My wife has decided to take on the Whole 30 challenge.  Now, she's quick to remind me that it's not paleo.

Has anyone done a similar "challenge".  I'm looking for real world experience and thoughts basically so I can encourage her.  To be clear, my wife doesn't need to lose weight.  I'm not saying that because I'm a loving husband, because I'm really an asshole pretty much most of the time.  While she could stand to tone (I'll turn in my lifting card) and lose at best 5-10 pounds, she's vain and tired of not being able to buy size 4 pants and has to buy size 6 pants.  My wife is a carb-o-holic.  She's addicted to carbohol.  If she simply cleaned up her diet a bit, listened to me about doing some weightlifting instead of cardio and yoga, she'd drop weight quick but she decided to go whole hog with the Whole 30 challenge.

The benefits to me are many.  She is now cooking food in the style that I like, which means less food prep for me.  I'm certainly not 100% paleo, but I adhere to the principles.  Although I don't mind crushing a large meat lovers pizza and a couple of beers after a hard squat or deadlift session, especially when that sesh lands on a Saturday or Friday.  I've told her I'll do it with some caveats, like a shake after a workout so I don't lose my gainz, still taking a pre-workout.  I highly recommend the mypre as a pre-workout.  It's the first that I've found that doesn't make me jittery or agitated.

TL;DR
Have you done it or helped someone do it and what should I expect?

My wife and I did the 5 week lurrong challenge.  But she had no weight to lose and I gained 8 pounds so it was pointless for us.  It was paleoish but we also disagreed with the exclusion of brown rice from the diet plan.  Brown rice makes both of us lean and mean.  But she did follow it.  If motivation is important I can see the benefit, but if not it's probably a waste of time.

I've seen a lot of people lose a lot of weight on the whole 30. Also helps kick sugar cravings.

If you wait a bit my gym is doing a before and after whole 30 body fat dunk tank test. Should be a good sample of people (30+) that (hopefully) all did something close to the whole 30. I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

The Whole s most assuredly good to go. I recommend it to anyone that asks me about weight loss or the Paleo diet.

I lost a shitload of weight in that first 30 days, but it did a lot more. It "fixed" my problem with food. I f'ing hate terms like metabolic derangement and reset or systemic inflammation but whatever it is I had it. I overate and was always hungry, ate shit food, blood sugar would drop, overeat etc.

I did the Whole 30 exactly as prescribed, no cheats and it gave me control over my food, taught me about eating real food, checking ingredient etc.

I switched over to full on Paleo and have kept off over 70lbs for 4 years now. I highly recommend it. Even if you don't need to lose weight, doesn't mean you;re healthy and it doesn't mean you're properly feeding your body.

If she has any specific question, post em up. I'm a Whole 30-vangelist.

The 21 day challenge is nice if you want to ease into it.

The whole 30 is completely different and you will see huge results IF you follow it to the letter.

I recently completed the whole life challenge, very similar to the whole 30, but you are adding in water intake, exercise, and stretching as well.

I was not a carb-a-holic when I did it. I eat primal (pretty close to teh 80/20 rule) so the diet portion was pretty easy, however it did curb ANY cheating i was doing. I started the challenge at 192#, 30 days into the challenge I was at 178#

No Copenhagen and no milk... Count me out

I ditched the milk but Copenhagen has been a staple of my diet for years.

Get her into a CrossFit gym NOW.  That will change her opinion on weightlifting.

I did a whole 30 in July 2012.  Lost 22 pounds.  Stayed on paleo and lost another 42 in another 6 moths.  Definitely recommend it, it will change your relationship with food.  Although if you guys are already paleo, she might not lose a lot of weight.  It will help with the carbs, though.

My pre whole 30 diet was fast food + six pack every night which explains my rapid weight loss.  My wife only lost 5 pounds doing Whole 30, but I told everyone "we" lost 27 lbs. and she was happy about that.