Is It Worth It??

When we started Paleo I thought for sure that I would miss everything that was on the "no" list. Pasta is warm, comforting, it's hella easy to throw a meal together with it, and it's just absolutely delicious. Pizza is one of my favorite foods. Ice cream . . I can't even begin to describe my love for ice cream, really words can't do it justice. Unfortunately all these things make me feel like I have a bowling ball in my stomach after I eat them and they makes me look like I've got that same bowling ball still hanging out for the next two days AT LEAST!!! (Never mind all the damage they're doing that I can't see or feel to my intestinal lining and all the resulting inflammation that I can feel with a generalized achy feeling!)

Having these effects after eating so many of the things we previously enjoyed honestly makes me sad. I was hoping that it wouldn't be that way since I never felt horrible when I ate a standard diet before, or at least I didn't think I did! We by no means claim to be the most perfect Paleo eaters, we enjoy going out and getting ice cream with our kids and not feeling guilty about it...but when it makes you feel like poo the next day is it worth it?

Here's a little back info as to why this has been such a prominent discussion lately in our house: The hubs had been eating whatever Paleo meal I fixed for dinner since I started 15 months ago but didn't take it seriously until I started my Whole30 in January. He actually wanted in and we completely rocked it (except for our one splurge on day 15 of homemade cinnamon rolls, I mean seriously..fresh from the oven warm gooey cinnamon rolls...they were TOTALLY worth the bowling ball look). After the cinnamon rolls we even restarted the 30 days again and felt great at the end. But then comes what I call the "this is a special day because (fill in whatever lame excuse you can come up with to have something that's going to taste great going down but haunt you for at least the next 24-48 hours) so we should go somewhere special and eat a treat meal" reasoning. It sounds completely legit in my head and I've been told I can justify anything...but is it really worth it. Does it make every sprint to the bathroom (you know what I'm talking about) and the feeling of dragging through the next few days like you're walking through sludge completely and totally worth it?

Here comes to play our "Worth It Foods" list. When we finished our Whole30 we came up with a list of things that we thought were worth it..."thought" being the key word there. I've said this before, but we are not robots. We like a good beer, some tasty salty caramel ice cream from our local ice cream joint, and some delicious pizza. So for our list there were about 7 things that made the cut. Well, I would HIGHLY suggest NOT trying two out of the 7 in one night. And if you are thinking about doing that DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT get a bigger size frozen custard than you normally do just because it's mixed with the most amazing oatmeal cookies ever...it's going to hurt and it's going to hurt BAD.

And it's not worth it. We actually eliminated it from our list (and I modified that I'll only eat the salad at Dewey's too) because the way we feel when we put whole, real, quality food into our bodies is soooo much more worth it than feeling way less than optimal for a couple days. What are the worth it foods to you? Do you have "treats" just because...or is it something that is the most amazing thing you've ever tasted?