Jump to content

After Whole30 - where's my energy/tiger blood gone?


WholeMama

Recommended Posts

I completed my Whole30 Jan 30th. I did some reintroductions - no thanks to dairy and grains, some wine and dark chocolate seem to be ok - but pretty much am continuing to eat as I did on Whole30. Since then, weight loss has stalled (yes, I really do have about 15 lbs to lose) and I don't have as much energy in workouts. I honestly don't know if I'm eating too much, too little, too many starchy carbs, too few... Below are a couple days of food - input welcome!!

Monday

Rest day - no gym

Breakfast - black coffee, 3 eggs, 1 cup peppers, 1/2 avocado

Lunch: one cup chicken salad over greens with oil and vinegar. Realized I hadn't brought enough and was hungry so got a Kind bar (5 g sugar one) and coffee from cafeteria. That held me until dinner.

Dinner:

1 baked chicken thigh, about a cup and a half of asparagus, 1/2 c roasted broccoli, 1/3 Japanese sweet potato with ghee.

Yesterday:

Pre WO: black coffee and spoonful of almond butter

Workout: 45 minutes running and 25 minutes weights

Breakfast immediately post workout (drove home, ate):

I cup ground beef mixed with peppers and onions with 2 eggs and 1/4 large avocado on top

Lunch: mixed greens with chicken, egg, and veggies at work function. Probably 2 cups total greens.

Mini meal - home from work function and legitimately hungry, minimal of about 3/4 c chicken salad and berries with coconut flakes and I T almond butter

Dinner:

1 baked chicken thigh, 1/3 sweet potato with ghee, 1.5 cups roasted broccoli.

I try to get to sleep between 9 and 10 and am up at 5 most days. Yesterday and today I was hungry midway through my workout (today was spinning).

Thoughts? My goal is to eat enough r to fuel my workouts and also lose this weight / lean out. Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

You are not eating enough. The consequence of not eating enough is that your metabolism slows down and weight loss stalls. If you want to lose weight, you need a fast metabolism. If you want a fast metabolism you have to eat an adequate amount of food.

 

On Monday, your breakfast had plenty of protein and fat, but not nearly enough veggies. You could omit the avocado and add two cups of veggies to make it better. Your lunch was less than half of what you needed. Maybe about one-third of what you needed. That has severe consequences. Greens have very little substance in your stomach. They almost disappear when chewing them. You have to eat greens by the bucket to get enough food. One cup of chicken salad is extremely light. At dinner, one chicken thigh is not nearly enough protein. Then you ate less than 3 cups of veggies. 

 

On Tuesday, you combined your post-workout meal and breakfast. That means you failed to eat an entire meal for the day. You cannot afford to skip meals. You also waited too long by eating after driving home. That impairs your recovery. A post-workout meal should include no fat. You ate a high fat with eggs and avocado. The breakfast itself was on the edge of being too light on protein and did not include nearly enough veggies. Your lunch was again way too light with greens. Good for you eating a mini-meal. However, you are not eating enough veggies. You are a protein and fat person. You need lots more veggies. Dinner was again too small!

 

Go back to the meal planning template:

 

How much to eat
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you - that's very helpful. I'll stash a chicken thigh in the car to eat on the way home and up my veggies. I was doing one chicken thigh because it seemed about palm sized ... I'll try two.

How does my starchy veggie intake look? Should I up that too?

And I am very relieved you said eat more rather than less!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

This is sooo helpful! Thank you both for posting. I'm on day 30 today and have been so focussed on the Whole 30 that I haven't thought much about life after Whole30. I've been working hard to figure out portion sizes and have been sooo happy with the results I've seen during this process but don't want to stall either. I'm also a runner and knew before I started Whole 30 that I wasn't eating enough to really fuel my body. I plan on continuing Whole30 a few more weeks before I begin reintroductions. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...