Wow. Well, I have so many feelings about this whole experience. I’m not quite sure where to start.

It’s been a few days since the official end, so I feel I can really talk about it.

First off, I am really glad to be done with this. It was a long time, and felt very rigid.

However, I am really, really glad I did it. And even more glad that I did it for the full 60 days. It definitely taught me things about food, and my relationship to food, that I did not know. I also learned about my own self, and feel really proud that I managed to do this in full, not just without cheating, but without it even really crossing my mind.

We are planning to stick with this type of eating as a norm. Not necessarily because we reacted poorly to most of the food groups involved, but more because we feel so, so good eating this way. The amount of food we ate in re-introductions was not really enough to tell what makes you feel bad or not; but I have to assume that there’s something about the overall diet that feels amazing. I think it’s gonna take a bit more to understand what, exactly, causes problems; also, I feel like I may not react to eating a bagel with whole30 friendly tuna salad on it, but maybe I will react to a bagel with cream cheese and a sugary something…in other words mixing the groups may produce more of a reaction; or maybe it’s overdoing something that is the real problem. Oh, and for anyone who’s been actually following this journey and wants to know about the psoriasis and if this helped: it did not. But that became less and less the point of this the further along we got. And it was totally worth it anyway.

Anyway, there are things I hope to still find out. But at least now I am aware and able to see clearly and tell the difference between feeling great and feeling meh.

In the beginning I was even a little afraid to try things; it felt so weird to suddenly be eating these things I’ve been avoiding for 72 days. 72 DAYS!!!! And I was afraid that I would like, have a heart attack or something crazy adding them back in after all this time. And, I think I was kind of hoping I would just hate the taste of all things bad for me.

Well, that didn’t happen. It turns out I still love bagels, and chocolate, and ice cream. I haven’t tried pizza yet but I seriously can not wait. But, I AM waiting, cause I really don’t think I can eat too much crappy stuff all together. I just don’t want to wake up one day and realize I feel lethargic and lousy again.

So the challenge continues. I suppose it never ends, really. But this project, on the other hand, is a wrap.