TL;DR — Donnelle & Dana swear a bunch, bitch about unrealistic diet plans, and decide to blog about doing Whole30. Dana will be starting on February 1st, Donnelle on February 5th.

Ahem…

[In which Donnelle sends a link to a blog touting a Whole30 meal plan, which suggests that the person make a different recipe for every single meal with no regard to ingredient overlap or, like, time.]

DONNELLE: Lol this shit. YES LET ME JUST WHIP UP 21 UNIQUE RECIPES EVERY WEEK.

DANA: This is the shit that drives me fucking crazy!!!

DONNELLE: LET ME JUST MAKE SOME FUCKING CEREAL. I hate it. I hate it. These people ruin diets.

DANA: Do they know that most people have jobs?

DONNELLE: I get that they’re trying to promote all the recipes on their blog, but you are NOT HELPING people when you imply they should spend $1K on groceries for the week AND make 21 recipes with I guess no leftovers to speak of.

DANA: Yeah, fuck that.

DONNELLE: I mean it’s shitty blogging. And it honestly makes me mad because they’re promoting this healthy lifestyle but disenfranchising people from the get-go.

DANA: There’s a better way to do this. You say “pick 1 or 2 of the below recipes per meal category for each week — here are all the recipe options we have for you” and DON’T SUGGEST THAT PEOPLE MAKE A DIFFERENT RECIPE FOR EVERY MEAL FOR 7 DAYS STRAIGHT.

DONNELLE: I was all set to do Flat Belly a few years ago and made it through the 4-day jumpstart hell and then IMMEDIATELY fell off the wagon because the book implied I’d have to spend an unreal amount on groceries.

Or like in my house, basically we cook one protein a week and then you just grab what you need out of that Tupperware and supplement it. This week it’s chicken. There’s just a shitload of chicken sitting in a bowl in my fridge. So be like “Here’s your base recipe, and now here’s everything you can easily add to it to make it taste different”

DANA: SAME. Roast chicken is my fucking life. Been picking at one for a week + drinking the broth from popping the carcass in the slow cooker.

If we wrote a healthy-diet book, you know that shit would be smart as hell, full of good food, and goddamn hilarious.

DONNELLE: OMG LIFE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL

“We’re Fucking Done: Actual Meal Plans For People Who Want To Stop Feeling Like Shit”

This is why so far I have faith in what is being asked of me in Whole30’s book. They basically said “Make four sauces every week and then just add those in rotation to whatever protein and veggies you’re eating. That keeps it all fresh and exciting while still make it easy.”

DANA: “How to Subsist on a Healthy Balance of Real Food, Junk Food, and Swear Words”

DONNELLE: LOLOL

Ahhhhh I’m mad that the swearing-in-cookbooks trend hit the market before our time.

DANA: This is why I’m thinking of skipping the cookbooks BUT grabbing the workbook because mama needs accountability.

DONNELLE: The recipes in Whole30 look aight, but nothing looks better than what I’m finding online. Although I’m glad to have ideas I can flip through physically AND I’m glad to have all the sauces at hand.

There’s a lot of “Here’s how you perfectly cook a steak. Here’s how you perfectly cook chicken.” Aight.

DANA: Also, possibly silly blog idea: We agree to correspond daily during our dumb Whole30 month (I am hanging on by a thread to my commitment, but I keep going “NO MAN, that’s the sugar demon talking!”); each day, we copy-paste that shit (with possible omissions) and post it into a blog. Because people like it when we talk about food, and at minimum, I feel like it might a) entertain our friends and b) hold our asses more accountable. And then when people are like “YOU GUYS, WRITE A BOOK!”, we’ll be like “well, mayyyyyybe…”

DONNELLE: OMG!! I would LOVE to!! Also BUT FYI my start date isn’t Feb 1st, it’s going to be Monday Feb 5th. Can you hold out until then?

DANA: Ooof, I can’t actually! I’m planning to go to Sacramento to see Andrew’s production of Macbeth the first weekend of March, and I must be free of my fetters by then. Got it barely timed out to then.

DONNELLE: Ahhh sure. I get that. Meh let’s do it anyway!

DANA: BUT I think that’s OK, and might make for some additional entertainment if we’re not synced on days.

DONNELLE: Agreed. I can be warned of the terror that lies in store on Day 7.

DANA: I’M SO SCARED.