It’s the start of a brand new year: time to get back on the good nutrition track with our New Year’s Whole30 Challenge!  We’re tossing the sugar, grains, and alcohol for 30 days of clean livin’ — join us!

What Is The Whole30?

The Whole30 is a short-term nutritional reset, designed to help you put an end to unhealthy cravings and habits, restore a healthy metabolism, heal your digestive tract, and balance your immune system. Participants commonly report consistently high energy levels, improved athletic performance, better sleep, and improved focus and mental clarity.

In brief, you’ll be giving up sugar, alcohol, and grains, and eating real, natural, unprocessed food in the form of meat, seafood, eggs, veggies, fruit, and good fats from fruits, oils, nuts and seeds.

The Whole30 is about looking better, feeling better, and performing better. Many people experience weight loss, but the reason to do the challenge is not weight loss per se. That’s because it isn’t a good indicator of your overall health or how good you look. We have plenty of examples of people who have remained the same weight or even gained weight over the course of the challenge, but who also found their six-pack and performed better than ever. This is because they changed their body composition (converted fat into muscle, which is more dense.)

Read more about the what and why of the Whole30 at www.whole30.com/new.

(Note: the Whole30 website seems a little overwhelmed right now so be patient!)

The Prizes

To be eligible to win, participants must participate fully in the buy in and cash out sessions. Winners will be decided by a coaches vote, based on best results. Note that this is NOT about who loses the most weight. We are more interested in a combination of change in body composition (i.e. losing fat and gaining muscle) as judged by before/after photos, and improved performance on the benchmark workout!

• First place man and woman will each win $150 cash plus $150 membership credit.
• Second place man and woman will each win $100 cash plus $100 membership credit.
• Third place man and woman will each win $50 cash plus $50 membership credit.

The Timeline

Before Saturday January 7th

Before the buy-in, you should:

• Join the challenge Facebook Group
• Read the Getting Started guide to the Whole30 and the Whole30 Program Rules

Saturday January 7th: Buy In & NUTRITIONFEST

12:00PM – Buy In!
During this hour, you will:

• Pose for ‘before’ pictures: men should wear shorts; women should wear shorts and sports bra. Make a note of what you wear so that you can try to wear exactly the same outfit again for your ‘after’ pictures! Note that these photos will be seen by the coaches only unless you agree to allow us to use them more publicly!
• Complete performance benchmark workout: TBD
• Weigh In
• Pay your cash entry fee to make your entry official / fund the prize pool!

1:00PM – Whole30 Basics and Q&A
Our guest nutritionist Joanne Mumbey from Kettlebell Kitchen (who deliver pre-prepped paleo meals to the gym twice a week) will give a short lecture on Whole30 basics and answer your questions about how you’ll be eating for the next 30 days!

1:30PM – Quality Food Sources and Q&A
Our very own Brent Young of The Meat Hook (a whole-animal, locally-sourced, pastured meat butcher shop conveniently located on Graham Avenue about 5 minutes from the gym) will teach us the what and why of quality food sources.

We will have Whole30 foods on hand to keep you fueled throughout all of this!

Sunday February 5th: Cash Out

12:00PM – Cash Out!
We’ll wrap things up with the benchmark workout again, weigh-ins, and “after” pictures.

Monday February 6th – Wednesday February 15th: Reintroduction Protocol

The reintroduction portion of the Whole30 is critical to the learning experience. Over the next ten days, you’ll slowly, carefully, systematically reintroduce some of the off-plan foods you’ve been missing, and evaluate how they make you feel in the context of a healthier relationship with food, metabolism, digestive tract, and immune system. Learn more about this at www.whole30.com/step-two-finished.

Friday February 17th: Post-Challenge Social!

Bring your newly svelte self out to mingle with your fellow athletes / optionally learn just how much of a cheap date you’ve become by not drinking for 30 days! Details TBA.