The Whole30 DONE! (and the Garden of Eden)

It’s my 30th day of a 30 day eating plan! I am pretty thrilled with myself for making it for 30 days, because you might remember I wasn’t eating sugar, grains, or dairy. AT. ALL. Can you imagine? I sort of can’t either, and yet here it is, and I did not cheat one bit.

I think this is because first of all, it felt like a fast to me from the very beginning instead of a diet, and I know how to do fasts. It’s not deprivation if you’re choosing it for a higher purpose, and that’s exactly what this whole thing seemed like, once I got into it.

I’ve been pretty quiet about doing this whole thing, because in our society it seems a little nuts. And the first question I bet I would get is, “What did you EAT?” if dairy, grains, and sugar were out.

SO MANY THINGS. I ate some awesome stuff this month. I ate fresh strawberries, eggs, pumpkin, sunflower seeds, dates, sauteed spinach with hot sauce, a crazy African eggplant dish called zaalouk, cashews (I LOVE CASHEWS!), chicken sausage, grassfed burgers, bacon (no sugar added!), coconut cream in my coffee, and so many more yummy dishes.

Basically, I ate the things that were available in the garden of Eden for the very first people. I ate the God-chosen buffet that was set out for Eve and Adam, and like God said, it was REALLY, REALLY good.

I don’t believe so much in coincidences as I do in God using stuff for other stuff, and so when I began to study the Genesis 2 text this morning in preparation for my next sermon, it all clicked together. God gave them the trees! the fruits! the animals! the plants! And God told them that they could go “till” the garden. But “till” in Hebrew does not mean just pull weeds and stuff…it means something like servanthood, like worship, like taking good care. Like stewardship, even. God gave them good care of the earth and told them that it was all theirs, not for the taking or the abusing, but for the careful nurture…the worship, even…of this garden that would produce for them delicious food in due season.

I thought of this as I ate my “treat” for lunch….carrots with this sauce, which I swear is the best thing ever on ANYTHING. It sounds crazy as I type it. But it is true, and after this reset, I am more convinced that God created us to eat foods out of the garden, to eat foods from animals respectfully raised and cultivated, to enjoy these miracles and not try to craze our taste buds with food they’re not made to eat.

What HAPPENED this month?

My taste buds changed, so that I can taste the sweetness in crazy stuff like carrots and almonds.

My skin cleared up, even though it wasn’t terrible before.

I definitely lost weight, even though that’s almost beside the point.

I have more energy for sure, and I can finally run again.

Most of all, my way of thinking about food has finally changed from what I knew it SHOULD be to what it actually IS. And yet again it took a “fast” of sorts to finally bring about that conversion.

It’s amazing to me when I figure out that even in the Garden of Eden, God knew what God was doing, feeding the people real food that would sustain them for a lifetime.