Tom Denham

What you have been doing is technically acceptable, but the exact opposite of what we encourage you to eat.

Here is the relevant rule: Fruit juice as a sweetener. Some products or recipes will include fruit as a sweetener, which is fine for the purposes of the Whole30. (We have to draw the line somewhere.)If you drink the juice, you are not using it as a sweetener. You would be violating the Whole30 rules. Don't do it.

Technically this product is not non-compliant, but it is far from what we want you consuming during a Whole30. By combining coconut cream and monk fruit extract with almond milk, this is sweet. We want you eating whole foods or as close to whole foods as possible and this is a processed product that is sweet. Just don't go there. This is too much like conventional foods and if you consume conventional foods during your Whole30, your results will be lame.

I order Solgar B-12 and Now Foods D3 from Amazon.com. The D3 includes glycerin, but I don't care about that in a supplement.

I've never heard of anything like this during a Whole30 before. For that matter, I've never heard of anything like this at any time.

Not stepping on the scale is not a suggestion. It is a rule. Something that we have found to be important through experience with 1000s of people. You were not an exception. You short-changed yourself by weighing. You let the scale guide your behavior and you did not learn important lessons that you still need to learn. I am glad that you had a positive experience over all, but frustrated that you did not fully engage with the Whole30 process.

Your eating two sweet potatoes per day eliminates the likelihood that you are feeling increased anxiety/depression as a result of your diet. People who go low carb and avoid eating starchy veggies are at risk, but two sweet potatoes per day should be enough to keep that aspect of things well supplied. Your meals sound good. I don't know what is going on. Are you eating plenty of food so that you are not hungry for more than a short-time before meals? Are you drinking plenty of water? We recommend 1/2 ounce of water per pound of body weight per day. I don't know why being low in these regards might make you anxious or depressed, but people do often fail to eat and drink enough.

You cannot use ANY of that cooking spray while doing a Whole30. You can use coconut oil, ghee, or EVOO all the time with excellent benefit. EVOO is not a good oil for high heat, but I have used it for that a little.

Let me elaborate.. a syrup made from dates is not acceptable during a Whole30 and a crappy idea at any time because sweetening your food with such a product erodes health. It does not make anything better. Making a puree with dates in order to sweeten your food is maybe 10 percent more acceptable than using a date syrup. You know where 10 percent better leaves you? Ninety percent away from where you belong if you want to be healthy. The person behind the dessert recipes thinks eating a frozen date helped her during her Whole30. This is not true. Feeding a sugar craving keeps the craving healthy and strong. The Whole30 approach to sugar cravings is to starve them unmercifully until they die. There is no room to negotiate with a sugar craving. They are cunning and powerful. Trying to placate a craving with just a little something has ended many Whole30s prematurely. Don't listen to the soft crowd. Listen to the old timers. Go cold turkey regarding sweetness. Let me explain where it really is okay to use something to sweeten your food... when you are making pickles. Here is a good recipe for making quick, refrigerator pickles... Submerge your sliced cucumbers in a mixture of half apple cider vinegar and half apple juice plus spices like salt, garlic, peppercorns, etc and let soak for 12-24 hours. Making pickles is an acceptable time to use a sweetener during a Whole30. Seriously.

The burger is a great choice. The fries, however, are not okay. The rules of the Whole30 specifically call out French fries as a food that is not okay. These are made with sweet potatoes, but they are still French fries. In another Whole30 article where we say it is okay to eat white potatoes, we clarify that you can bake or fry fries at home, but no commercially prepared fries are acceptable during a Whole30.

This looks like a fine product.

According to the template, your protein portion should provide as much meat as the area of the palm of your hand and you can eat as much as two servings of that size. Most chicken thighs would not match the size of the palm of my hand. I would need to eat 2 or 3 chicken thighs to get enough protein. Whether your chicken thigh will be enough depends upon the size of your hands and how hungry you are. Your vegetable medley sounds good as long as you cook it with some fat to boost the taste and ability to keep you satisfied. The gold standard post-workout protein is chicken breast. Most people can happily eat chicken breast cold. I frequently eat canned tuna as a post-workout protein because it is easy to take on the go. I actually carry my own can opener with me! Tuna packed in water is sufficiently lean to be a post-workout protein.

Requiring a stimulant to start your day is a good sign that your hormonal rhythms are out of whack and/or you are not getting enough sleep. You don't need a Whole30-compliant substitute. You need a change in your lifestyle. Eating early in your day is one of the most important things you can do to get your hormonal rhythms where they need to be. It is very challenging for some people - sounds like you - but very important. Your body carries enough energy stored as fat to run multiple marathon races even when you are lean. You don't require energy from food to perform well in the morning. The issue is accessing that energy. The Whole30 facilitates becoming fat-adapted so that you can draw on fat stores to zip through an hour of spinning. Unfortunately, the adaptation process takes several weeks and you will feel tired and sluggish and perform below your usual standards until you reach the other side. It is worth the pain. You can ease the pain a little by eating starchy veggies at several meals per day, but nothing will stop it. Eating pre-workout is a signal to the body to get ready for exercise. I often don't eat pre-workout simply because I don't notice it making a difference. When I do, like you, I eat a few nuts. Our bodies get maximum benefit from lean protein for muscle recover when eating within 15-30 minutes of finishing a workout. Protein still helps if you delay longer, but recovery is less robust. We recommend lean protein and a starchy carb to replenish muscle glycogen as a post-workout meal. Do the best you can to eat as soon as you can. Avoid fat after a workout because it slows digestion which consequently slows protein getting to your muscles. I eat canned tuna or sardines as post-workout meal because that is convenient. You might need to cook chicken breasts and eat a few pieces cold as your post-workout meal. That would be light on your stomach. Chicken and cold baked sweet potato is pretty mild. Then eat whatever you want for breakfast when you are ready. http://whole30.com/downloads/whole30-meal-planning.pdf

I've never found "ricing" cauliflower to be worth the effort and I've been eating Whole30-style almost 5 years. If you don't like something, move on to the next thing. You will never run out of new things to try even if you never eat anything like cauliflower rice.

The reason we ask you to eat breakfast within an hour of waking in the morning is that doing so is critically important to getting your hormones into their proper rhythm. Eating an early breakfast helps you to sleep at night because it helps to raise cortisol levels early in the day, so that they are ready to decline late in the day as they should. Getting your hormones on a good rhythm helps enormously with shedding unneeded fat. So whether you feel like eating or not, it is really important that you work on getting your first meal in early and not delay it until later. You may not be able to consume a full meal immediately, but do what you can and work up to it. Eating two meals per day works against getting your hormonal rhythms where they need to be. It is important to eat 3 meals per day for at least one year so that your body can establish good rhythms and you can become familiar what it is like to live this way before you experiment with other ways of doing things that are known to be problematic. Dark, leafy greens are as close to greatness as any one food gets. I am convinced that no one dislikes eating greens. What they dislike is the crappy tasting stuff many people cook. I try to eat dark, leafy greens at least once per day. In some seasons I eat them twice per day. This is easy for me because I have learned to cook them in ways that I really like. I would not ask you to eat something that you hate, but if you hate greens, you need to learn new ways to prepare them.