One of my goals for this year was to complete a Whole30 challenge starting in January. You can read more about my journey and more about the Whole30 on the post, “Halfway through the Whole30.”

As I am still on my (seemingly long) health journey that began last March, I wanted to do something that I thought was pretty successful last year. In August, I completed my first Whole30 challenge and was quite pleased with the result.

In a nutshell, the plan goes like this: Weigh in once at the beginning and once at the end, eat only quality meats (preferably grass fed), veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds, and fats such as coconut oil, olive oil, and ghee. Excluded from the diet are grains, dairy, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, legumes, starches (except for sweet potatoes), and probably the biggest one to avoid, soy.

The purpose? Exclude potential inflammatory foods, then see how your body feels in turn. As I said, I’ve done this before. My end result was that most of the foods I took out don’t bother me much, except for grains. I know that I feel much better when I don’t eat them, so now mostly I avoid them as a rule.

This post is, in part, out of self obligation. I’ve talked this thing up quite a bit and it’s hard to avoid when it’s such a part of your every waking moment for 30 days. In a way, it was a success. In only 30 short days, I lost 8.9 lbs. I should be happy. That said, my Fitbit Aria scale says I lost muscle mass and I only lost 1.4 lbs. of fat. The strangest thing is that the scale says I’ve lost 7.3 lbs. of lean mass, which would also include muscle.

Hmm.

I’m not sure if that’s the truth. Perhaps it is and I can’t get around it. But my clothes fit a little different, my belt is a notch tighter, and even my wife said I look like I’ve lost weight. Losing weight is one thing, seven pounds of muscle? I’m just not so sure about that.

I’ll admit, I didn’t walk as much this month as I did in during my first Whole30 in August. (I’m a very consistent Fitbit One user.) And, I didn’t workout with weights that as much as I did previously. That said, I worked a lot harder to get more sleep than I usually ever do, which I consider a huge success.

So I have to ask myself, was it a success or not?

I think so. For one, depriving myself of sweets makes my cravings for sweet things plummet. Also, I feel fantastic. I save money because I don’t spent anything on snacks and other assorted crap throughout the week. I only had a few moments where I wanted a Diet Mountain Dew, or some peanut butter. But mostly, those cravings just vanished.

And, with a couple of minor exceptions (I’m going to add some dairy back in my diet), I’ve decided to keep going and stick mostly with this same plan. I don’t feel like giving up just quite yet. I’ll make some modifications to my workouts, I’ll focus more on getting plenty of sleep, and I’ll move on.

So, that’s my story. Speaking of stories, I’m interested in hearing of health and fitness success stories of real everyday people. I’ve been building a little website where I’d showcase this information, and I’m happy to announce it here. I’ve had this domain and idea for awhile, Shapeshiftr.com, and there’s a signup form if you want to know when it goes live.

And if you’ve got a story to share about health and fitness success, just tick the box on the signup form at Shapeshiftr.com.