Whole 30, Round 1: Pictures

Written May 5, 2011, at the conclusion of my first Whole30. Pictures are powerful, no?

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Here are pictures of my make-up-free face throughout the Whole30 experiment and beyond.

This is what I call an "I can't believe I'm actually sharing this" post, but if this helps anyone to decide to give the Whole30 challenge a whirl, then it's absolutely worth doing.

3/17, the day I started Whole30
It actually doesn't look too bad here.

3/24, one week in
It's worse! And I double-checked: these dates are correct.
So glad I didn't give up at this point.

4/1, two weeks in
This would be the point where I posted a message to Whole9's FB page and asked whether I should cut out more because it felt like I was making no progress at all.
And their reply was essentially, "Patience, Grasshoppah."

4/8, three weeks in
Some progress, but not great.

4/15, four weeks in
Awful giant cysts have stopped!

4/21, five weeks in, & ready to test.
Taken two days after adding daily soy intake.

4/25, six days after adding daily soy intake.
Cysts return with a vengeance.
Soy is now on the "Never worth eating" list.

5/1, 8 days after stopping daily soy intake.
No cysts! For my skin, this is essentially clear; these are just old blemishes still healing, nothing NEW showing up.
Time to test something else.

BUT WAIT! There's more!

Written January 7, 2012.

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I just learned that Whole9 has a list of testimonials detailing symptoms/conditions fixed by the Whole30 program, and they included a link to my pictorial acne post [re-posted above]!

So for those link-clickers who wander over to look at that post, I'm throwing in a recent picture to show how absolutely fantastic my skin looks now [continuing to eat almost 100% Paleo]:

Obviously I am wearing makeup, but there isn't a single blemish under there, I swear!

The Whole30 program really & truly did change my life. If you are debating giving it a whirl, for any reason whatsoever, I can't recommend it enough.

Stop flinching and just go for it.