Whole30 aftermath

Many of you have probably heard about this "diet" called Whole30 or the book called It Starts With Food. I have been hearing about it pretty steadily for about a year now, and looked at some of my favorite bloggers and IG users end with amazing results. I sort of filed that away into the "that's great for them but I could never give up sugar or bread for 30 days, that's just crazy talk" section of my brain and went about my life. My sister texted me when she was about a week into her whole30 journey and was raving about how great she felt and I was sort of filled with envy. I wanted to feel good. I wanted to look good. I no longer identified with myself when I looked in the mirror, I felt like my soul was trapped in someone else's meat suit, and that feeling can really start to mess with your already fragile mental health. Im not going to lie, week one really sucked. My heart and my stomach kept telling me to eat potato chips and candy but luckily my brain was (barely) able to overrule those two trouble makers. Week two was a little bit better I was starting to feel weirdly happy and the potato chip voice was starting to speak much softer. Week three was like supernaturally amazing, for the first time probably in my whole life I wanted to workout. Week four was mentally the best week of my life. I felt full, I felt rested, energetic, and I seriously felt like I could do anything in the entire world. Oh and the moment everybody is waiting for...........I lost 20 pounds! I was so stoked and vowed that I was going to eat a mostly compliant diet for the rest of my life, but to reward myself I ate some pancakes, then wine, then pizza, then chili cheese fries, then taco bell (FYI this wasn't all in the same day this was over the course of a week after completing whole30, before ya'll go thinking I'm some sort of glutton.) Mentally I feel gross because the chemicals in the foods I reintroduced have messed up my hormones causing me to have major anxiety and triggering really painful hormonal breakouts on my chin (which had completely cleared up by week 4) and pretty much all over my face. I have not been able to sleep well, my energy is gone, and I wake up feeling achy in my joints and muscles, and go through my entire day feeling foggy brained. I cannot take another day of this crappy feeling, so as of this minute I am putting myself back on whole30 for the foreseeable future, if I feel the need to get out of the guidelines it will have to be for something really darn special to make me mess up the good thing I had going on. I hope to be a little more consistent with posting about my future progress so that if there is anyone who happens across this little space who needs a little bit of inspiration to kick start their journey. I would love to be that inspiration.