for about a year, and one of the reasons I stopped was I just, I hurt all the time. So beyond just kind of normal soreness. Almost never felt good, wasn't recovering well, but my diet wasn't very clean then, either. So the biggest difference this time is just having a clean diet, and I generally feel good, and feel like my recovery is good. I feel like I've gained strength since I've been here. So yeah, it's all good. - That's excellent. So you have family, you have a job, you travel, you got all these different responsibilities that you deal with. How has eating this way been with all those different responsibilities? - Yeah, I mean, that's probably the biggest challenge, too, is yeah, I used to eat out, probably almost every day for lunch. And a lot of those times were a lot of just not wanting to bring my lunch with me to work, so we'd go to different places to lunch. So that's, especially during the 30 days of the Whole30, I'm not sure I ate out for lunch at all, or very seldom. So it's doing a constant meal prep, and that was a big thing to get used to, of having to have more than a couple of days' food at a time or doing Sunday nights, the meal prep for the week. - Right. - But just getting used to that, once I got into a rhythm with it, it got fairly easy. - Good. - And fortunately, I like all the food, so I don't feel like there's food that well, I gotta eat this again. All the food's good. - Right. - It's just getting prepared, and planning ahead enough that I don't get stuck without food. - Good. - That's a problem. - Yeah, yeah. That preparation. So you talked about this a little bit already, feeling like you're recovering better, and have less inflammation. - Yeah. - Tell us about, have you experienced any non body composition benefits from the Whole30? Things like energy, or mood, or cravings, or sleep, any things like that, have they happened while we've been working together? - Yeah. Cravings have definitely almost completely gone away. - Okay. - I had a fair amount of sugar cravings, so it seemed like if I had sugar, I wanted more, so it was like almost a snowball effect, with eating bad foods, to where now, sugary food doesn't really sound good. I used to drink a lot of Diet Coke. - Yeah. - But I haven't had, probably four months now, since I've had one, and it's just something that doesn't sound good anymore. And I don't track quantities of what I eat, but I'm just not hungry as often. - Yeah. - So it's much easier to go in between meals without food, or I very seldom eat after dinner, where I used to eat a fair amount after dinner before. - Mm-hmm. - So it's just, I think, probably regulating sugar intake has kept cravings out. - Yeah. - Where it's just easier to just kind of eat normal meals and from that standpoint. Sleep was pretty good. It's good now, where it was pretty good before. - Good, good. So you and I have talked about this extensively, where you can't convince someone who's not antecedently interested in doing something that they don't wanna do, but let's say you were to encounter someone who was kind of in your shoes three month ago, was like, uh, you know, I'm not sure. I'm thinking about it. I've done a Whole30 before, but I'm not sure if this will be the difference. What would you say to someone who's kind of on the fence and thinking about it, in your experience? - Yeah, I would say, especially to someone who hasn't done it, or didn't do it the kind of way that you had us progress through it, it's a lot easier than it sounds. It really hasn't been, there's been challenges, but it hasn't been a big challenge going through it, and just I feel so much better than I did three or four months ago. - Yeah. - So it sounds like a big sacrifice. You know, I remember listening to a podcast probably a year or more ago. I can't remember the name of the guy they were talking to, but he eats basically a Paleo diet, and he talked about cheat days, and his thing where he doesn't do cheat days. He just doesn't cheat. I remember listening to that a year ago, and going, yeah, how can you do that? - Right. - It's like, you know, I'd want it at least a couple a week, but after doing it with very little cheats, especially in the last couple of months, you just, the cravings go away. So it's just much easier to mostly eat properly than it is to add cheats back in. - Absolutely. - It just became easier. - Yeah, so you guys, Dave has done an incredible job. I mean, 30 pounds, five inches, throwing pants away. - Sure. - Getting PRs in the gym, doing an awesome job. So this was part one of Dave's story, and in a few months, after the holidays, we'll do part two, and kind of check back in. Thank you guys so much for tuning in today. Dave, thank you so much for being here. - Sure - And we'll see you guys next time.