What The Whole30 Co-Founder Eats In A Day

Melissa Hartwig is one of the most bad-ass boss ladies we know. She’s the founder of the Whole30 diet, an entrepreneur, and the author of a number of best-selling books.  She just released two new Whole30 books for your collection: Whole30 Day by Day, a planner to help you succeed on your Whole30 journey, and Whole30 Fast & Easy, which is filled with super-quick (30 minutes or less!) compliant recipes. Here’s exactly what she eats in a day.

Many days, I just go straight home and make breakfast, but if I have errands to run, I’ll bring a Chapul cricket protein shake and a baby food packet to the gym. Yeah, I said crickets. And baby food. I don’t eat whey, soy, or plant protein, and the Chapul stuff is low-sugar and protein dense (and yes, it tastes great—you’d never know you were eating bugs). Baby food packets with veggies and fruit are super-easy carbs on-the-go…plus, I have an excuse for buying them (my 4½-year-old son).

My most productive time of day is between 10 a.m. and lunch, so I work straight through, sipping on a LaCroix, Hint water, or mineral water. Then, I break for lunch. My lunch is always Whole30-ish too; I need all the help I can get focusing in the late afternoon. I’ll also use this time to do some dinner meal prep, eating lunch while I chop or roast.

I’m a huge fan of protein salads (we have a recipe on page 161 in The Whole30), using either canned chicken, salmon, or tuna as a base. You can make it ahead of time, double the batch, and have lunch ready in five minutes flat. Stuff it into a hollowed-out pepper, place it in lettuce leaves, or spread it on top of fresh romaine or arugula, as I’ve done here.

You can throw just about anything into a protein salad, and my theory is the more, the better. This is canned Wild Planet organic chicken with Primal Kitchen mayo, apple cider vinegar, celery, green apple, red pepper, dried cranberries (sweetened with apple juice, for Whole30 compliance), scallions, and slivered almonds on top of a mix of baby greens. You could drizzle this with your favorite balsamic, but I like just a sprinkle of sea salt.

I put the most effort into dinner, mostly because I have time during the day to grocery shop and prep. But I still like to keep it simple by having a few templates. This is one I call "ground meat with stuff over stuff." I mix up the meat (ground beef, chicken, or turkey), and the veggies I sauté with the meat, and then I vary the base—zucchini noodles, cauliflower rice or mash, baby spinach leaves, or sweet potato hash.

After my son goes to bed, I clean the kitchen, prep food and his snacks for the morning, and brew a cup of herbal tea. I like this nighttime ritual as a replacement for dessert, although sometimes I’ll accompany my tea with a Justin’s peanut butter cup or some squares from a Chuao Potato Chip Chocolate Bar (I just discovered these, and they are so good. It’s not even dark chocolate. Ask me if I care).

My favorite tea right now is Organic & Pure Nighttime Chamomile Licorice tea; it’s hard to find, so I ordered like a case on Amazon. Hey, when I like something, I like it. The last thing I do before bed around 10 p.m. is read—I always have at least one fiction and one nonfiction going and strongly prefer real books to e-books. You can see my favorite reads under the #melissareads hashtag on Instagram.