Day 21 - Intestinal Issues :(

[Sarahdawg37]

I'm on Day 21 and still have intestinal issues - bloating, gas, some diarrhea :/  I should note that I'm on metformin for PCOS which typically causes these symptoms, especially if I eat foods high in carbohydrates. But I was hoping that eating so clean and significantly less carbs through the Whole30 would at least lessen these problems.  Could it be that I need to eliminate some additional foods that might be causing this? Where do I start?

[ShannonM816]

There are people who have issues with otherwise compliant food. If you've been keeping a food diary, look back and see if there's anything brand new to you since starting Whole30, or if you're eating significantly more of something than usual -- those may be a place to start. If, for instance, you've never eaten much coconut before, other than in occasional desserts, and suddenly you're using coconut milk in your coffee every morning plus occasionally in curries or soups or other recipes, and having coconut oil a lot, and eating coconut flakes or coconut butter, that might be something to cut out for a few days and see if you notice any change. 

Other things that people have trouble with sometimes include nightshades or FODMAPS -- if you read either of those articles and you find yourself thinking, yep, I'm eating a ton of that, then you'd start by eliminating those for a while. 

If you do decide to cut something else out, you'll need to pick something -- whether it's one food like the coconut, or a whole class of foods like FODMAPS -- and eliminate it for at least several days in a row. It's not something that you can do one thing one day and a different thing the next. Give it several days and then evaluate how you're feeling -- if you're starting to feel better, keep those items out of your diet for as long as you can (30 days is good), and then reintroduce them. If after several days you're not seeing a difference, you have to decide whether to keep going with that one thing and see if it just takes longer to notice a difference (definitely possible), or whether to pick something else instead.