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Hello! I completed my first Whole 30 last week and decided to very slowly try reintroducing foods. I love love love sugar, did I tell you I love sugar? I am 100% an addict. I believe the 30 days may be the longest I have ever gone without a sugary treat or any added sugar to foods. I decided after the 30 days I would eat some Starburst jelly beans (MY FAV!!!), I was very disappointed when I realized they weren't as mouth watering as they were before Whole 30. WOOHOO! Guess what? I ate them anyway, not as many as I would have 2 months ago - only about a 1/2 a cup. This was last Friday evening. I woke up the next morning feeling fine, ate a high protein breakfast, went for a pedicure, then went to a restaurant with a friend where I could not eat anything but fruit. I also had a Lara bar. We were sitting there chatting and I starting feel terribly anxious, nauseous, jittery and dizzy. My friend drove me home and I bounced back in about 4+ hours, but it was very unexpected. Fast forward to last night, I ate Cadbury chocolate eggs - the small ones. I had a one serving small bag. Again, not flavorful and not worth it. I woke up this morning feeling fine, by noon I was super anxious, feeling like I had taken No-Doze (those pills we used to take to help us stay up to study), my mind was racing, I could not chill out. I have anxiety and I have panic attacks. I have been on anti-depressants for 25 years. The Whole 30 has cleared the cob webs out of my head and helped with my daily anxiety. Was this a sugar side effect? Has anyone else ever experienced this? Thank you!!!

Hello! I am looking for support an accountability as I rashly decide to do a whole30. I did one 6 years ago and it was bliss, and I haven't been able to replicate the success of my initial round! I'm going through a rough patch as a mom of 4 wild hyper boys. Most days I just do not want to do my life. I remember in my first whole30 i felt so mentally fantastic, I thought maybe I should try it again. My husband thinks I should just cut out flour and alcohol. I guess I better get clear on how deep i'm going to go in this before I start!

So... is anyone else dealing with brain fog? I seriously feel like I am losing my mind. It makes everything so much harder! I don't know if it is from my drastic change in food, the fact that I have an 11-month-old that doesn't sleep through the night, or a combo of both... and am still just so tired.

Hey everyone, it´s the first time I am here and I am so excited for having this forum for support on my whole30 experience. I am on day 7 and the truth is that it´s been feeling a little lonely. Well, I´d like to ask you for suggestions with the following issue: The thing is, I come from binge eating. This new year 2019 I am letting go of disordered eating of any kind, and I really really really want to change my relationship to food into a healthy, loving and peaceful one, and doing whole30 is the first step of my plan towards achieving that resolution. It has been great so far, and I feel that if I keep doing this till I completely get used to it so much is gonna change. I am making a menu, a mealplan every week and I have promised myself that I will keep making weekly mealplans and sticking to them for the rest of the year. This is challenging my patience, discipline, boredom feeling and also my impulses and anxiety. I wanna get in control of my choices 100%. So I would like to ask you for advice or any suggestions you may have for me to stop cooking and eating with anxiety. Today I snacked and it´s something I don´t wanna do cause binge eating is all about "let me have a little bit of this, a little bit of that". I simply wanna stick to what I plan. Learn to wait for food. Learn to cook patiently, even enjoying it. For example, today I went grocery shopping for the next week, which took me around 3 hours. I bought some grapes and felt like having some to taste their sweetness on the way home. By the time I got home I was moody and it had already been 5 hours since I had had breakfast, and still had to cook my lunch. Pfff, and I needed to tidy up all the groceries before. So I started doing that and ended up eating some hazelnuts I had bought for a snack for some other day I really needed them, I haven´t contained myself. And I knew I was gonna eat lunch soon but I still had to cook it. So while eating those things I was standing, and cooking fast and the kitchen was still kinda messy. I didn´t take it with peace and calm and that made me feel messy too. By the time I got to eat I found myself devouring my lunch, maybe overeating a little bit without feeling myself too much and in a hurry. So do you know any ways in which I can make my eating experience a peaceful, slow and loving one in my relatinship with food? Thank you so much

D1R2 Hello my name is Elissa ! I completed my first whole 30 in January of 2016 and I had never felt or looked better. I stayed fairly on track most of 2016. After some life changes and challenges in 2017 my eating habits went downhill. I currently battling anxiety and depression and have never weighed more than I do today. I am bloated, uncomfortable and my face and body feels all over swollen. I cannot remember the last time I slept through the night without waking up. I have decided to commit to at least 30 days of the whole 30 program because I want to feel good again. My appearance and how I feel as resulted in a loss of confidence and I am striving to regain that confidence. I am hopeful that by posting in the forum I will gain support from other whole 30 participants and I will stay motived and committed to the program. If any of you are willing or would like to help me stay focused on the journey I would really appreciate it. During my first whole 30 I belonged to a facebook group. We posted daily and it really helped me stay on track and be accountable for my action.

Hi everyone. So I've been trying to start a Whole30 for a while now for one reason and one reason only: to conquer my sugar dragon. My goal is to quit sugar for long-term. I am a nutrition major and I know how incredibly awful sugar is for your body, so I want to make it a rare occasion only sort of thing. However, I'm finding it very difficult to do a fully compliant Whole30. Cutting sugar out of my diet is hard enough and I'm feeling very overwhelmed trying to do a complete Whole30 at the same time. It's giving me major anxiety if I'm being honest. On top of this, I am also currently going through some major life changes, so I have a lot on my plate already. My question is: should I just focus on cutting out sugar for right now, wait until my life settles down a little bit, and then do a Whole30?

I've searched the forum for "anxiety/depression" discussions but am hoping there are some additional ,compelling stories out there that credit Whole30 directly as a key source of healing. I have a young nephew with diagnosed and severe sleep apnea combined with anxiety disorder. He turned to alcohol (and food) to stabilize his anxiety until drinking became THE issue and he stopped 4 months ago, which immediately made his anxiety worse. In lieu of alcohol, food's now his go-to mechanism for calming himself down, (no prescribed meds have worked). Quite the full plate for 26 year-old. I'd like to point him to some food-related success stories to bolster the case that maybe Whole30 would be a good way to identify any sensitivities that are compounding his anxiety issues, and maybe other conditions as well. It's been a tough sell so far—food, sugar mainly, seems like the last bastian of comfort for him, so he's reluctant to consider doing without it. I get it, I'm a fellow sugar/carb addict, on Day 10 of my own first Whole30, but a long time "foodie" and Paleo cheerleader. This is a brilliant, gentle, funny, talented kid whose life is being stolen by daily struggles with what could be his own biochemistry. If that is the case, I'm sure Whole30 could have a dramatic impact. I've evangelized all I can, hoping some of you have some personal and/or relevant anecdotal experience I can share with him.

Hi everyone! I’m just looking for a little advice and any one who may be able to weigh in on what I’m going through! Let me preface this post by letting you know that I’m in my 20’s and I’ve never had any hormonal imbalances or issues with my mental health before in my life. Last year I started using birth control pills and about 6 months in I started feeling awful. I started to experience anxiety and depression, which I’ve never felt in my life. Because this was the only thing that had changed in my life over the last 6 months, I knew it must be the pills. I decided to stop in October and thought I might be in the clear. However, in November my body went nuts. I started experiencing panic attacks every day, very extreme depression, anxiety, constant nausea, shaking, heart palpitations, and rapid weight loss. I found out that some women experience these extreme side effects as their bodies are trying to learn how to work once they’ve stopped taking birth control. I had no idea! It has now been about five months since I stopped taking birth control and I’m definitely better than I was, but not completely healed. I am mostly left with anxiety, days where I just feel “off” or sad, and some mood swings. I see a naturopath and she suggested that I start Whole30. I’ve already done Whole30 twice before and have enjoyed it, but never have seen any difference in how I feel on it. However, this was before I experienced any of these hormonal/mental issues. I’m wondering if anyone out there has every been through anything similar or if anyone has any advice for me and how Whole30 could help me get back to my normal! Any tips on specific foods I should eat or avoid are welcome!

Hi all! This is my first post on the forum. I am 10 days into my W30. I was a little nervous coming in as I am recently pescatarian (after about 10 years as a vegetarian, and several of those spent as vegan). I have done some elimination diets in the past but have always struggled with feeling like my body was lacking or missing something. I have quite a few gut issues as well as auto immune-related conditions (anxiety, asthma, heartburn, ibs, graves disease *in remission* to name a few)...I have often felt like a lot of my health issues were directly related to my gut health as every other aspect is 100% unremarkable on paper. According to labs and tests I am one of the healthiest women alive, but inside I feel like I am dying / falling apart. It was upon my acupuncturist's recommendation that I give the Whole 30 a try. As an aside I have been gluten free for coming up on 4 years now, I went GF in an attempt to help my thyroid and the switch was the reason that my levels normalized and have been normal for about 3 years now! With that said, when I switched to GF I started ironically (or maybe not so ironic) eating a TON more carbs (mostly in the form of brown rice and sugar in processed foods.) My days before Whole 30 included shrimp, hummus, oats, gluten free bread, amys tv dinners, fruit and peanut butter - I also probably had pizza about once a week. I considered myself to eat "fairly healthy" but in retrospect it probably was not a very balanced diet with very little protein. The first week I dealt with a LOT of spaciness, often feeling like I'm in a dream, not really here and VERY anxious. I was able to push through a little bit of this but mildly exerting myself. Starting around day 3 I started experiencing bouts of light headedness, one day, starting to grey out and seriously thinking I was going to faint. I have been feeling like I am eating enough - and not really getting very hungry between meals - the only times I have snacked have been when I am having intense afternoon slumps. I normally exercise 3-4 days a week but have only worked out once since starting this because I just don't have the energy and feel so sick and light-headed when I have tried to exert myself much. By Day 5 or 6, the spaciness and brain fog had lifted slightly but then I started getting horrible crashes in the afternoon between about 2 PM and 7 PM. On a few of these days I have had some increased energy starting around 8 or 9 PM and lasting through until bedtime. I feel pretty relaxed at bedtime but then have woken with horrible anxiety or starts for most of the nights I have been on the W30. My blood pressure and blood sugar have remained normal/stable although today when I was feeling particularly tired and light-headed, I took it and it was 110/61 which is the lowest its been in a while. I mostly just wanted to share my experience as well as the food I have been eating to see if I am on track and need to eat more and/or different types of foods to maintain energy and mood. I am not sure at this point what is W30 and what is anxiety but I have been feeling pretty damn crappy, weak, tired, anxious and light headed for a week now. The most frustrating part is that I actually felt way better before I started doing this but am trying to stick it out until the end as I really want to see what good this could do my body, specifically my gut health. I just don't want to do it at the cost of hurting my health more. As a pescatarian I am pretty maxed out on eggs and fish and ways to get creative. I don't know if anyone else has concerns about mercury but eating seafood every single day and sometimes twice a day does make me a little nervous. Since my only sources of protein are really nuts, fish and eggs, I burn out pretty quickly. Any feedback and/or recommendations are greatly appreciated. Thank you! Monday: Breakfast - 2 scrambled eggs with guacamole and 1 1/2 c coconut chia pudding with sautéed bananas and pureed almond meal Snack - Cherry Pie Lara Bar Lunch - shrimp curry (coconut milk, spices and coconut amigos as sauce) - with red onion, zucchini, red bell pepper, carrots and portabella as veggies Snack - Electrolyte "smoothie" - 1 c kale, 1 banana and 1 c cashew malk Dinner - blistered shishito peppers cooked in olive oil with lime and basil, 2 hard boiled egg whites, spinach and kale salad with small amounts egg yellow and white, celery, raw shisito peppers with oil and vinegar dressing Tuesday: Breakfast - 2 scrambled eggs, 1/2 c hashbowns, 1/2 avocado, 4 or 5 cherry tomatoes and 1/2 banana Lunch - salmon and avocado salad with lemon, green onions, tomatoes, parsley & baked sweet potato "fries" Snack - Electrolyte "smoothie" - 1 c kale, 1 banana and 1 c cashew malk Dinner - egg quiche (piece about 5"l x 4"w) with white onions, mushrooms, spinach, pumpkin & crab dip (crab, w30 approved mayo, red peppers, jalapeños, green onions) with some plantains (fried in coconut oil) Snack - 2 coconut rolled dates with 1 tsp each almond butter Wednesday: Breakfast - leftover egg quiche (piece about 5"l x 4"w), 1/2 avocado, 1/2 banana Lunch - leftover egg quiche (piece about 5"l x 4"w), 1 medium sized tomato, handful macadamia nuts, handful cherries Post-Workout Snack - 3/4 sweet potato with 2 tablespoons almond butter and cinnamon Dinner - We are going to make grilled shrimp with butternut squash noodles, cashew cream sauce and sautéed spinach or zucchini)