Hacker News Reader

The most positively life changing one for me was the Whole 30: http://whole30.com/

This sounds pretty good. But I do love my grains and legumes.

Some of the restrictions in Whole 30 are silly, but for most programs like this, the main point is that the restrictions force you to change your habits. The details of the allowed and forbidden foods are almost irrelevant as long as the resulting diet is complete and balanced. I bet you could run this program with whole wheat (actually eating the wheat berries, not bread/pasta) and lower-starch legumes (again, eaten whole and not as stuff like refried beans) and get similar benefits.

"The main point is that the restrictions force you to change your habits."

And this is really the main key with diets and healthy eating. You gotta change your habits.

But in that respect, you could do similar things without the restrictions: Simply work on changing the habits without eating more. Take a while to focus on cutting out most sweetened beverages: Some time to eat more veggies, more grains, adjust your eating to reflect when you are hungry, and so on.

The point of whole 30 is to eliminate everything and see how you feel. After 30 days you add things back in one by one. Think of it as an experimental control.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com