Tom Denham

Your gut flora adjusts to whatever you eat habitually. When you change your habits, your gut flora must adjust too, but those changes tend to be slow. Your digestion is probably disturbed right now because your gut flora is still good for your old diet, but has not grown in the proper ways to digest your new diet. That's why you need digestive enzymes and maybe probiotics. Many people can adjust without taking supplements, but for those who adjust slowly, the sensible thing to do is supplement. Many people no longer need supplements after their bodies have had enough time to adjust.

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. 

Your pre-workout routine sounds okay. The big question is what you eat after working out. The purpose of the post-workout meal is to help you recover as quickly as possible. Your body is especially ready to eat after a hard workout and what it wants is protein. This meal needs to be eaten within 15-30 minutes of the workout ending because the muscles are especially open to food at that time. This meal needs to include lean protein. Lean because fat slows digestion and you need this protein to get to your muscles quickly. Protein because that is what the muscles want. Starchy carbs are an optional part of post-workout meals. If you need to revive your energy stores, eating a starchy carb like sweet potato helps. If weight loss is more important to you than energy, you can skip the carbs in the post workout meal.
If you complete a workout and then drive home and prepare a meal so that you are eating 45-60 minutes after your workout, your muscles have closed their "special window of openness" by the time you eat. Similarly, if you eat a meal within 15-30 minutes that includes a lot of fat as comes with whole eggs or avocados, your digestion is slowed and your muscles are not fed in a timely fashion. Your recovery suffers when this happens.
I personally thought the idea of a post-workout meal was silly when I first heard Dallas and Melissa say we should eat them. I ignored the recommendation for at least a year until I was at a nutrition seminar and they explained why it was important in a way that made sense to me. I started eating a post-workout meal and noticed that I experienced less muscle soreness over the course of a week of workouts. Eating lean protein immediately after a workout really made a noticeable difference for me.
I don't bother with a post-workout meal after a yoga class or a slow 5 mile run, but if I hit the gym to do a kettlebell or barbell routine, I eat a can of tuna packed in water as soon as I finish. I used to eat sardines, but the owner of the gym told me I could not eat sardines inside the building.
I often drive home from the gym after eating a can of tuna, prepare a meal, and then eat again within about an hour. Adding more food with fat after a post-workout meal is okay as long as the lean protein has a good head start on the next meal.

The ideal post workout food is probably chicken breast and baked sweet potato. I prefer the convenience of canned fish, so I use sardines or tuna packed in water. Sardines and tuna are not as lean as chicken breast, but still lean enough to digest fast, at least the ones packed in water. I prefer the taste of fish packed in oil, but I take stuff packed in water for my post-workout meals.
 
The recommendation for a pre-workout meal is protein and fat. Probably the ideal pre-workout food is a boiled egg or two. I skip the pre-workout meal a lot, but one boiled egg or a small handful of nuts are what I eat.

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. 

You can plug alcohol in to the schedule similar to any other food with the exception that you probably don't want to have a shot of whiskey at breakfast, a glass of scotch at lunch, and a glass of wine with dinner unless your lifestyle is friendly to drinking all day. Actually, a few servings of your favorite drink should give you an idea of how your body responds.
I was impressed with how much more detailed the reintroduction advice was in It Starts With Food than anything Dallas and Melissa had written before. Now I hear you guys asking for more details. Some of that is developing though our discussions here on the forum. I am kind of saying you may need to reintroduce for several days in order to have enough servings of a food to get a reaction if you are going to have one. And then I think you need several days of clean eating before testing a new food to let your body get back to baseline. If you crowd tests too closely together, you won't get as good an idea of how strongly something is affecting you.

Not okay. Muffins made with almond flour and fruit is SWYPO. Don't do it.

Your gut flora adjusts to whatever you eat habitually. When you change your habits, your gut flora must adjust too, but those changes tend to be slow. Your digestion is probably disturbed right now because your gut flora is still good for your old diet, but has not grown in the proper ways to digest your new diet. That's why you need digestive enzymes and maybe probiotics. Many people can adjust without taking supplements, but for those who adjust slowly, the sensible thing to do is supplement. Many people no longer need supplements after their bodies have had enough time to adjust.

Your gut flora adjusts to whatever you eat habitually. When you change your habits, your gut flora must adjust too, but those changes tend to be slow. Your digestion is probably disturbed right now because your gut flora is still good for your old diet, but has not grown in the proper ways to digest your new diet. That's why you need digestive enzymes and maybe probiotics. Many people can adjust without taking supplements, but for those who adjust slowly, the sensible thing to do is supplement. Many people no longer need supplements after their bodies have had enough time to adjust.

Regarding the pickles... The Whole30 rules only list 3 additives/preservatives to avoid - carageenan, MSG or sulfites. That means the Clausen's are not ruled out, although better pickles exist. Until cucumbers came into season and I began making my own, I was buying Bubbies brand pickles and sauerkraut. They're really good.
The problem with the V8 is not so much the ingredients as that it is processed and a juice. During your Whole30, we want you to adjust to eating whole foods. And we do not encourage drinking your meals or snacks.
Note: I wrote this before the boss posted her note saying the V8 was okay, but my opinion remains the same... V8 is not a good choice.

As long as my HDL is up and my triglycerides down, I don't worry much about LDL.
 
Some of us produce a lot of cholesterol. I have been having mine monitored for 25 years or more. No diet makes mine go down to a level that makes doctors happy. The Whole30 made my HDL go up and triglycerides go down, so even though my LDL and total were considered bad, I actually was healthier.
 
Here is a collection of links to good information I have found about cholesterol...
 
http://paleononpaleo.com/paleo-high-cholesterol/
http://paleononpaleo.com/paleo-cholesterol-testing/
http://chriskresser.com/the-diet-heart-myth-cholesterol-and-saturated-fat-are-not-the-enemy
http://chriskresser.com/the-diet-heart-myth-statins-dont-save-lives-in-people-without-heart-disease
http://healthcorrelator.blogspot.com/2013/05/sudden-cholesterol-increase-it-may-be.html
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/
http://www.drbriffa.com/blog/

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. 

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

Participating in communion services is okay during a Whole30. It is kind of like taking prescribed medication. The Whole30 does not want to stand between you and your doctor or you and your God.
I took communion myself this morning. I thought about calling over the minister who was serving gluten free bread, but didn't want to make the effort. My church started offering a gluten free choice when we hired a minister with celiac disease.

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. 

You can plug alcohol in to the schedule similar to any other food with the exception that you probably don't want to have a shot of whiskey at breakfast, a glass of scotch at lunch, and a glass of wine with dinner unless your lifestyle is friendly to drinking all day. Actually, a few servings of your favorite drink should give you an idea of how your body responds.
I was impressed with how much more detailed the reintroduction advice was in It Starts With Food than anything Dallas and Melissa had written before. Now I hear you guys asking for more details. Some of that is developing though our discussions here on the forum. I am kind of saying you may need to reintroduce for several days in order to have enough servings of a food to get a reaction if you are going to have one. And then I think you need several days of clean eating before testing a new food to let your body get back to baseline. If you crowd tests too closely together, you won't get as good an idea of how strongly something is affecting you.

You can plug alcohol in to the schedule similar to any other food with the exception that you probably don't want to have a shot of whiskey at breakfast, a glass of scotch at lunch, and a glass of wine with dinner unless your lifestyle is friendly to drinking all day. Actually, a few servings of your favorite drink should give you an idea of how your body responds.
I was impressed with how much more detailed the reintroduction advice was in It Starts With Food than anything Dallas and Melissa had written before. Now I hear you guys asking for more details. Some of that is developing though our discussions here on the forum. I am kind of saying you may need to reintroduce for several days in order to have enough servings of a food to get a reaction if you are going to have one. And then I think you need several days of clean eating before testing a new food to let your body get back to baseline. If you crowd tests too closely together, you won't get as good an idea of how strongly something is affecting you.

You can plug alcohol in to the schedule similar to any other food with the exception that you probably don't want to have a shot of whiskey at breakfast, a glass of scotch at lunch, and a glass of wine with dinner unless your lifestyle is friendly to drinking all day. Actually, a few servings of your favorite drink should give you an idea of how your body responds.
I was impressed with how much more detailed the reintroduction advice was in It Starts With Food than anything Dallas and Melissa had written before. Now I hear you guys asking for more details. Some of that is developing though our discussions here on the forum. I am kind of saying you may need to reintroduce for several days in order to have enough servings of a food to get a reaction if you are going to have one. And then I think you need several days of clean eating before testing a new food to let your body get back to baseline. If you crowd tests too closely together, you won't get as good an idea of how strongly something is affecting you.

There are very few sugar free chicken broths on the market. One I found at Whole Foods was the Imagine brand, but only the Organic Free Range Chicken. Other varieties included cane sugar. I found one other sugar free brand once upon a time, but I've forgotten the name.

DRATS!  I thought I was so very smart having a banana chia seed pudding for breakfast this morning.  Full fat coconut milk, 2 T chia seeds blended with one frozen banana and some cinnamon.  Half a nectarine on top.  Not as a dessert but as a breakfast!  I don't usually have any fruit, but I just wanted something a bit different.  Then I realized I did not have a protein source so I grabbed a cold sliver of rotisserie chicken.  I came on here just to find out if this kept to the rules.  So..  No more chia seed puddings until I am done. DOUBLE DRATS!

Thank you for the reply, Tom! I'm happy is not completely unacceptable. I switched to eggs and veggies this morning and it definitely kept me full for longer.
I'll be stricter following the meal plan from now on

You can eat the Clausen's but there are better choices available. Bubbies Kosher Dills are made with

Cucumbers
Artesian Well Water
Garlic
Salt
Dill
Spices

Totally depends on what the ingredients are; how it was cured.  Read the package that it came in (ask behind the deli counter if it's bulk, they'll have the original package with ingredients).  Watch for teensy weensy print saying "Contains less than 2% blah-de-blah".  If any of the blah-de-blah's are non compliant ingredients the entire product is non compliant.

Your best bet would be to list a few days of your typical Whole30 intake including portion sizes, meal timing and fluid intake, along with workouts, stress, sleep patterns and ongoing health concerns (auto immune conditions etc...).
It's hard for us to tell you that your hairloss is attributed to your carb intake when we don't know what you've been eating.

Soy is one of the big 8 allergens - if there was soy in it it would HAVE to be listed in the ingredients.

You're good to go with these.