www.princexml.comPrince - Personal EditionThis document was created with Prince, a great way of getting web content onto paper.

This book is dedicated tothe memory of Wayne

Hartwig.

First Published in 2012 by Victory Belt Pub-lishing Inc.

Copyright 2012 Dallas Hartwig andMelissa Hartwig

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be repro-duced or distributed in any form or by anymeans, electronic or mechanical, or stored ina database or retrieval system, without priorwritten permission from the publisher.

ISBN:978-1-936608-89-8 (hc)978-1-936608-42-3 (ebook)

The information included in this book is foreducational purposes only. It is not intended

nor implied to be a substitute for profession-al medical advice. The reader should alwaysconsult his or her healthcare provider to de-termine the appropriateness of the informa-tion for their own situation or if they haveany questions regarding a medical conditionor treatment plan. Reading the informationin this book does not create a physician-pa-tient relationship.

Victory Belt is a registered trademark ofVictory Belt Publishing Inc.

Whole30 is a registered trademark ofWhole9 Life LLC.

Produced in the USACover and interior design by KathleenShannon

Illustrations by Greg White

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Author photo by R. Sean Galloway

Meal Map created by Melissa Joulwan

Food photography by DaveHumphreys

ebook layout and design by JohnMcClure(www.signalmanpublishing.com)

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TABLE OFCONTENTS

Endorsements

Foreword

Preface

PART 1: IT STARTS WITH FOOD

Chapter 1: Food Should Make YouHealthy

Chapter 2: Our Nutritional FrameworkPART 2: GOOD FOOD STANDARDS

Chapter 3: What is Food?Chapter 4: Your Brain on FoodChapter 5: Healthy Hormones, Healthy

You

Chapter 6: The Guts of the MatterChapter 7: Inflammation: No One is

ImmunePART 3: LESS HEALTHY

Chapter 8: Sugar, Sweeteners, andAlcohol

Chapter 9: Seed OilsChapter 10: Grains and LegumesChapter 11: DairyChapter 12: It All Adds UpPART 4: MORE HEALTHY

Chapter 13: Meat, Seafood, and EggsChapter 14: Vegetables and FruitChapter 15: The Right FatsPART 5: LETS EAT!

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Chapter 16: Meal Planning Made EasyPART 6: THE WHOLE30

Chapter 17: The Whole30: Preface to theProgram

Chapter 18: The Whole30: Process ofElimination

Chapter 19: The Whole30:Reintroduction

PART 7: WHOLE30, WHOLE LIFE

Chapter 20: Strategies for Long-TermSuccess

Chapter 21: Fine-Tuning for SpecialPopulations

Chapter 22: Supplement Your HealthyDiet

Final Thoughts

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APPENDIX A: THE MEAL MAP

Master Recipes: Protein and VegetablesMaster Recipes: Curries and SoupsFinishing Touches: Sauces, Seasonings

and DressingsQuick-and-Easy Meal: A Really Great

SteakQuick-and-Easy Meal: No-Fuss Salmon

CakesFancypants Meal: Delicious Dinner PartyAPPENDIX B: RESOURCES

Weight, Volume, and TemperatureConversions

Cookbooks and RecipesFinding Good FoodWeb Sites, Books and Movies

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ThanksMaster References

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ENDORSEMENTS

The Whole30 program is completely safe,healthy, and effective. The changes I have ex-perienced have led me to promote these diet-ary changes to many of my patients as thefirst step in medical treatment, and the res-ults they have seen have been equally amaz-ing. What I have learned from the Whole30is that diet can make some drastic improve-ments to peoples healthI look at food asmedicine now.

Matthew Mechtenberg, DOI have done the Whole30 and prescribe it tomy patients. The Whole30 dietary programis safe and healthy for the following reasons:First, it is based on whole, unprocessedfoods, thus making it very nutrient-dense.

Second, it is anti-inflammatory. Third, ithelps to regulate insulin metabolism. Andfourth, the Whole30 eliminates most of thefoods known to cause allergies andintolerances.

Luc Readinger, MDI have personally experienced the benefitsof the Whole30 program, and I whole-heartedly recommend the Whole30 plan tooptimize a womans health during pregnancyand lactation. The nutrient-dense foods re-commended provide ample vitamins andminerals without the need for the standardprenatal supplement. This healthy eatingprogram will also help regulate blood sugars,alleviating hypoglycemic spells common inpregnancy. In addition, the Whole30 will re-duce the likelihood of gestational diabetesand excess pregnancy weight gain.

Michele Blackwell, MD, OB-GYN

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As a doctor who started with a love for foodas medicine, I counsel every patient I see onnutrition due to its powerful ability to healand restore. I can attest to the safety and ef-ficacy of the Whole30 program, particularlyin the area of food sensitivities, autoimmunediseases and digestive disorders like IBS andIBD. The plan is organized, doable and easyto follow. Every patient with these disordersshould show this program to their doctorand give it a try.

Lauren Noel, NDThe Whole30 program is a great tool to getpeople motivated and on track. Its focus isreal, whole, high-quality foods. This is notsome fad diet that cuts calories to a ridicu-lous level and prescribes pills andpowdersthere is nothing for sale buthealth. If done correctly it is safe, effective,sustainable, and includes nothing outland-ish, expensive or hazardousjust the basictenets of good nutrition and health.

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Amy Kubal, RD, LNI have done the Whole30 myself, have beenusing the Whole30 with my patients, andhave seen some amazing and exciting results.One patient lost twenty pounds in threemonths, and her most recent labs show anormal A1c, increased HDL cholesterol, andlower overall cholesterol and LDL-C. Shealso was able to completely resolve her non-ulcer dyspepsia without the need for medica-tions. I have seen similar results in those pa-tients compliant with the recommendedprogram.

Chad Potteiger, DOThe Whole30 is by far one of the best pro-grams available to help individuals learn howand why to make the best food choices.While Dallas and Melissas information isbased on credible scientific references, theinformation is presented in an easy-to-un-derstand and captivating manner. There are

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thousands of testimonials available that givecredit to this programs success, and I highlyrecommend it.

Stephanie Greunke, RD

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FOREWORD

Luc Readinger, MD

I first heard of Dallas and MelissaHartwig (and the Whole9 community) whilelistening to their interview on Robb WolfsPaleo Solution podcast. After the interview, Ivisited the Whole9 Web site and found a gemcalled the Whole30, Dallas and Melissasoriginal thirty-day nutrition program. It ispart diet guide, part tough-love behavioralcoaching, and I have witnessed the way it hastransformed the lives and health of many.

I was working at an integrative familymedical practice in a rural town. From dayone, I realized my patients could benefitfrom dietary changes. Often a complete

overhaul was in order. On both a personaland professional level, I knew many of thesepeople would benefit from Dallas andMelissas healthy eating plan.

There are several good books on the sub-ject, many of which I recommended. But itreally came down to making it as easy as pos-sible for people. I knew the diet I was recom-mending probably sounded unappealing, in-timidating, or downright challenging andthat only the super-motivated would followthrough with purchasing a book. So to facilit-ate compliance with this lifestyle change, Iprinted copies of the Whole30 program fromthe Web site and began handing it out tothose patients needing an intervention. Theyleft my office with four pages in hand thatcontained everything they needed, freshlymotivated by the programs admonition tostart right now.

I did not have a lot of hope at first. Thechanges I was asking people to make could

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be perceived as radical and even, in somecases, near impossible. To my surprise,people started returning to my office feelingbetteroften amazingly so. They had fol-lowed through! They had made drasticchanges in how they ate and were reapingthe results.

Almost all had lost weight and reportedimproved energy and mood. Patients wereable to stop their blood-pressure medica-tions after just thirty days on this plan. Onediabetics hemoglobin A1c (a marker for av-erage blood sugars over a four-month peri-od) dropped by three points in three months,an unheard of improvement using oral med-ications alone. Another diabetics insulin re-quirements decreased by 80 percent. Asthmaimproved, rashes went away, chronic infec-tious diseases abated, chronic pain dimin-ished, and health and well-being increased.

One day, my secretary told me thatMelissa Hartwig had called. Uh-oh, I

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thought, shes found out that Ive beenprinting the Whole30 off their Web site andhanding it out to patients. A cease-and-desistorder must be close at hand. A patient whohad experienced the tremendous benefits ofthe program had reached out to her and giv-en her my contact information. To my relief,the Hartwigs were thrilled that I had beenable to apply their material in my clinicalpractice and told me of other health-careproviders who have had similar experienceswith their patients as a result of the program.

Not only does the food we eat have a sub-stantial impact on our healtha fact vastlyunderrated in todays conventional medicalcommunityit is the very cornerstone ofgood health. Out of all of the tools in mymedical arsenal, the Whole30 is by far themost powerful and the most applicableacross a wide range of ills. It is a potent anti-dote to the chronic diseases of modern

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society and can be used both as preventionand as treatment.

This book will take you through theWhole30 and beyond, going further into thepractical application of the Hartwigs healthyeating plan. It elucidates a sustainable way toeat to maintain lifelong health, wellness, andphysical performance. I hope the work younow hold in your hands leads you to a life ofoptimal health and vitality, as it has for mypatients.Luc Readinger, MD | January 2012

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PREFACEWe eat real foodfresh, natural food, likemeat, vegetables, and fruit. We choose foodsthat are nutrient-dense, with lots of natur-ally occurring vitamins and minerals, overfoods that have more calories but less nutri-tion. And food quality is importantwe arecareful about where our meat, seafood, andeggs come from, and we buy organic, localproduce as often as possible.

This is not a dietwe eat as much aswe need to maintain strength, energy and ahealthy body weight. We aim for well-bal-anced nutrition, so we eat both plants andanimals. We get all the carbohydrates weneed from vegetables and fruits, whilehealthy fats like avocado, coconut, and oliveoil provide us with another excellent sourceof energy.

Eating like this allows us to maintain ahealthy metabolism and keeps our immunesystem in balance. Its good for body com-position, energy levels, sleep quality, mood,attention span, and quality of life. It helpseliminate sugar cravings and reestablishesa healthy relationship with food. It alsoworks to minimize our risk for mostlifestyle-related diseases and conditions, likediabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke,and autoimmune conditions.Dallas and Melissa Hartwig, Nutrition in

60 Seconds

If youve purchased this book for your-self, congratulations! You clearly care aboutyour health and would like to take the neces-sary steps to becoming the healthiest versionof you. Making changes is never easy, butwhat weve laid out for you here is an ap-proachable path to a new, healthy

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relationship with food and sustainable, satis-fying nutritional habits. Keep an open mindand be proud of yourself for taking thefirstand most importantstep towardchanging your life.

If youve received this book as a gift, itmeans you are loved. Someone cares aboutyou and your health so much that they arewilling to facilitate your transformation andsupport you along the way. We think youllfind our approach sensible, manageable,and, most important, immediately applicableto your situation, regardless of your age,health status, or habits. Use this book as ameans to make permanent changes to yourdiet and lifestyle and jump-start your jour-ney to optimal health. It is possible. The per-son who gave you this book believes in ourmethodsbut more important, he or she be-lieves in you.

And if at any point you begin to doubtyour ability to make these changes in your

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own life, we want you to remember one veryimportant thing:

Youve already begun.Because whatever you are seekingim-

provement in energy, mood, focus, sleep,athletic performance, symptoms, medicalconditions, body composition, or quality oflife

It starts with food.

Your partners in health,Dallas and Melissa Hartwig

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CHAPTER 1:FOOD SHOULD

MAKE YOUHEALTHY

I read up on the Whole30 and decided toparticipate. I have type 2 diabetes and, afterhearing about the side effects of the medi-cine I was taking, decided that I wanted tostop my meds. By the fifth day of my pro-gram, my blood sugar was in the normalrange! I cant believe how fast its gonedown with just the dietary changes. I com-pleted my Whole30 and lost about sixpounds but the best part for me was feel-ing healthier, dropping a pant size, redu-cing my A1c levels by a point and a half, andbeing able to control my blood sugar! Ivebeen off my diabetes medication since

completing the program, and my doctor isvery happy with the results.

Maricel B., Sugar Land, Texas

We have a theory about food that directlyinfluences the rest of this book.

The food you eat either makes youmore healthy or less healthy. Those

are your options.

There is no food neutral; there is no foodSwitzerlandevery single thing you put inyour mouth is either making you morehealthy or less healthy.

It should be simple then, right? Just eatthe foods that make you more healthy.

Well, it is and it isnt.See, making good food choices isnt just

about knowing whats healthy. If that was the

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case, wed just give you a copy of our shop-ping list and send you on your merry way(shortest book ever!). No, the way we choosethe foods we eat is much more complicatedand nuanced than that.

Food is highly emotional, in ways that gofar beyond your conscious awareness.

Food is sneaky, affecting you in subtleways you would never connect to your diet.

And by any definition, todays modernfood landscape is enormously confusing.

So, its actually not that easy.We are going to make it easy.

Were going to share our views on food.Well share our personal experiences. Wellgive you testimonials from others who havechanged their lives just by changing the foodon their plate. And well give you the sci-encethe studies, experiments, and

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conclusions that form the basis for all of ourrecommendations.

And then well say, Dont just take ourword for it.

We are going to teach you how to turnyourself into a scientific experiment of one,so you can figure out for yourself, once andfor all, whether the foods you are eating aremaking you more healthy or less healthy.And thats worth more than any scientificfindings you read aboutbecause therehasnt been a single scientific experimentthat includes you as a subject.

Until now.When you complete our Whole30 pro-

gram, youll see for yourself the effects ofmore healthy and less healthy foods. By thetime the program is over, youll know in nouncertain terms which foods are improvingthe quality of your life and which are detract-ing from your health. In just thirty days, you

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will have gained that incredibly powerfulknowledge. Why is this knowledge sovaluable?

Because it will change your life.

After implementing our program, youwont have to wonder whether the foods youare eating are healthy for you. Youll be ableto make educated, informed food choices forthe rest of your life. And youll know how toenjoy treats, sweets, and other less healthyfoods in a way that is always moving you to-ward better health, fitness, and quality oflife.

Sounds pretty amazing, doesnt it? Wedont take the promise to change your lifelightly.

Finally, by the time you turn the lastpage, youll know more than just why youshould eat this wayyou will know how toeat this way for the rest of your life. Well

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show you how to break free of unhealthycravings, restore your bodys natural hungermechanism, eat to satiety while still losingweight, and eliminate the symptoms of anynumber of lifestyle-related diseases and con-ditionsforever.

It starts with food.

OUR STORIESOur story starts in 2006, when Dallas (a

licensed physical therapist) was reading re-search relevant to his sister Ambers rheum-atoid arthritis. In Dallas own words:

Ive always enjoyed life sciences, and asstrange as it may sound, I actually think ofscientific studies as pleasure reading. So itwas not unusual for me to read an article inthe British Journal of Nutrition about diet-ary factors that were of special relevancefor individuals with rheumatoid arthritis

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(RA). I tried to keep up with current re-search about RA for my sister, but duringthat same period of time, I had been strug-gling with a stubborn case of tendonitis. Myshoulder had been bothering me for almosteighteen months, partly because I playedcompetitive volleyball and hadnt let it restlong enough to fully heal after a minor in-jury. After I played at USAV Nationals, Iswore that I would let my shoulder heal.And I did rest it, but it didnt get better.

Being a physical therapist with a specialinterest in athletics, I knew a thing or twoabout facilitating the healing of connectivetissue. I consulted with other therapists andtwo orthopedists and ended up getting aseries of MRIs that revealed no structuraldamage to my shoulder. Something waspromoting ongoing inflammation in myshoulders connective tissues, but I didntknow what.

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The research paper I was reading out-lined a theory about how certain dietaryproteins (in this case, those from legumes)may exacerbate rheumatoid arthritis bystimulating the immune system into overactivity. I knew from my physiology train-ing that abnormal immune activity was theroot cause of chronic inflammation, so theidea that something I was eating might becontributing to the inflammation in myshoulder caught my attention. I decided toread more research from that papers leadauthor, Dr. Loren Cordain.

At this time in my life, I was eating aplant-based omnivorous dietsmallamounts of meat and eggs and lots ofgrains, legumes, vegetables, fruit, and nuts.I thought, If something Im eating might becausing inflammation in my shoulder, whydont I just avoid that food for a while andsee what happens? So I did. I cut out alllegumes and grains, and six weeks later my

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shoulder pain was goneeighteen monthsof pain and limited functionality gone in sixweeks. That got my attention! (Six yearslater, I havent had a single twinge in myshoulder.)

I was eager to learn more about howdiet affected inflammatory conditions likeRA and tendonitis. I read Dr. Cordainsbook The Paleo Diet and everything else Icould find on the topic of food-inducedchronic inflammation. I was able to sharewhat Id learned with patients, friends, fam-ily, and Melissa. My sister eventually adop-ted our dietary guidelines, and almost all ofher rheumatoid arthritis symptoms havedisappeared.

So how did this experience lead us to cre-ate our Whole30 program? Fast-forward toApril 2009 when, in Melissas own words:

Dallas shoulder was still pain-free, andwe were both eating pretty well, but an

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aggressive training schedule, lack of sleep,and some serious stress (working full-timejobs while managing a fast-growingstrength and conditioning facility) had bothof us feeling kind of run-down. While eatinglunch after a particularly grueling Olympiclifting session, I wondered aloud whethercleaning up our diets even more wouldmake a difference in how we felt.

Remembering something wed heard at aRobb Wolf seminaryou need at least thirtydays of dedication to make a real differ-enceDallas proposed that we adopt a 100percent clean, no cheats, no slips Paleo dietfor the next thirty days. We started hashingout our rules, and when we had a planoutlined, I asked when we should start. Dal-las (with a devilish look in his eye) proposedthat we start immediately. Now. Like,RIGHT now.

I looked longingly at my Thin Mints,sighed, and accepted his challenge.

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During those thirty days, I went througha lot of ups and downs. It was easy. It wasimpossible. I was tired. I had boundless en-ergy. I tossed and turned. I slept like a baby.But by the third week, something shifted. Itwas as dramatic as flipping a switchandmy life would never be the same.

My energy levels skyrocketedand sta-bilized. I felt just as peppy at 6 a.m. as I didat noon as I did at 6 p.m. I started losingbody fat without even trying. My perform-ance in the gym, which had plateaued, sud-denly started improving again. I was fallingasleep easier, staying asleep longer, andwaking up without an alarm clock. As thedays went on, I realized just how not-greatId been feeling, compared to how clean andfresh and amazing I was feeling now.

But the most remarkable thing was howthis thirty-day adventure completelychanged my relationship with food andeating.

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Id always had an unhealthy relationshipwith food. Food was my best friend and myworst enemy. It was punishment or reward,control or powerlessness. I went throughstages of extreme dieting and extreme exer-cise. But after just thirty days on this newplan, my relationship with food was differ-ent. For the first time in my life, food mademe feel good. (And not just the quick-and-dirty good that comes with the first fewbites of ice cream, followed by a full daysworth of guilt, shame, and anxiety. Whole-some good. Lasting good. Good good.)

My sugar cravings disappeared. Theurge to eat junk food when I was upset,bored, angry, or frustrated just vanished.My skin was clear, my hair was shiny, mystomach was flatter, and people said I wasglowing. I had more energy, smiled more,was friendlier to co-workers. All of a sud-den, I was indescribably happy.

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The remarkable realization I had wasthat, after all of my complicated multi-stepself-improvement initiatives, all I had to dowas change the food I put on my plate. Forthirty days, I ate nothing but food thatmade me healthier, as much as I wanted, nocounting calories or measuring portions.And those thirty days changed my life in avery real, very positive way.

To this day, I have been able to maintaina healthy and satisfying relationship withfood, eating, and my body all because, forthose thirty days, I changed what I put onmy plate.From these revelations, the Whole30

was born.

Dallas experience with his thirty dayswas no less eye-opening, and although hedidnt have the same emotional issues withfood, this experiment brought to light theimpact of removing all of the potentially

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harmful foods and beverages in his diet foran extended period of time.

We decided to share our experience withour blog readers in July 2009. We called thepost Change Your Life in 30 Days and out-lined the full rules of the program we hadfollowed in April. We invited our readers toparticipate and asked them to let us know ifthey were on board.

We had no idea how many people wouldtake us up on this challenge.

During that first iteration, several hun-dred people worked through our programand reported their results. We were thrilledto hear that most experienced the same kindof miracles we hadeffortless weight loss,better sleep, consistent energy, improvedmood, and increased athletic performance.Many reported the elimination of sugar crav-ings and a healthier relationship with food,allowing them to pass up desserts and sweetsthey used to find irresistible. But what

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impressed us the most were the number ofpeople who told us the program had im-proved or completely eliminated their phys-ical ailments. Seasonal allergiesgone.Asthmanot a single attack. Blood pres-sureback to normal. Cholesterolim-proved by an astonishing degree. Heart-burnvanquished. Stubborn tendonit-ishealed. (OK, that one didnt surprise us!)

Since that inception in July 2009, wevefreely offered our Whole30 program on ourWeb site. The program has spread virallythrough word-of-mouth, and over the pastthree years, tens of thousands of people allaround the world have completed the pro-gram and have reported that the Whole30did, in fact, change their life.

CHANGE YOUR LIFE?

Its funny how many of our testi-monials start with, When you

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told me the Whole30 was goingto change my life, I thought,Yeah right. Whatever. But ittotally did! Our own stories werepretty dramatic, and we havehundreds of readers stories andtestimonials on our Web site (ht-tp://whole9life.com), but ifyoure still skeptical about thewhole life changing thing, thatsOK. Just keep reading.

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CHAPTER 2:OUR

NUTRITIONALFRAMEWORK

Im 46 years old and have lost the samefifty pounds over and over again, only togain it backand more. At the beginning ofthe year, my cholesterol was so high I wassure Id need to go on medication. But by theend of my Whole30, my overall cholesterollevel dropped 83 points, triglyceridesdropped 82 points, LDL dropped 63 points,and HDL rose 3 points. Plus I lost tenpounds and over seven inches. Thank you!

Patty M., Boise, Idaho

The framework for our Whole30 programand general recommendations are built onwhat weve learned from some very smartpeopleone in particular. Robb Wolf, theNew York Times bestselling author of ThePaleo Solution and one of the worlds leadingexperts on the Paleo lifestyle, has been afriend and mentor for several years now.Robb has influenced our program and theway we work with our clients tremendously.In fact, his thirty-day elimination approachformed the foundation of our Whole30program.

As a result, the basics of our food recom-mendations look a lot like the fundamentaltenets of the Paleo diet. Youve probablyheard of it by nowyou know, that cavemandiet the media has been talking about? Itsrecommendations are based on the diet con-sumed by man during the Paleolithic eraa2.6-million-year period of time that endedabout 10,000 years ago with the advent of

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agriculture. The theory is that we are genet-ically adapted to the diet of our Paleolithicancestors, and that genetic disposition hasntchanged much in the last 10,000yearswhich means we are not geneticallysuited to our modern, industrially-produced,agriculture-based diet. Paleo diet advocatesbelieve that the healthiest diet for peopletoday should resemble the diets of ourhunter-gatherer ancestors.

PALEO, DEMYSTIFIED

Before we go any further, lets de-bunk some myths about the Paleodiet. First, its not about recreat-ing the existence of cavemen. Noone wants you to go without elec-tricity, hot showers, or your be-loved iPhone. And yes, cavemendidnt always have a long lifespan, but thats not because of

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their food choicesit was morelikely the lack of antibiotics, theabundance of predators, andharsh living conditions. Second,its not a carnivorous dietthemoderate amount of high-qualitymeat is balanced with tons ofplant matter (vegetables andfruit). Third, the fat you eat aspart of a Paleo diet will not clogyour arteries because fat all by it-self is not the culprit in that scen-ario. (Really. More on that later.)Finally, the diet is not carb-phobic; its 100 percent sustain-able from day one, and its reallynot that radicalunless you con-sider eating nutrient-dense, un-processed food radical. Which, intodays microwave-dinner-fast-food-low-fat era, might very wellbe the case.

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Now, we agree that foods advocated bythe Paleo diet are the healthiest choices intodays modern age. The research and exper-ience of folks like Dr. Loren Cordain andRobb Wolf heavily influenced our own exper-imentation, and the results we achieved aftereating this way were hard to ignore. Butplease, hear us clearly on this one subject:

We are far more concerned withhealth than we are with history.

We arent recommending meat and ve-getables because we think thats what our an-cestors ate; we dont say cheesecake is a poorchoice because cavemen didnt eat cheese-cake; and were certainly not about to debatewhether any one food is technically Paleo.While the Paleo diet is backed by solid sci-entific research (refer to our references), wegenerally dont get all hung up on what Pa-leolithic man may or may not have eaten.

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We care about what is making us, hereand now, more or less healthy.

And we suspect thats what you careabout too.

CREATIONISTSWELCOME

If our programs evolutionaryperspective resonates with you,fabulous. But if youre not inter-ested in the history or you dontbelieve in evolution at all, thatsOK too. You dont have to buy in-to Darwinian evolutionary theoryto participate because well justbe concentrating on biology andnatural patterns of behavior.There are some things for whichwe are simply hardwired, like be-ing active during the day and

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sleeping at night, liking sweettastes, and experiencing thirstwhen we are dehydrated. In thenatural world, these primal urgesare designed to keep us safe, fed,hydrated, and healthy. But intodays modern world, these bio-logical signals dont always workthe same wayand our ability tooverride them often gets us intotrouble. Understanding the biolo-gical purpose of these signals andhow to hear them over all thenoise in todays busy world is oneof the keys to optimal health.

Now is a good time to address one of ourmost commonly heard questions: Do youhave the science to back this stuff up? Theanswer, of course, is yes. We will reference aton of technical informationwhat we callscience-y stuffand we promise to

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translate any complicated material into easy-to-understand concepts. We have referencesgalore in our appendix: peer-reviewed, cred-ible research that weve used to back up theprogram we present here. We dont recom-mend anything that we dont believe is true,based on the findings of the scientific re-search community.

But relying on science alone is tricky.Many of these nutritional theories arent

as rock-solid as, say, the theory of gravity.There is still a lot the scientific communitydoesnt know about food, nutrition, andhealth. Which means that for every findingwe present, you can consult the Source of AllKnowledge (the Internet) and find studiesthat suggest the opposite.

Coffee is good for everyone!Coffee may increase your risk of cancer!Which one is right? Maybe neither,

maybe bothits hard to know. But one thing

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is certainin the case of nutrition andhealth, the science can be confusing, and canlead to paralysis by analysis (a state inwhich you take no action because youre notsure what to do).

In the absence of enough conclusive sci-ence, what else can we rely on? Observation,experience, and clinically-based evidence.Our recommendations are based on the pro-tocols that have been effective for our clients.Getting positive results from one client isgood, but getting similar positive resultsfrom a thousand clients truly confirms theefficacy of the protocols and suggests thatthey will produce reliable results for otherpeople with similar health conditions.

The trouble is, we cant rely exclusivelyon observation, experience, or clinically-based evidence. Despite loads of experienceand careful observation, it can be difficult topinpoint the exact cause and effect of any

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one behavior on a population. For example,consider the following statement:

When ice cream sales are high, thefrequency of shark attacks increases.Therefore, sharks attack in response

to rising ice cream sales.

Obviously, those two things are merelycorrelated and not cause and effect. (The twovariables exhibit a common traitthe warmseasonwhen people are more likely to botheat ice cream and swim in the ocean.) Yet itseasy to confuse correlation with causationwhen you are relying solely on observationaldata.

So, how did we come up with our dietaryrecommendations?

We combined scientific research withclinical experience.

We have scientific studies to back up ourrecommendations. We have years of

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experience and documented Whole30 resultsto confirm that were on the right track. Itsthe best of both worldsthe academic evid-ence and the boots-on-the-ground experi-ence that comes from working with thou-sands of people and getting amazing results.Win-win.

But none of those published studies takeinto account your life, your history, yourcontext. The most relevant form of experi-mentation for you is self-experimentation, soyou can figure out for yourself, once and forall, how certain factors affect you.

And that is exactly what we are proposinghere, with our Whole30 program.

Grounded in science, based on thousandsof observations and proven results, andanchored with a thirty-day structured self-experiment.

Win-win-win.

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SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH + CLINICALEXPERIENCE +

SELF-EXPERIMENTATION

CHOOSE YOUR OWNADVENTURE

Were about to dive into some ofthe most technical information inthe bookthe science-y stuff. InChapters 3 through 7, well out-line our four Good Food stand-ards and talk about the ways thatless-healthy foods mess with yourbrain, hormones, gut, and im-mune system. Well do our best tokeep the science accessible anduse lots of analogies to help youunderstand the way things workin the body. If youre the kind ofperson who needs to know notjust the how, but also the why,

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these chapters are a must-read. Ifyou dont care about the scienceand just want to know what toeat, how much to eat, and how tocreate lifelong healthy eatinghabits, feel free to skip straight tothe food in Chapter 8.

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CHAPTER 3:WHAT IS FOOD?

My wife and I have had terrible seasonalallergies for several years. Now our aller-gies have all disappeared. We are off all al-lergy meds, which we used to take likecandy. As for our four-year-old daughter,we are two weeks into her Whole30, and Iam amazed to report that her allergy symp-toms are virtually gone. No sneezing. Norunny nose. After taking both pills and nosespray for much of her life, her allergy symp-toms are better now than they have everbeen.

Brian C., Burnsville, Minnesota

We choose our foods by following fourGood Food standards. Were pretty pickyabout this: all the foods we recommend have

to satisfy all four criteria. Not three, not most all. Well explain them in more detail inthe coming chapters, but here are the basics.

OUR GOOD FOODSTANDARDS

The food that we eat should:1. Promote a healthy psychological

response.2. Promote a healthy hormonal

response.3. Support a healthy gut.4. Support immune function and

minimize inflammation.

Before we get into each of the Good Foodstandards, however, we need some generalbackground on food.

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WHAT IS FOOD?Food is composed of a multitude of com-

plex molecules. Some provide energy, someprovide structural components, some inter-act with various receptors and transmit sig-nals to our bodies, and some are relativelyinert. People sometimes oversimplify food,and say things like, I eat whole grains forfiber or I drink milk for calcium, but thereality is that all whole, unprocessed food isa rich, complex blend of nutrients. Webroadly organize these components into twomajor classifications: micronutrients andmacronutrients.

A micronutrient is defined as an essentialcompound needed only in relatively smallamounts. A micronutrients purpose is not togenerate energy but to serve a wide variety ofimportant biological functions, including:protection against free radicals, enhancingimmune response, and repairing DNA. Thereare hundreds of different micronutrients, but

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some youve probably heard of include vit-amins (like vitamin C), minerals (like calci-um), and phytonutrients (like beta-carotene). Selecting foods with the rightamounts and a wide variety of micronutri-ents is critical for our long-term health.

A macronutrient is defined as a group ofchemical compounds consumed in largeamounts and necessary for normal growth,metabolism, and other bodily functions.Macronutrients are used to supply energyand, in some cases, are used as structuralcomponents. In humans, the three macronu-trients are carbohydrate, protein, and fat.

THE MACRO VIEWCarbohydrates include several types of

sugars, multiple types of starches, and diet-ary fiber. All carbohydrates, whether theycome from a carrot, brown rice, or a Pop-Tart, break down into simple sugars in the

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body. Complex carbohydrates are simply abunch of sugars linked together, and thosechains of sugars are broken into their indi-vidual links upon digestion. Simple carbo-hydrates, specifically glucose, are a universalenergy source that is easily used by mostcells in the body. Glucose is fuel for intenseactivity and fuel for your brain cells.

CARB CONVERSION

Even if you dont eat any carbo-hydrates, your body can manu-facture them from certain aminoacids (and to a small extent, fromfat) in order to supply an ad-equate amount to your brain.This is why some people say thatthere is no dietary requirementfor carbohydrate.

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Proteins are made up of long chains ofamino acids, which are the building blocksfor all sorts of biological structures. Theamino acids in proteins are necessary forbuilding, maintaining, and repairingmuscles, connective tissue like tendons andligaments, skin, hair, and even your bonesand teeth. In addition, most enzymes andmany hormones in the body are actuallyproteins.

Fats are either in free form (free fattyacids) or built into complexes. Fatty acidsbelong to one of three types or families: sat-urated, monounsaturated, or polyunsatur-ated. Fats allow you to absorb fat-soluble vit-amins and essential nutrients from food,help to transport nutrients across cell mem-branes, and are critical to maintaining prop-er immune function. Dietary fats are also thebuilding blocks for brain tissue, nerve fibers,reproductive and stress hormones, immunemessengers, and cellular membranes.

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Finally, fat is also an excellent slow-burningenergy source, perfect for supporting lowerintensity activity.

The energy contained within each type ofmacronutrient is measured in calories. Car-bohydrates and protein each contain fourcalories per gram; fat contains nine caloriesper gram. Diet books and experts have longattributed weight problems to simply eatingtoo many calories, and specifically, too muchfat. After all, fat is more than twice ascalorie-dense as either protein or carbs!

If only it were that easy.While calories do count for something,

good health depends on far more complexfactorsand simply reducing calories (or fat)isnt the answer. The foods you eat exert apowerful psychological influence, strongerthan any act of willpower. They influenceyour hormones, silently directing your meta-bolism. They affect your digestive tract, yourbodys first line of defense. And they impact

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your immune system and your risk for anynumber of diseases and conditions.

Your good health starts with the foodsyou eat. And determining which foods makeyou more healthy starts with our four GoodFood standards.

SNEAK PEEK

Chapter 4: Your Brain on FoodChapter 5: Healthy Hormones,Healthy YouChapter 6: The Guts of the MatterChapter 7: Inflammation: No Oneis ImmuneWere about to introduce our fourGood Food standards. Theyre inthis order for a reasonbecausewe think this is generally howthings start going wrong. First,you overconsume nutrient-poor

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foods, because of their psycholo-gical effect on you. Overcon-sumption (and the kinds of foodsyou tend to over consume) thenleads to hormonal, gut, andimmune-system disruptionandall of the symptoms, conditionsand diseases that may follow.These chapters will lay thegroundwork for the discussion onfood, and make it that much easi-er for you to understand whywell be asking you to remove cer-tain foods from your plate. Wellalso wrap up each of these fourchapters with a summary to makeit easier for you to refresh yourmemory when we do start talkingabout food.

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CHAPTER 4:YOUR BRAIN ON

FOODThis program has shown results that Ididnt think were possible. Prior to theWhole30, I recognized that I had severe dif-ficulties dealing with food cravings andknowing when to stop eating. Cheat mealsturned into cheat feasts and cheat week-ends. My frustration with controlling mycravings and urges skyrocketed. Daily Iasked myself, How can I get these urges un-der control? Why do I feel like I need thesebad foods? Where should I go for help?Whole30 is the answer. I havent felt thedeep desire to binge since Ive submergedmyself into this program. I dont feel like Ihave to struggle to make decisions when

trying to decide what to eat. The way I eatnow is how I honestly desire to feed myself.

Aubrey H., Manassas, Virginia

Surprised that were leading off with psy-chology and not calories, energy, or metabol-ism? Stay with us, because we suspect thissection is going to resonate with you. As arule, we think the foods that are good foryour body should also not mess with yourmind. And we think the psychological effectsof your food choices are perhaps the mostimportant factors to consider during yourhealthy-eating transformation.

How many times have you tried a newplan, bought new foods, and stuck to the newmenu for a few weeks, only to fall right backinto your old habitsand old waistline?(Every time youve tried to diet, we sus-pect.) Want to know why your previous ef-forts have failed?

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Dieting doesnt work.

But you knew that already, didnt you?Calorie-restrictive plans have been found

to help folks lose weight, but only in theshort term. Most folks cant sustain theirnew dietary habits, and after a year or two,the vast majority end up gaining back evenmore weight than they lost. (Kind of a bum-mer, right?) The truth is, simply reducingyour calories isnt likely to change or allevi-ate your food cravings, even if you do loseweight. And well show how your cravings,habits, and patterns are critical to your long-term success.

In addition, creating healthy dietaryhabits isnt just about restricting or eliminat-ing certain foods. You already know that fastfood, junk food, and sweets arent good foryou. You know you shouldnt eat them if youwant to lose weight, get off your medication,or be healthier.

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Yet you continue to eat them.You struggle with food cravings, bad

habits, compulsions, and addictions. Youknow you shouldnt, but you feel compelledto eat these foods. Sometimes, you donteven want them, but you eat them anyway.And you have a hard time stopping.

All of which makes you feel guilty andstressedand more likely to comfort yourselfwith even more unhealthy food.

Were here to tell you:Its not your fault.

You are not lacking willpower. You arenot lazy. And its not your fault that youcant stop eating these foods.

Now were not trying to say that thechoices you make arent your own or that youdont have any responsibility for your cur-rent health status (or waistline). But whatyou have to understand is that these

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unhealthy foods have an unfair advantage.They are designed to mess with your brain.They are built to make you crave them. Theymake it hard for you to give them up.

And until you know their dirty littlesecrets, you will never be able to leave thesefoods, and your cravings, habits, and pat-terns, behind.

We are going to spill their secrets.We are going to help you understand why

you crave the foods you do and explain howthese unhealthy foods trick you into eatingthem. Then well show you how to outsmartyour cravings once and for all.

HARD TO RESIST

Food craving can be defined asan intense desire to consume aparticular food (or type of food)that is difficult to resist.

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Cravings arent merely aboutyour behavior related to the foodin questiontheyre about youremotional motivation and theconditioning (habit) that is cre-ated with repeated satisfaction.You dont even have to be hungryto experience cravingsin fact,theyre more closely related tomoods like anger, sadness, orfrustration than to hunger. In ad-dition, your capacity to visualizethe food and imagine its taste arestrongly correlated with cravingstrengthso the more you fantas-ize about indulging, the less likelyyou are to resist.

Specific food cravings can turn into pooreating habits in just a few days, leaving usstuck in a cycle of relentless urges, short-term satisfaction, and long-term guilt,

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shame, anxiety, and weight gain. To effect-ively change our relationship with food (andmaintain new, healthy habits forever), weneed to understand what is behind our crav-ings, habits, and patterns.

It all starts with biology and nature.

ANCIENT SIGNALS IN AMODERN WORLD

If we were hunting and foraging our foodin nature, our bodies would need some wayto signal to us that wed found somethinguseful. For example, bitter tastes signify tox-ic foods while sweet tastes signify a saferchoice. Thanks to nature and our biology,our brains have been hardwired to appreci-ate three basic tastes: sweet (a safe source ofenergy), fatty (a dense source of calories),and salty (a means of conserving fluid).When we came across these flavors, neuro-transmitters in our brain would help us

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remember that these foods were goodchoices by sending us signals of pleasure andreward, reinforcing the experience in ourmemories. These important signals fromnature helped us select the foods best suitedto our health.

But there is one very important point tokeep in mind with respect to these signalsfrom nature. They werent designed to tell uswhich foods were deliciousthey were de-signed to tell us which foods were nutritious.In nature, pleasure and reward signals

led us to vital nutrition.

The trouble is that in todays world, theancient signals persist but the foods thatrelay them are anything but good sources ofnutrition. And that creates a major disrup-tion in our bodies and in our brains.

Over the last fifty years, the makeup ofour foods has dramatically changed. Our

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grocery stores and health food markets arepacked with shelves of processed, refinedfood-like productswhich no longer lookanything like the plant or animal from whichthey were derived.

Food scientists caught on to the fact thatour brains respond strongly to specific fla-vors (such as the aforementioned sweet,fatty, and salty), and armed with this know-ledge, they began to modify our whole foods.They sucked out the water, the fiber, and thenutrients, and replaced them with ingredi-ents like corn syrup, MSG, seed oils, and ar-tificial sweeteners, colors, and flavors. All ofthis with the specific intention of inducingcravings, overconsumption and biggerprofits for food manufacturers.

Theyve turned real food into Franken-food.

These foods light up pleasure and rewardcenters in the brain for a different reasonthan nature intendednot because they

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provide vital nutrition, but because they arescientifically designed to stimulate our tastebuds. The effect is a total disconnectionbetween pleasurable, rewarding tastes(sweet, fatty, and salty) and the nutritionthat always accompanies them in nature.

In nature, sweet tastes usually came fromseasonal raw fruit, rich in vitamins, miner-als, and phytonutrients. Today, sweet flavorscome from artificial sweeteners, refined sug-ars, and high fructose corn syrup. In nature,fatty tastes usually came from meats,especially nutrient-packed organ meats. Inmodern times, fats come from a deep-fryeror a tub of spread. In nature, precious elec-trolytes like sodium came from sea life, orfrom the animals we ate. In modern times,salt comes from a shaker.

Do you see the problem with this?Modern technology has stripped the nu-

trition from these foods, replacing it withempty calories and synthetic chemicals that

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fool our bodies into giving us the samepowerful biological signals to keep eating.

This means we are eating more calorieswith less nutrition.Persistent biological signals lead us toovereat sweet, fatty, salty foods while

keeping us malnourished.

These Franken-foods are ridiculouslycheap to produce.

They unnaturally electrify our taste buds.They contain little, if any, nutrition.And they mess with our brains in a major

way.

VIVA LAS VEGAS

Supernormal stimulus is thescience-y term for something soexaggerated that we prefer it to

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realityeven when we know itsfake. A supernormal food stimu-lus arouses our taste receptorsmore intensely than anythingfound in nature. Candy is farsweeter than fruit. Onion ringsare fattier and saltier thanonions. Sweet-and-sour pork issweeter, fattier, and saltier thanactual pork. And Franken-foodslike Twinkies and Oreos outcom-pete any taste found in nature,which is, of course, exactly whywe prefer them. These supernor-mal stimuli are like the Las VegasStrip of foods. Dazzling! Exotic!Extreme! But entirely contrived.Not at all realistic. Totally over-whelming. (And if you take agood, hard look in the light ofdayi.e., read your ingredi-entsyoull see that theyre

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actually cheap, dirty, and kind ofgross.) But the over-the-top fla-vors found in these foods (andthe extra-strong connections theyforge in your brain) make it hardto stop eating themand makenatural, whole foods look blandand boring by comparison.

You may be thinking, If these foods tasteso good that I cant stop eating them, maybeI should just stop eating foods that tastegood. But that just sounds miserable tousand flavor restriction would probably bejust as unsuccessful long-term as caloric re-striction! Thankfully, this strategy is whollyunnecessary. The problem isnt that thesefoods are delicious.

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The problem is that these foods aresupernormally stimulating in theabsence of nutrition and satiety.

They are the essence of empty calor-iesfoods with no brakes.

PRIME RIB AND OREOS

The idea of food brakes can be explainedby satiety and satiation. They sound thesame, but biologically speaking they are twoseparate and distinct concepts.

Satiety occurs in your digestivetractspecifically, in your intestines. Whenyouve digested and absorbed enough calor-ies and nutrients to satisfy your bodysneeds, hormones signal to your brain that Iam well nourished now, which decreasesyour desire for more food. Satiety cant befooled or faked, as it is dependent on the ac-tual nutrition in your food. But since

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digestion is slow, these signals may take sev-eral hours to be transmitted, which meansthey cant do a very good job all by them-selves to keep you from overeating.

Thats where satiation comes in.Satiation is regulated in the brain and

provides more timely motivation to stop eat-ing. Its based on the taste, smell, and textureof food, the perception of fullness, evenyour knowledge of how many calories are ina meal. As you eat, you perceive various sen-sations (This is delicious, I shouldnt eatthe whole bag or Im getting pretty full),all of which send your brain status updatesto help you determine whether you still wantmore. But unlike satiety, satiation is an es-timate dependent on your perceptions, notan absolute measurement.

Ideally, the brain would signal us to stopeating when our bodies have sensed thatweve digested and absorbed enough nutri-tion to support our health. In this case,

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satiation and satiety would be one and thesame. Lets use the example of a prime ribdinner.

Prime rib contains complete protein, themost satiating of all the macronutrients, andnaturally occurring fat, which makes proteineven more satiating. As you eat your primerib, youll find yourself wanting prime ribless and less with every bite. The first bitewas amazing, the second fantastic, but byyour tenth bite, the texture, smell, and flavorare less appealing. And by the twentieth bite,youve had enough, and you no longer desirethe flavor or texture of the meatso downgoes your fork.

This is satiation.Prime rib also takes longer to eat than

processed food (as you actually have to chewand swallow), which gives your brain achance to catch up with your stomach. Asyou eat and start to digest the meat, yourbody recognizes that the dense nutrition in

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that prime rib is adequate for your energyand caloric needs. This sends a were gettingnourishment signal to your brain whileyoure still working on your plate, which alsoreduces your want for more food.

This is satiety.This scenario plays out differently for

foods lacking the satiation factors of ad-equate nutritioncomplete protein, naturalfats and essential nutrients. Lets compareprime rib to a tray of Oreos.

Oreos are a highly processed food con-taining almost no protein, saturated withsugar and flavor-enhancing chemicals, andfilled with added fats. As we eat the Oreos(generally at a much faster rate than primerib), they move through us quickly and dontprovide enough nutrition to induce satiationor satiety. So unlike the prime rib, there areno brakes to decrease our want. We wantthe tenth Oreo just as much as the first. Andwe never stop wanting more because even

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though weve eaten plenty of calories, ourbodies know that we are still seriously lack-ing in nutrition. So we eat the whole darnpackage because satiety cant be fooled.

In the case of Oreos, the only reason tostop eating is when our bellies are physicallyfull, and we realize were about to makeourselves sick from overconsumption.

Those arent brakes at allthats justan emergency ejection seat.

LET US SUMMARIZE

These scientifically designedfoods artificially concentratehighly palatable flavors (sweet,fatty, and salty) that stimulateour pleasure centers with a farbigger hit than we could everget from nature. This processingremoves any nutrition once found

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in the food but still leaves all thecalories. The final concoction (wecant really call it food at thispoint) offers a staggering varietyof over-the-top flavor sensationsin every single bitebut yourbody knows there is no nutritionthere, so you continue to wantmore food, even past the point offullness.

If we stopped right here, wed have madeour point. Clearly, these foods violate ourfirst Good Food standard by provoking anunhealthy psychological responseheck,they were designed to do just that!

Unfortunately, theres more.Chronic consumption of these foods

doesnt just affect our taste buds, our percep-tions, and our waistlines.

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Over time, they literally rewire ourbrains.

PLEASURE, REWARD,EMOTION, AND HABIT

Pleasure, reward, and emotion are all in-terconnected in our brains. Reward circuitryis integrated with parts of the brain that en-rich a pleasurable experience with emotion,making it more powerful, and easier to re-member. The combination of pleasure, re-ward, and emotion pushes you toward re-warding stimuliincluding food.

The foods in questionsupernormallystimulating without adequate nutrition to in-voke satiation or satietytell the brain to re-lease dopamine, the neurotransmitter associ-ated with the pleasure center. Dopamine mo-tivates your behavior, reinforces food-seek-ing (wanting) and energizes your feeding.It gives you that rush of anticipation before

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youve even taken your first bite. (Youredaydreaming at work and start thinkingabout your favorite cookie from the down-town bakery. Youre visualizing the taste, thesmell, the texture. You start to get excitedand happy at the thought of picking up cook-ies on the way home. You want those cook-ies. Thats dopamine talking.)

On the way home, you stop at the bakery,pick up a dozen cookies, and take your firstbite before youve even pulled out of theparking lot. (Of course, because that cookieis supernormally stimulating, but lacking innutrients that satiate, you dont stop at justone.) Immediately, the brain releases opioids(endorphinsthe bodys own feel goodcompounds), which also have a rewarding ef-fect. The release of opioids brings pleasureand emotional relief, releases stress, andgenerally makes you feel good.

Over time and with continued reinforce-ment, those dopamine pathways begin to

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light up at the mere suggestion of the food,like when youre driving past that bakery, seesomeone else eating a similar-looking cookie,or watch a commercial for cookies on televi-sion. This preemptive dopamine response(and the memory of the reward youll experi-ence when you indulge) makes it all but im-possible to resist the urge to satisfy that crav-ing. Your want has turned into a need.

The kicker?You dont even have to be hungrybe-

cause its not about satisfying your hunger.Its about satisfying the craving.

After just a few trips to the bakery, yourmemory circuits tell your reward circuitsthat the cookie will bring you joy. Dopaminepromises satisfaction, if you only give in toyour urge. You cant resist, so you eat thecookie(s) and your endorphins help you feelgood (for a while). And so the vicious cycleserves only to reinforce itself until you havedeveloped a habitual responsethe

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automatic craving for a specific food in re-sponse to certain triggers.

Automatic cravings do not sound psycho-logically healthy to us.

THE STRESS EFFECTStress is another factor that promotes the

reinforcement of these unhealthy patterns.We dont need a scientific study to tell usthat many people eat when theyre stressedto distract themselves from the situation andhelp themselves relax. The trouble is, chronicstress (whether it stems from anxiety orworry, lack of sleep, over-exercise, or poornutritional habits) is driving usvia our bio-logyto overeat.

Stress affects the activation of rewardpathways and impairs your attempts to con-trol your eating habits. Did you catch that?

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Stress makes it even harder for us toresist our cravings.

When you are under stress, the urge topleasure eat (eating for reward) isstrongand you are far more likely to over-eat. Stress also causes you to change the typeof foods you eat, moving away from healthierchoices towardyou guessed ithighly pal-atable foods that are sweet, salty, and high infat. (Who craves grilled chicken and steamedbroccoli when theyre stressed?) And whenyou finally, inevitably, indulge, one thing istrue:Eating sugary, salty, fatty foods makes

you feel less stressed.

This works via the same old mechanismweve been talking aboutdopamine andopioid pathways in the brain. We experiencestress, we eat the cookies, and we really dofeel better.

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This creates two problems, however. Thefirst is that, during stress, these strongopioid and dopamine responses in the re-ward center of your brain promote the en-coding of habits. Future stress triggers you toremember the relief you experienced the lasttime you ate those cookies. Memories ofthese responses are stored in your brain andyou quickly establish a learned behaviorawant for more cookies. Which means thatthe next time youre stressed, youll findyourself automatically reaching for thecookies.

CRANKY COOKIE

Stress eating can promote habit-driven overeating even in the ab-sence of active stress. So as a res-ult of the stress-related habitsyouve created, you may findyourself reaching for the cookies

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when youre feeling tired, cranky,or just kind of down. (Remember,cravings are strongly tied to emo-tion.) Over time, as your braincontinues to create new linksbetween cookie and feelingbetter, the associationand yourwanting for moreonly continuesto grow stronger.

The last nail in your stress-cookie coffin:The stressed brain expresses both a strongdrive to eat and an impaired capacity to in-hibit eating. You may not even want to eatthe cookie, but because your ability to not eatit is impaired, you sort of have to. You tellyourself youll have only one, but understress, youll probably end up eating thewhole bagwhich, in turn, makes you prettystressed-out.

Its a vicious cycleand you probablydidnt even realize you were stuck in it.

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Until now.Of course, we cant always eliminate

stress in our livesthat half of the equationmay, unfortunately, be here to stay. Our onlyrecourse is to concentrate on the other halfby eliminating the foods that play into thisunhealthy stress response.

Not coincidentally, theyre the samehighly processed, supernormally stimulating,non-nutritive foods that have been causingus trouble all along.

Its all the same story.

GET ME OUT OF HEREBy now you probably agree that the food

you eat shouldnt mess with your head. Youmay even be a little bit mad at the way someof the things youve been eating have manip-ulated you into cravings and overconsump-tion. And we bet if we said, Lets kick all ofthese sneaky, tricky foods off our plates

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forever and eat only naturally delicious,nutritious, satiety-inducing foods, youdprobably throw up your hands and say,Hurrah! Theoretically, that is. Theres justone small problem with this plan.These unhealthy foods are really hard

to give up.

First, its difficult to radically change yourdiet when you have so many powerful emo-tional associations with the foods youre eat-ingespecially if youre eating as a copingmechanism, instead of from hunger.

Second, these foods are designed to behard to give up. Through the misuse of biolo-gical and natural cues, our modern techno-logy has made these foods supernormallystimulating, rewiring the reward, emotion,and pleasure pathways in our brains to cre-ate an artificial demand for more. And whenwe tell you which foods are the worst

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offenders, which ones youll be kicking to thecurb, thats when the real trouble will start.

You may panic.You may think, No way can I do this.You may say to yourself, I cannot live

without [fill in food].We assure you, you can. And you will.

Well walk you through it. And when youredone, three things will happen.

First, you will once again be able to ap-preciate the natural, delicious flavors (in-cluding sweet, fatty, and salty) found inwhole foods.

Second, the pleasure and reward you ex-perience when eating that delicious food willonce again be closely tied with good nutri-tion, satiation, and satietyyoull be able tostop eating because youre satisfied, not justbecause youre full.

Third, you will never again be controlledby your food.

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Freedom.

THE SCIENCE-YSUMMARY

The food choices you make shouldpromote a healthy psychologicalresponse.

Sweet, fatty, and salty tastes sendpleasure and reward signals to thebrain. In nature, these signals weredesigned to lead us to valuable nutri-tion and survival.

Today, these flavor sensations areunnaturally concentrated in food,which is simultaneously stripped ofvaluable nutrition.

This creates food-with-no-brakessupernormally stimulating,carbohydrate-dense, nutrient-poorfoods with all the pleasure and

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reward signals to keep us overeating,but none of the satiety signals to tellus to stop.

These foods rewire pleasure, reward,and emotion pathways in the brain,promoting hard-to-resist cravingsand automatic consumption. Stressand inadequate sleep only reinforcethese patterns.

Reconnecting delicious, rewardingfood with the nutrition and satietythat nature intended is the key tochanging these habits.

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CHAPTER 5:HEALTHY

HORMONES,HEALTHY YOU

Just finished my Whole30, and my (dia-gnosed type 2 diabetic) blood sugar levelsare now normalcompletely normal. I havecut my diabetes medications in half, and myblood pressure is in the normal range too.All of my pain, stiffness, soreness, and puffi-ness is gone and I lost twenty-five pounds.The Whole30 has changed my life.

Alan H., East Bremerton, Washington

Our second Good Food standard statesthat the food you eat should produce a

healthy hormonal response in the body. Thisis probably the most science-y section of thewhole book, but as promised, well use a lotof analogies and examples to make the sci-ence easy to understand. Were also going tosimplify things quite a bit, because you dontneed to understand how everything works toknow how to apply it.

Lets start with some basics.

HORMONESHormones are chemical messengers that

are usually transported in your bloodstream.They are secreted by cells in one part of thebody and bind to receptors in another part ofthe body. (Think of a courier carrying a mes-sage from one person to another.) Hormoneshave many roles, but one essential functionis to keep things in balance.

Essentially all biological processes haveregulatory mechanisms designed to keep

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systems operating within safe, healthy para-meters and maintain homeostasis (equilibri-um) in the body. Think of the thermostat inyour house. The furnace kicks on to keep thetemperature above the lowest point set, butas the temperature rises to the top end of therange, the thermostat turns on your fan orair conditioner. Much as your thermostatkeeps your house within a healthy temper-ature range, hormones work in delicate, in-tertwined ways to maintain homeostasis inyour body.

Hormones also respond to any externalfactor that tips the scales out of balance. Togo back to our thermostat analogy, opening awindow in wintertime will push the temper-ature in your home off balance. The act ofopening a window sends a message (Its get-ting cold in here!) to your thermostat, whichreacts to that stimulus with an internal cor-rection (firing up your furnace). When the

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temperature reaches the normal range again,your furnace then turns off.

When you eat and digest food, variousbiochemical components of the food triggermultiple hormonal responses in the body.These hormonal responses control the use,storage, and availability of nutrientswherethey go and what happens when they getthere. Different nutrients cause differenthormonal responses, but all of those re-sponses are intended to correct the shift inbalance caused by the influx of digested foodparticles.

ONE BIG TEAMWhile there are a lot of hormonal players,

for the sake of simplicity, were going to talkabout only four in detail:

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Insulin, leptin, glucagon, and cortisol.

These four hormones (along with manyothers) form a complex, elegantbut not in-destructibleweb of feedback loops that in-fluence all body systems. They all interactwith one anothers functions, behaving like ateam in the body. These hormones areneither bad nor good in the rightamounts. Things get ugly, however, whenyouve got too much or not enough of anygiven hormone.

Lets start with both insulin and leptin, asits hard to separate these two.

INSULINSummary: An anabolic (building, stor-

ing) hormone secreted by the beta cells ofthe pancreas in response to ingestion of en-ergy, most notably from carbohydrate. In-sulin facilitates the moving of

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macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbo-hydrate) from the bloodstream into cells forimmediate or future use, and coordinatesthe metabolic shift from predominantlyburning one fuel source (carbohydrate) tothe other (fat). Chronically elevated insulinlevels are correlated with leptin resistanceand indirectly related to elevated cortisollevels.

Insulin is about as close to a master hor-mone as you can get. It acts on virtually allcells in the body and directly controls or in-fluences energy storage, cell growth and re-pair, reproductive function, and, most im-portant, blood sugar levels.

Insulin unlocks a one-way door intocells so they can store or use nutrients. In-sulin effectively stores all macronutri-entsprotein, fat and carbohydratesbut itssecretion is most closely tied with carbo-hydrate ingestion.*

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When we eat carbohydrate, it is brokendown in our bodies into simple sugars andthen absorbed into the bloodstream. Thisleads to a rise in the amount of circulatingblood sugar (glucose).

To be optimally healthy, our blood gluc-ose levels must be kept within a normalrangenot too low, not too high. Remember,just as in the thermostat analogy, normal ispretty much synonymous with healthy. Inthe case of regulating blood sugar, your pan-creas is the primary thermostat, and insulinis like your air conditioner, keeping bloodsugar levels from remaining too high.

A rise in blood sugar is sensed by betacells in the pancreas, which then secrete in-sulin into the bloodstream. Insulin signalscells in the body to pull glucose out of thebloodstream and move it into storage, bring-ing blood sugar levels back to a normal,healthy range. Elevated insulin levels alsohave a satiety function, reducing hunger.

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INSULIN SENSITIVITY

The scenario we just described iscalled insulin sensitivity. If youhave a healthy metabolism, whenyou eat a healthy meal, yourblood sugar levels rise moder-atelynot too much, and not toofast. When blood sugar increases,the pancreas dispatches justenough insulin to communicateto the cells exactly how muchblood sugar needs to be stored.Insulins message is, Store thesenutrients. The cells, which aresensitive to the insulin message,hear the request and respond ap-propriately by pulling blood sug-ar out of the bloodstream andstoring it, thereby returningblood glucose levels to normal.*Insulin sensitivity is indicative of

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a nice, normal, healthy relation-ship between the pancreas andmost tissues in the body.

Insulins management of blood sugarserves a very important function, as chronic-ally elevated blood glucose levels are highlydamaging to many body systems, includingthe liver, pancreas, kidneys, blood vessels,brain and peripheral nerves. Got that?Chronically high levels of blood sugar

(hyperglycemia) are harmful, somanaging blood sugar is critical for

long-term health.

Once cells have taken glucose out of thebloodstream, that glucose can either be usedfor energy or stored for future use. Theprimary place to store glucose is in the liverand muscles, as a complex carbohydratecalled glycogen. If stored in the liver,

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glycogen can easily be converted back intoglucose and released back into the blood-stream when energy is needed. However, gly-cogen stored in muscle cells cant be emptiedback into the bloodstreamit stays there, toprovide fuel for your muscles. (Which isgood, because your muscles can do a lot ofhard work!)

GLYCOGEN STORES

Your bodys storage tanks for car-bohydrates (the liver andmuscles) are kind of like the gastank in your car. When your gastank is full, its full. It cant getany bigger, and you cant make itany fuller. Your bodys carbo-hydrate fuel tank, however, isntvery bigyou can store onlyenough glycogen to maintainhard, continuous activity for

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about 90 minutes. And becausecarbohydrate is fuel for intenseactivity, you dont tap into yourglycogen stores in any meaning-ful way while youre sitting atyour desk at work, watching tele-vision, or puttering around thehouse. In other words, its reallyeasy to fill your tank up with car-bohydratesbut if youre not do-ing lots of high-intensity activity,youre not really using much fuel!

Your hormonal troubles start withovercarbsumption: the chronic

overconsumption of supernormallystimulating, nutrient-poor,

carbohydrate-rich foods.

To begin with, a constant excess supply ofcarbohydrates will tilt your metabolic pref-erence toward burning whats most

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plentifulsugarwhen fuel is needed. Ifthere is an overabundance of sugar, the sug-ar takes precedence over fat as a source ofenergy in many metabolic processes, andstored fat doesnt get burned for energy.

If less fat is being burned for fuel, then itaccumulates, and body fat levels tend toincrease.

In addition, all that excess glucose posesa storage problem in the body. If theresspace available in the liver and muscle cells,theyll happily uptake glucose. However, ifthose cells are already full of glycogen, theywill politely decline any additional nutrition(essentially putting up a No Vacancy sign).When there is no room in the liver andmuscle cells, the body shifts fuel storage toPlan B.

You will not like Plan B.When the liver and muscle glycogen

stores are full, the liver (and your fat cells)

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converts the extra glucose into a type of sat-urated fat called palmitic acid, which canthen bind together in groups of three (withglycerol) to form triglycerides.

These two processes combinedthe pref-erential burning of carbohydrate over fat forfuel and the creation of triglycerideslead toincreased body fat and increased trigly-cerides and free fatty acids in the blood,neither of which is desirable or healthy. Andthis pileup of sugar and triglycerides in theblood pushes another hormone, leptin, out ofbalance.

LEPTINSummary: An energy balance hor-

mone that is secreted primarily by fat cellsand is released in proportion to the amountof fat stored. Leptin tells the brain howmuch body fat is stored and regulates bothenergy intake and energy expenditure to

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keep body fat levels in balance. Overcon-sumption of nutrient-poor, supernormallystimulating carbohydrates leads to chronic-ally elevated triglycerides and blood sugarlevels, which promotes leptin resistance andan increase in fat storage, accompanied bygreater insulin resistance.

Leptin is sometimes referred to as a sati-ety hormone, because higher leptin levelshelp to keep us full and satisfied. Leptinlevels follow a normal daily cycle tiedprimarily to your eating schedule. Since youdont eat while youre asleep, leptin is prettylow first thing in the morning. This triggersthe secretion of appetite-stimulating hor-mones and is one of the reasons we wake uphungry. When youre done eating for the day(typically after dinner), leptin levels arehigher, helping you stay full and satisfied un-til bedtime.

However, leptins primary job is to regu-late your big-picture hunger and activity

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levels to help keep your body in energy bal-ancenot too fat, not too lean. Body fat isnot a bad thingits what allows us to sur-vive long periods of food shortage (or to noteat for a few days when we have the flu). Butour bodies are pessimists. Our DNA alwaysexpects, despite the surplus of readily avail-able energy right now, that food will run outsoon, and so the only way to survive thiscoming famine is to store some energy as fat.Its as natural as breathing.

24-7-365

For those of us in the developedworld, the idea of a food short-age sounds silly. Maybe yourethinking, Why hasnt my braincaught on to the fact that food iseverywhere these days? The factis, for thousands of years, weworked hard for the food we

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ateand there were no guaran-tees that our food supply could betaken for granted. Were back toancient signals in a modernworld, where the brain continuesto send biologically appropriatemessages to ensure your survival,despite the fact that you are nowliving in a wholly unnatural foodlandscape.

As fat is a storage depot for energy, it isimportant for your body to have a way tomeasure how much energy (fat) is availableat any given moment. Fat cells do this by se-creting leptin, as a way to communicate toyour brain whether you are too fat, too lean,or just right. Based on leptins critically im-portant message, your brain constantly givesyou subconscious directions, which driveyour food-seeking behavior and physicalactivity levels.

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If you have very little body fatperhapstoo little to survive a potential food short-ageleptin levels are low. The relative ab-sence of leptins message tells the brain, Idont have enough body fat! Your brain thentells you to eat more and move less, whichserves to change your behavior until yourbody fat is within a safer range. You becomehungrier (and probably eat more), yourmetabolism slows down (thanks in part tochanges in your thyroid hormone levels) andyou start to gain body fat.

As body fat continues to accumulate,leptin levels rise, and your fat cells start tosend more messages to your brainOK,weve got enough energy stored now! If thatmessage is properly received (i.e., you aresensitive to the leptin message), your brainthen tells you to increase your activity andmakes you less hungry, so you move a littlemore and eat a little less, and dont gain toomuch weight.

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Although its much more complicatedthan this simple summary, this energy-bal-ance system is naturally designed to keepyour body fat levels just right. The troublestarts, though, when the foods youre eatingpromote an unhealthy psychological re-sponse, leading to chronicovercarbsumption.

Shall we recap?When you chronically overconsume food-

with-no-brakes, it floods your system withglucose. With sugar in such large supply, it isburned first for energywhich means fattakes a metabolic back seat and accumulates.This leads to a buildup of triglycerides in theliver, and increased glucose and triglyceridelevels in the bloodstream. But how does thislead to problems with leptin?

The excess glucose and triglycerides inthe bloodstream make their way to parts ofyour brain and start impairing your brains

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ability to hear the leptin message. Thisleads to a condition called leptin resistance.

THE SKINNY-FAT

If youre overweight, its verylikely that youre leptin resist-antbut you dont have to appearoverweight to fall into this camp.Accumulation of visceral fat (fatstored in and around your or-gans) is enough to promote hor-monal dysfunction, includingleptin resistance. We call thesefolks skinny fat: not visiblyoverweight, they still have an un-healthy amount of body fat, com-paratively little muscle mass, anda serious degree of hormonal dys-function, including out-of-whackthyroid and reproductivehormones.

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Leptin resistance is like a hormonal con-versation gone haywire. Normally, whenyouve accumulated adequate body fat, yourfat cells send a message (via leptin) to yourbrain that says, Hey, weve got enough en-ergy stored, so you should eat less and movemore. But when receptors in the brain andother tissues become less sensitive to leptin,those messages dont get through. Your braindoesnt hear leptin say that youve gotenough body fat stored.

Which means your brain thinks youretoo skinny.

Imagine that your brain is blind, unableto see your chubby reflection in the mirror orthe creeping number on the scale. It needsleptin to give it the facts it cant see. So untilthe brain hears leptin say, OK, were fatenough, the brain is going to keep tellingyou to eat more and move less, to ensureyour survival.

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Remember, its pessimistic. And withoutthat leptin message, your subconscious brainwill continue to direct your behaviors as ifyou were too leandespite the fact that youknow youre gaining too much weight.

NIGHT MUNCHIES

Leptins message (or lack thereof)is stronger than your willpower.You may see that youve gainedsome weight, and try to eat less but the brains directives are farmore powerful. In fact, a hall-mark of leptin resistance is un-controllable cravings after din-neryou try to eat healthy allday, but come 8 p.m., your pantryor freezer is impossible to resist.This isnt a lack of willpower onyour partits your brain re-sponding to leptins primal

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signals, and constantly under-mining your conscious decisions.

Leptin resistance means that you aregaining fat and swimming in leptinbutyour brain is clueless, so it turns your meta-bolism down to conserve fuel, and tells youto eat more. And isnt this all too easy to dowhen supernormally stimulating, nutrient-poor, carbohydrate-rich foods are whisper-ing in your ear? Of course, overcarbsumptiononly promotes more sugar-burning for fuel,additional accumulation of body fat (and theconversion of excess carbohydrates to fat),and even-higher triglyceride levels in theblood.

Which makes your leptin resistanceworse.

And takes us back to insulin.

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BACK TO THE STARTRemember insulin sensitivity? This is

when insulins message to store nutrientsis heard clearly by the cells, which removeglucose from the bloodstream and store it,keeping blood glucose levels from getting (orstaying) high.

In contrast to insulin sensitivity, there isalso a condition called insulin resistance.And

Leptin resistance leads to insulinresistance.

Lets recap: You chronically overcon-sume, because supernormally stimulating,nutrient-poor food has no brakes. Thismakes you leptin resistant, which meansyour brain thinks you are too lean (even ifthe mirror tells you otherwise). This leadsyour brain to tell you to eat more and moveless, which promotes further

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overconsumption. You are now metabolicallyreliant on sugar for energy, you continue toaccumulate fat in the body and the liver, andhave excess glucose and triglycerides in yourbloodstream.

All of that excess glucose needs to bestored. The trouble is, jamming lots of en-ergy into a cell causes damage. So to protectthemselves from being overfilled, the cellsbecome insulin resistant. Once this occurs,the cells lose their sensitivity to insulinsmessage to store nutrients: the pancreassends a message (via insulin) to store, butthe cells dont listen, and blood sugar levelsremain high.

Since high levels of blood sugar are veryunhealthy, the body really needs the cells tostore that energyso it responds with aneven stronger message. Insulin resistance re-quires that the pancreas produce even moreinsulin, until the message is strong enoughto force nutrients into the already-full cells.

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However, this force-feeding creates oxidat-ive stress and elevated fat levels in the blood,which further damages the cells. The dam-aged cells continue to try to protect them-selves, further increasing insulin resistance and the cycle continues.

SYSTEMICINFLAMMATION

These cells, overfilled and run-ning mostly on sugar, producereactive oxygen species (whichyou probably know as free radic-als), which cause cellular dam-age. The response to this damageis a cascade of immune re-sponses, including the release ofinflammatory chemicals, as wellas immune cells that show up asfirst responders to help repairthe damaged tissue. This immune

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response is termed systemic in-flammation (well get to thissoon), and further increases in-sulin resistance.

At this point, you have excess glucose in asystem that is insulin resistant. Blood sugarremains high because the cells are stuffedand resisting insulins message to store. Thiscreates ongoing hyperglycemiachronicallyelevated levels of blood sugar. Which, as yourecall, is very damagingspecifically to pan-creatic beta cells, where insulin is produced.

Chronic hyperglycemia first causes betacell adaptation, to allow the pancreas to pro-duce progressively more insulin to managethe excess blood sugar. The pancreas cantadapt forever, however. Eventually, damagedby ongoing hyperglycemia, pancreatic betacells start to disintegrate. Yes, they actuallydie from toxic levels of blood sugar and theresulting oxidative stress.

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At this point, you lose the ability to pro-duce enough insulin to manage blood sug-arwhich is how toxic levels of blood sugarand insulin resistance can lead to type 2diabetes.

However, there are consequences to yourhealth long before you get to diabetes.Hyperglycemia (chronically high levels ofblood sugar) is damaging, but hyperinsu-linemia (chronically high levels of insulin) isprofoundly damaging, and a clear risk factorfor major lifestyle-related diseases and con-ditions, like diabetes, obesity, heart attack,stroke, and Alzheimers disease.

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Chronically high levels of insulin areharmful, so

managing insulin levels is critical forlong-term health.

MUST. EAT. SUGAR.

When you are insulin resistant(and, thanks to leptin resistance,you continue to overcarbsume),the pancreas needs to secreteever-increasing amounts of in-sulin to pull glucose out of thebloodstream. Since your bloodsugar regulation mechanism nolonger works properly, all that in-sulin can pull blood sugar levelstoo far in the other direc-tionwhat was too high is nowtoo low (a condition often re-ferred to as reactive hypogly-cemia). Too low comes with its

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own set of side effectscranky,tired, foggy, and, thanks to con-stant appetite dysregulation,hungry. To you, this translatesas, Must. Eat. Sugar. Your bodydoesnt actually need calories, butthanks to the messed-up mes-sages your body is send-ingyoure too lean, your bloodsugar is too lowyou give in tothe same foods (supernormallystimulating and nutrient-poor)that got you into trouble in thefirst place. Its a viciouscycleand it could be worse. Ifyou dont change your eatinghabits pronto, insulin resistancevery well could progress to type 2diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes occurs when (because ofthe severity of insulin resistance and beta

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cell death) your body can no longer produceenough insulin to keep your blood sugarwithin healthy parameters.

This is very, very badespecially if yourdiet still doesnt change.

Diabetes comes with its own list of sideeffects and related conditions: obesity, glauc-oma and cataracts, hearing loss, impairedperipheral circulation, nerve damage, skininfections, high blood pressure, heart dis-ease, and depression. Tens of thousands ofpeople die of complications from diabetesevery year.

Nobody wants diabetes. In fact, nobodywants any of thisthe primary reliance onsugar for energy, the ongoing accumulationof body fat, ineffective hormonal messages,energy peaks and crashes, relentless hunger,long-term health consequences. This iswhy a healthy hormonal response is one ofour four Good Food standards, and why we

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advocate for eliminating foods that promotean unhealthy metabolism.

But theres more to the story.And we assure you, there is good news.First, lets discuss glucagon.

GLUCAGONSummary: A catabolic (energy access)

hormone secreted from the alpha cells of thepancreas in response to the demand for en-ergy, either as a result of activity or afterseveral hours without eating (fasting).Glucagon unlocks the one-way door out ofstorage cells (like liver and fat cells), and al-lows you to access the energy youve previ-ously stored. Chronic stress, protein intakeand low blood sugar levels stimulate gluca-gon release. Glucagons function is inhibitedby elevated insulin and free fatty acids inthe blood.

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THE THREE GS

Were the scientists who namedthis stuff trying to confuse us?Lets recap our three Gs beforewe move on. Glucose is one formof sugar found in food and is alsothe type of sugar circulating inthe bloods