Weight Gain & Allergies are worse after whole30

[Julie Smyth]

Hi All, I convinced my friend who has bad allergies to try out the whole30. She was very strict throughout (didn't even have cake on her bday!!). She has just emailed me to say "Hey- i finished the whole30 yesterday and weighed myself today....... i put on weight, around 2kg. safe to say I'm terribly disappointed. I didn't even think about cheating- even on my birthday!! 😞 I'm sure it has something to do with my portion control and the fact I did so much less exercise, but still I'm very disappointed...... Maybe i have a thyroid condition or something......" She also mentioned that her allergies have gotten worse from doing the program.

Does anyone have any ideas on why this might be happening to her?

Any input would be great, thanks in advance.

Mel

[missmary]

Mel- It's going to be pretty hard to guess without a lot more information. Some possibilities:

1. Portions were way off for some things (like nuts or fruit), or everything...this could be eating too much or too little.

2. This plan introduced some food that your friend is sensitive to (coconut? nuts?), causing increased inflammation (this would appear to be weight gain, with higher numbers on the scale, but is actually water retention)

3. Your friend might have already been slightly underweight when she started. Although lots of people (ladies particularly) want to weigh less than is healthy for them, it's pretty hard to get there on the whole30 plan. Whole30 is about health.

Based on the allergy comment, I'm going to guess #2? More info on a "typical day" worth of food on the whole30 (along with any exercise and lifestyle info) + more specifics on the allergy symptoms would be needed to get more in depth.

[Renee Lee]

Also, the conventional reason for allergies getting worth over the last month is that the trees are throwing up more pollen now.