Melissa Urban | Transform Your Relationship with Food with This 30-Day Dietary Experiment

Written By Kristel Bauer

LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS HERE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/melissa-urban-transform-your-relationship-with-food/id1500457853?i=1000536856160

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY HERE: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7j3cLSizaPwR1HdyjdmEeM

Even though there is no such thing as ''bad'' or ''good'' foods, some of them may not work well for you. If you're having a hard time identifying the foods that cause negative effects on your body, listen to this episode with Melissa Urban and find out the solution for you.

Key Takeaways From This Episode

  • Should you eliminate all problematic foods for good?

  • Why you shouldn't follow any diet

  • Health benefits of Whole30

  • Is Whole30 available for vegans?

  • Impact of the global pandemic on people's eating habits

Disclaimer: All of the information and views shared on the Live Greatly podcast are purely the opinions of the authors, and they are not medical advice or treatment recommendations. The contents of this podcast are intended for informational and educational purposes only. Always seek the guidance of your physician or qualified health professional for any recommendations specific to you or for any questions regarding your specific health, your sleep patterns, changes to diet and exercise, or any medical conditions.

Whole 30 did send me samples of products to try.

 

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

 

About Melissa Urban

Melissa Urban is the co-founder and CEO of the Whole30 program, and a six-time New York Times bestselling author. She has been featured by the New York Times, People, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Dr. Oz, and Good Morning America, and ranked #19 on Greatists Top 100 Most Influential People in Health and Fitness in 2018. Melissa has presented more than 150 health and nutrition seminars worldwide, and is a prominent keynote speaker on social media and branding, health trends, and entrepreneurship.

Connect with Melissa

 

If you are struggling with feeling overworked or overwhelmed, access the Top 10 Stress Management Tips for the Overworked free right now. 

Kristel Bauer, the Founder of Live Greatly, is on a mission to help people awaken to their ultimate potential.  She is a wellness expert, Integrative Medicine Fellow, Keynote Speaker, Physician Assistant, & Reiki Master with the goal of empowering others to live their best lives!

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To learn more about Live Greatly's transformative online courses for personal development and self-improvement, to discuss collaborations and partnerships, or to book Kristel as a speaker or consultant, click here.

Episode Transcript

Melissa (Teaser)

I had such tremendous impact from doing this really strict protocol for 30 days, my energy increased, my sleep dramatically improve. It was incredible how well I was sleeping. My mood was happier. I felt more self confident. I did see performance and recovery improvements in the gym. 

Kristel (Guest Intro)

If you're interested in learning about how your diet can impact your health and wellbeing.

You're going to gain a lot of value from today's episode with Melissa Urban, Melissa is the co-founder and CEO of the whole 30 program. She's a six times New York times bestselling author. We're going to be talking a lot about elimination diets and how we eat can impact how we feel. Melissa is going to be sharing a lot of incredible knowledge, and she's also ranked it as number 19 on greatest top 100 most influential people in health and fitness.

She's an inspiring entrepreneur. I’m super pumped to have her on the show today. Let's jump right into it and welcome Melissa Urban onto the show. \

Melissa:

Yeah. I'm excited for this conversation. Thanks for having me.

Kristel:

For sure. So to start, I'm hoping you can just introduce yourself and for those listening, maybe they've never heard about whole 30.

If you could just give a little bit of a background. That would be great. 

Yeah, of course. So my name is Melissa Urban. I'm the whole 30 co-founder and CEO. The whole 30 has been around since 2009. So it's been about 12 years that I've been leading people through the program. And it's essentially, we describe it as a 30 day reset for your health habits and relationship with food.

So we're not a weight loss diet, we're not a detox or a cleanse. We're more like a self experiment designed to help people figure out how individual food groups work in their unique body or system. So every functional medicine practitioner and registered dietician in the world says, you have to figure out what works for you.

There is no one size fits all and people are like, yeah, that makes sense. But how do I figure out what works for me? And whole 30 is really a 30 day self-experiment designed to answer that question for you.

Kristel:

That's incredible. And I practiced for a while and functional medicine and I'm an integrative medicine fellow.

So I was trained as a physician assistant. We didn't learn about food sensitivity, not a lot about nutrition during my traditional medical training, but I learned a lot in practice. And I learned a lot throughout my fellowship, but one thing that we would recommend would be elimination diets. So if we just weren't sure how people were responding and if people would come in with like weird symptoms and you couldn't really figure out what was going on, that sometimes would be such a great way.

Like empower the person to reclaim their health. So when I heard about whole 30, I was like, oh, this is like an elimination diet made simple, like a year kind of was that the idea? Okay. 

Melissa:

That's exactly the idea. And I'm so glad that you mentioned that a lot of medical practitioners still consider elimination diets, the gold standard for identifying food sensitivities.

Even with all the lab tests we have and everything we know about food and its propensity to create negative consequences in a wide variety of scenarios to a varying degrees person to person. You know, you're not represented in the clinical literature that you read. You personally are not represented in what time magazine or the latest, you know, media might be saying about what foods are good and what foods are bad.

The whole 30 program is designed to eliminate foods that are commonly problematic to varying degrees across a broad range of people. And this is based on both scientific literature. And our 10 plus years of clinical experience, you'll pull those foods out for 30 days and see what happens to your energy, your sleep, your digestion, your aches, and pains, your mood, your focus, your allergies, asthma.

The list goes on. And then at the end of those 30 days, you re-introduce those food groups, one at a time, very carefully and systematically like an experiment and see what changes and that's exactly how you can pinpoint what does and doesn't work for you.

Kristel:

And I think something that's really important for people to recognize too, is.

Just because maybe one food isn't you aren't feeling so great with it at one point in time. That doesn't mean that that's going to be the case forever. Right? Like how do you differentiate that with whole 30? Is there a process where like you can eventually try and reintroduce or how does that work?

Melissa: 

Yeah, for sure. So the first thing I'll point out is that we don't eliminate foods because they're bad. There are no bad foods. There are no good foods. We completely divorced morality from food and our food choices. But they're unknown. And until you test them, you won't know exactly how you work for how they work for you.

But what we talk about at whole 30 is that re-introduction really is a lifelong process. You may reintroduce something as soon as your whole 30 is over, and it has a negative impact on you. Maybe you reintroduced dairy and your skin breaks out the next day or two. Well, it doesn't necessarily mean that A, it's not worth it for you.

Maybe you love ice cream so much that you're willing to tolerate a few breakouts and that's cool. That's your decision. Or maybe you can figure out if there's a specific context or quantity or frequency that you can enjoy that ice cream and avoid the breakouts altogether. I like to think about, re-introduction like this fun little game in terms of like, how can I make this food work for me?

Because I love it so much, but I want to still feel as good as I want to feel. And how can I kind of game-ify this such that I can bring this food back into my diet, or if I just can't like with me and goat cheese, it's just never, ever worth it. Now I just know to avoid it because no matter what, the consequences are never tolerable for me.

Kristel:

And so it's basically putting the power in your hands. Like you have the awareness and then you can decide, well, what do you want to do with it? Exactly. He says, yeah, I know for me, it's like, if I eat pizza, once in a while, I just don't have as much energy the next day, I feel a bit more tired, but there are those circumstances where like I'm out with my kids, we're having fun and it's worth it for me to have a slice or two of pizza.

Melissa:

Yeah, exactly. And this is you use the word empowerment and that's really our core mission. I don't want you to follow anybody's food rules. Ideally, I don't ever want you to need to do a whole 30 again, because you've done this self experiment. You know what works for you? And now you get to create your own values and your own guidelines around food based on what you've learned, such that you never need to follow another diet or prescriptive plan.

Again, you can trust yourself and the signals that your own body is sending you. And that's really important I think. 

Kristel:

I love it. It was overwhelming sometimes when I would have a patient come in and they would want to know what diet should I follow? Should I follow Paleo? And should I be vegan? All these different things.

And it is so individualized that it was that conversation about, well, how do you respond to these foods? And then we would do some testing sometimes to look at vitamin levels and things like that and gut health. But I love this model of you don't have to do all the fancy testing. You can just do it on your own to see what works for your body.

And then if you need to do testing, you do it. But I like that this is an option anyone really can do and not have to even have to spend a lot of money to get this information.

Melissa:

It is  very accessible. And if you do need to go see a functional medicine practitioner, because you still have some stuff under the hood that you want to peek at now you've laid this amazing foundation because the first step is probably going to.

Well, have you tried eliminating things from your diet and there'll be able to say, yep. I sure did. Here's what I experienced. And then you've got so much of the groundwork already laid out for you.

Kristel:

So I'm curious, why did you start this? I know, I'm sure you've gotten this question a million times, but obviously this is you've done extremely well.

Like this was definitely needed, which you can see, I think, with your success with it, but like what triggered this idea and then how did you take that idea and turn it into what it's become?

Melissa:

I never set out to create a nutrition program. The whole 30 started as a two-person self-experiment. That was it.

I'm a huge self experimenter. I love trying new things and seeing if it will benefit my health practices and my health lifestyle. And so the whole 30 was just one of those experiments. I was sitting around with my co-founder after a really challenging Olympic lifting session. I was very into CrossFit and my performance and my recovery.

And having done some research on his own and having gone to a few nutrition seminars that focused on like an anti-inflammatory approach. He kind of wondered out loud. I wonder what would happen if we did this, like kind of squeaky clean by the books 30 day anti-inflammatory diet. Like we pulled all the little things out for 30 whole days, and I was really curious about whether it would impact my performance in the gym and my recovery.

And I was sitting on the floor eating thin mints right out of the sleeve, as he was saying this. Cause I had just exercised and I had earned them and I was like, yeah, that sounds good. I would do that. And like, when do you want to start? And he said, how about right now. And I was like, yeah, okay. Handed my thin mints off.

And that was sort of the start of it. And I really was hoping to see performance improvements in the gym. But what I discovered in those 30 days was that my already healthy diet had such tremendous impact from doing this really strict protocol for 30 days. My energy increased and leveled off such that I no longer had that 2:00 PM like head on desk slum, my sleep dramatically improved like night and day.

It was incredible how well I was sleeping. My mood was happier. I felt more self confident. I did see performance and recovery improvements in the gym. And it highlighted the ways that I was perhaps using food in a dysfunctional fashion to relieve anxiety or self-sooth or show myself love. It was such a profoundly transformational experience that I decided to share it with my little CrossFit blog and a few hundred people said that they would follow along.

And that was really the birth of the whole 30. 

Kristel:

Wow. Wow. Okay. Now you have, there's like whole 30 approved foods and you have your cookbooks and so it's really taken off. Did you have a background in business?

Melissa:

I do. Oh yeah, I did. Thank you. Yeah, I do. My degree is in business and I ran my nine to five job for 10 years before I started whole 30 was running a team of operations analysts and business analysts.

So I did have a business background. And we have been really fortunate in that we've had the opportunity to work with so many incredible partners to put lay. Now has three whole 30 bowls and salads on their menu. And we've got whole 30 approved partners like Applegate and LaCroix and partnerships with the SPCA and ate whole 30 books now.

But remember, it's been 12 years in the making. So a lot of people are like, oh, it's such an overnight success. And I'm like, yeah. More than a decade of plugging away. Lots of word of mouth and just kind of sticking with it. 

Kristel:

Yeah. So someone that's looking in it probably does look like in some ways, I think a lot of times that there's that idea that it isn't overnight success, but like you said, it's been 12 years. Right. 

So how have you navigated the ups and downs that come with growing a business and sharing your message because, you know, as any entrepreneur knows, like there are setbacks and you have to be able to be resilient and to keep going and really, I think, believe in your mission. So I would love just to hear your input there and what's helped you.

Melissa:

Yeah. So in the beginning, and even now my guiding principle has always been to serve the community. That's it? I've always said that I don't have a good idea about whole 30 in my head. I only listened to the community and provide what they need to be successful. And that's been really instrumental in helping us steer and grow the program.

The partnerships we choose the whole 30 approved brands that we work with, the books I write the resources we create. It's all in service of the community, helping them do the whole 30 and be as successful as possible in making the program accessible and representative. So that's been kind of a founding principle that we still hold to today.

I am not particularly like a profits driven CEO. I don't really care about profits. I don't really care about KPIs or goals or growth. Like I'm really very impact driven. So I have people on my team who worry about that and focus on that. But for me, Where I stay motivated and get excited as in talking to the community and then hearing their whole 30 stories, and then realizing that we're reaching new people and, and seeing new people to the website every single day.

Like, that's really what gets me excited and what keeps me motivated.

Kristel:

I love that. And then, like you said, you have people who are, are filling that gap and then you can really do what lights you up and what you're good at, you know? Cause then people can tell if you have an energy about the, you know, what you're doing and you believe in it.

And that rubs off on people know.

Melissa:

I mean, we have a team now of 20 full-time people. There's 20 people that depend on whole 30, like for their salaries and to feed their families and stuff. So somebody has to think about making sure that we're growing. But it's really nice to have team members who are so energized and focused on that so that I can show up and just like, be the voice, be the face, write  the resources, do the media, stuff like this and get the message out. 

Kristel:

Love it. So I would love to go a little bit into deeper into nutrition. And I'm curious if you have any insights into how the whole 30 has impacted women versus men. And I’m wondering, like, if you've seen them or you've gotten feedback from the community about how they feel or results that they've had are just specific to the male versus female.

And kind of where I'm going with this is, I know for women specifically, like, I don't know if a lot of women realize that what you eat really can impact your hormones for men too, but for women, you know, I think that's a big piece of it. Like if you eat cleaner, are you with. Well, it really can impact so many different areas and men too, but just wondering what your thoughts are.

Melissa:

Women's sex hormones are so much more complex than men's, right? So that's like one area it's interesting. The whole 30 audience is largely driven by women and you'll kind of find that across any dietary change, women tend to be the ones that are doing like the cooking and the meal prep in their households.

They're the ones who are more willing to be vocal on social media, about some of their struggles with their relationship with food and their habits. So we know that men or lots of men are doing the whole 30 program and we often hear about them and their results sometimes through their partners or spouses.

But women tend to show up more for each other and in the community. So I think some of the most underrated benefits of the whole 30 go back to energy and sleep, which I've already mentioned. And of course that has a huge impact on your hormonal cycle, blood sugar regulation, your menstrual cycle and PMs symptoms, even menopausal pre-menopausal symptoms.

I'm very careful not to position whole 30 as like a medical elimination plan. We're not treating disease. But it is incredible when you are eating an anti-inflammatory diet, the impact that it can have on all of those body systems. And that can show up in a number of unexpected ways when it comes to your overall health.

And certainly those hormonal fluctuations. 

Kristel:

And I know people too, who deal with things like auto immune conditions and I mean, any medical struggle that anyone is going through. Nutrition is a core piece of what can support your body to heal or to get to a place where you feel your best. So with the whole 30, what are people eliminating?

I love that you just brought up auto-immune as well because disproportionately affects women. I think it's like 80% of the auto-immune suffers are women for one reason or another. And the whole 30 has an anti-inflammatory protocol really work numbers on auto-immune symptoms and at least the management of symptoms.

So on the whole 30, I keep talking about how it's anti-inflammatory, you're eliminating for 30 days, a few different categories of food. So it's all forms of added sugar. So we're talking about anything with sugar on the ingredient list, not natural sugars, like fruit or fruit juice, but like added sugars. Including artificial sweeteners.

You're eliminating all forms of alcohol for 30 days, all grains. So things like wheat, rye, barley, rice, keenwah even the sort of pseudo cereals. You're eliminating legumes. So beans, soy, and peanuts for 30 days, and then almost all forms of dairy. So that would be like milk and cheese and yogurt, everything except clarified butter or ghee.

And those are kind of all the food groups that for just for 30 days, you're pulling out to see what happens. 

Kristel:

So if someone doesn't eat meat, someone's a, let's say vegan or vegetarian and they're restricted and they're pulling out the beans and the soy, where would they get protein?

Melissa:
Well, you can't do the whole 30 as written as a. Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. That's good. No, no, no. I do have a program for them and we are continuing to work on more plant-based resources that the whole 30 by default eliminates almost all your plant-based protein sources. So the original, whole 30 as a vegan is like not doable.

But I do have a vegan reset in my book. Food freedom forever. So that vegan reset essentially applies the whole 30 framework and eliminates the foods that are the most commonly problematic, like gluten containing grains from that vegan framework and provides you with the same opportunities to eliminate added sugar, eliminate alcohol, eliminate some of the baked goods and sweets and treats and figure out which plant-based protein sources work best for you.

So we do have an option for vegans. 

Kristel:

That's good to know. Okay. And one thing that I was really excited about when I was looking at the whole 30, is that it didn't eliminate caffeine or coffee. Right. I remember seeing it and I was talking to a friend. I was like,yeah, this is going to make me here in a coffee.

Like, I don't know if I'll do it. 

Melissa:

I know. I know. It's funny. When I think about it from the foods that we eliminate in terms of their impact on your hormones, your emotional relationship with food, your digestive system and your immune system, caffeine just didn't make the cut. Right? It's not so incredibly problematic.

And lots of times people are drinking more coffee. Because they want the sugar hit because they're adding sugar or sweetened creamer to their coffee. So what we're finding is that, like, let's not take coffee away from people right now. We want people to be able to actually do the program and going cold Turkey on caffeine can actually be really problematic for some people.

But what we find is that people naturally tend to drink less coffee on the whole 30, because they're not adding their creamer or their sugar. And your energy and sleep are naturally getting better, which requires less of that boost first thing in the morning.

Kristel:

Hmm. Yeah, I think that that's a really good point too.

Like if you're eating really clean and I don't know if the claim is the best word, but if you're eating foods that are really nourishing for your body, hopefully you won't need caffeine later in the day. 

Melissa:

Yes, exactly. And caffeine, anytime afternoon really can mess with sleep. So that's, we do have kind of some best practice recommendations around the whole 30.

They're not rules, but like, if you really want to succeed, we generally say no caffeine after noon after 12:00 PM. 

Kristel:

So you had mentioned that you were really into working out and I'm curious to hear a little bit more about that. And what are you currently doing for your workout routine? Because you were saying you were doing like an Olympic training or something.

And I heard it, I was like, whoa!

Melissa:

What I was doing. So yeah, CrossFit has like an Olympic weightlifting and power lifting. I kind of do a mix of like a little bit of everything. In the gym on a five day a week basis for the last like 22 years, like since 2000 or just before 2000. So I have a really long history.

I've done everything from gymnastics to kettlebells, to Olympic weightlifting, to power lifting, to tons of yoga. And I kind of incorporate all of that stuff into my routine now. So one day I'll throw on a 20 pound pack and I'll rock a couple miles with my dog and the next day I'll do a yoga workout. And the next day I'm doing like a power lifting or Olympic lifting workout.

I love being in the gym. It's like my happy place. I don't have goals for myself right now. And I don't have like a structured training program. I just really enjoy movement. And I've been really focusing on mobility for the last, I would say five years. And that's been really enjoyable for me as well. I feel like it's bomb pushed me in terms of injuries.

It's certainly allowed me to add some kind of fun movements to my practice. And it means that when I am lifting heavy, I'm lifting safer. So that's been fun too. 

Kristel:

Good. Great. And I think movement and exercise too is great. If you're making changes in your diet where people are eating for. Or if you have those cravings getting outside and moving is a great way to distract you in a really healthy way.

Melissa:

Yeah. And what we find is that people do the whole 30 and then by their like second week, they have so much energy and they're sleeping better and they feel great. And it's a very natural progression to want to move more. So maybe you're going for walks with the family. Maybe you're taking the dog out, maybe you're playing with the kids or like going on a little hike with your family.

That feels like an in my observation, a very natural progression of people doing the whole 30 and then feeling like they have. You know, the empowerment and the self-confidence to start doing more healthy habits.

Kristel: 

In the past. I mean, what year and a half now, I feel like maybe two years, however long it's been that we've had this pandemic.

I know a lot of people have struggles with nutrition because they've been home. There's been added stress, you know, maybe their kids have been home and there's just been a lot going on. So this would be I think, a great way to kind of reset, reboot and get back on track after. Like I have to, I've been snacking more on stuff than what I typically would have done just because it's been more accessible.

don't know why. I don't know. 

Melissa:

It's good. I mean, it's stress, right? We're all under this like chronic stress and have been for a really long time. Everything from the uncertainty of the pandemic, to our work and home and kids, school, life bleeding together. It's when you're under stress, the body naturally gravitates biologically to like, okay, we're in a stressful situation.

We need fast energy. So like of course we having cravings. I do think that the whole 30 has been a really grounding experience for a lot of people. We ran one called the whole 30 at home in April, 2020 at the height of the pandemic. And it really brought people together. We're all feeling kind of isolated and kind of alone.

It's harder to see people in person now and just having that community grounded in healthy habits, knowing that everyone was kind of on the same path and on the same day and in it together, I think really provided a lot of comfort for people. Plus the benefits of actually getting, like you said, a reset of your habits and your health and September.

You know, October is like the perfect time to do it. Kids are back in school, vacations are over we're back in our routines. It's right before the holidays. And I think now is like the perfect time to do that reset. 

Kristel:
Right. So, okay. Let's say that the listeners, like, yes, I want to do this. What do they need to do?

Where do they go? Do you give them encouragement throughout it? How is the, is there a community that they can participate in? I would love to hear a little bit about.

Melissa:

Yes, it is because we've had 12 years to provide resources for people. It is. So in, you are so set up for success when you want to do a whole 30 at this point.

So the first thing I'll mention is that the whole 30 is totally free. You don't have to buy anything, but the food you eat to do the program, it's incredibly accessible. The easiest way, just as to go to our website whole thirty.com and there's a little button in the header that says do the whole 30, and we will walk you through every single step of planning and preparing, getting your kitchen in order creating a meal plan, grocery shopping list, things you might not think of, like how to get a support system for yourself at home and in the community.

And then on top of that, if you do want additional resources, the whole 30 book will walk you through how to do it. Step by step, including a seven day meal plan and over a hundred recipes, there's a daily text message service. So I will send you text messages once in the morning and once in the evening. Every single day of your whole 30 with motivation and encouragement and tips and tricks specific to that day, we have a whole 30 day by day book.

That's like a guided journal with some self-reflection prompts. So you can really dig into what's happening every day of your whole 30 and track your successes and non-scale victories. We have over 200 whole 30 certified coaches. So if you want to be coached through a program with. Support going through it in a group environment, we have coaches who will do that.

So there's no shortage of ways that we can and will support you if you're new to the whole 30. 

Kristel:

I love it. Yes, it sounds amazing. So we are coming to the end. I'm going to do a quick lightning round with you, but anything you want to share before that.

Melissa:

I just want to thank you for the opportunity of sharing about the whole 30 it's.

Obviously I feel like my life's work and we've helped so many just millions of people achieve these health transformations. I would love anyone from your community who is interested to come join us and see what it's all. 

Kristel:

Fantastic. It's been so fun. Okay. So let's jump into it. So the first question is what is a book that you've read recently or listened to recently that you would recommend?

Melissa:

Oh my goodness. Okay. It's a book called the comfort crisis by Michael Easter. It was so incredibly empowering. His book is all about why embracing discomfort can be beneficial for our lives right now in, in big and small ways and all about how, you know, learning to live with discomfort, improves everything from our immune system to stress response, to self-confidence highly recommended for anybody at any stage of their life.

Kristel:

Awesome. Okay. And then last question, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to yourself from 10 years ago? 

Melissa:

10 years ago, 10 years ago, I was still. Under the impression that in order to be an entrepreneur, you had to hustle, you had to work 24/7. You had to put yourself last. Your community always came first.

And if you weren't resting, you are falling behind. So I would just go back and I did eventually figure this out, but I would go back and tell myself that, like, in order to be a successful entrepreneur, you've got to pay yourself first. If your cup is full, you have so much more to give to everyone in your life, including your community, your family, your friends, but you've got to be in this for the long haul and make it sustainable.

And like what good is offering people, nutrition advicevif you're running yourself into the ground to do it. 

Kristel:

Oh, my gosh. That is such great advice. And I know like all those, like healthcare practitioners out there, everybody in any profession where you're giving that is so incredibly important. And as entrepreneurs, I love it.

Yes. Yeah. I agree with that statement.

Yes. Okay. Well, this has been amazing, Melissa. Thank you so much. It's been a lot of fun.

Melissa:

 It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Kristel Bauer
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