Meet Tara

My name is Tara and I am DC dweller, Gen X-Millenial straddler, and serious connoisseur of sweatpants. You can generally find me pushing boundaries on leggings as totally appropriate life attire, and the limit of coffee one can take before enhanced productivity becomes cyclical anxious thinking about the form the apocalypse will take…what can I say, I like to ride the line.

I’m writing to you on the eve of my very first Whole30.

As I stare down this looming path paved with the lifeless ghosts of my old friends, Friday Night Wine and Sunday Pizza Binge, I feel compelled to share the series of decisions that have led me to this gluten free precipice.

Given my status as a Whole30 newb, it may surprise you that I am a total, next-level, Whole30 fan girl. I am an avid consumer of Melissa’s Instagram stories and can’t get enough of her flawless hair, battles with cacti and other various storylines I should absolutely not know about a person I’ve never met. I also follow the stories of the Whole30 community closely and I know what sort of magic these 30 days can produce.

So I spent a few weeks vacillating between “definitely doing it…no turning back…no one has ever been more committed to not drinking and eating crap than me” and “pass me that cookie to dip in this eggnog” but when my crew at Territory also said they were in, and my bud Jen and I decided to document our journey here, I knew it was time to see what the Whole30 experience was all about for myself.

So decision made. I’m doing it. Pour out the wine (into my mouth), throw away the snacks (into my mouth) and let’s make this happen.

Meet Jen

Hey friends! Jen here 🙂 Things you should know about me … I very literally just peeled myself from the couch after our NYE festivities that reinforced the aging process, I’m kicking off my second annual Whole30 tomorrow, my (what feels like decaying at the moment) body desperately needs said Whole30. So grateful to be doing it alongside my hubby, my sister, two of our besties, and Tara the Great who you just met.

Though the past month of my life would say otherwise, I’m passionate about clean and intentional eating, and believe deeply in the healing power of food. I’ve personally had a transformative experience fueled by changing my diet, so much so that I made a career switch a few years back to join the mighty crew at Territory. The inspiring work we’re charged with at Territory has allowed my personal health to become the focus, and I’m beyond grateful I’ve been given the chance to help others do the same.

Last January’s Whole30 was a super influential experience, and armed me with new tools/knowledge to both listen to and feed my body in a way I wasn’t equipped to do at the beginning of the journey. Though it’s natural, and on some level, inevitable that you’ll eventually find yourself slipping from the compliant lifestyle once you wrap your 30 days, I found myself in the depths of despair during the last few weeks of December. So naturally, I’m hella stoked to put up the guardrails once again and start to reverse the damage brought on by about a trillion gluten-free sugar cookies, 30 lbs of chocolate covered popcorn, and lest we forget about the 15 gallons of prosecco.

We’re off to strip our cabinets of our beloved dark chocolate, but let’s all, for Mariah’s sake, be grateful hot tea is Whole30 approved.