Jump to content

Anyone else have trouble with the sugar in sweet potatoes?


elmtree

Recommended Posts

Is anyone else unable to handle the sugar in sweet potatoes?  Are white potatoes and white rice really so toxic?  It's day 28 of my second W30, and I'm not feeling as good as I'd hoped.  I feel chubby and my rosacea has flared up badly and there are big puffy red circles under my eyes.  Also, I'm weepy and I keep thinking about eating a gluten-free cupcake, or maybe ten, when this is over. 

 

Before I started, I hadn't had a single gram of sugar in any form in about six months, including fruit or sweet potatoes, or anything that even tasted remotely sweet. There is no question that I'd had a sugar addiction for years- i.e. compusive daily binges on anything sweet.  A pint of ice cream for dinner, etc.  After three weeks off sugar, my mood stabilized and brightened, my skin became wonderfully soft, the circles under my eyes that had been there since I was 15 suddenly shrank- it was a miracle.  The cravings stopped completely after about three days, and I would look at candy like it was flowers- pretty, but not edible.  My first time off sugar was over a year ago, and three or four week-long relapses and fresh detoxes made it very clear that all these things are absolutely sugar-related.

 

So the problem with the W30 is that I really need to eat starch.  Many years of experiments have taught me this (FWIW I'm an active 35 year old female, 5'4", 130lbs).  Pre-W30 I was close to Paleo, and all I really gave up was butter and cream and cheese (all grass-fed), and of course white potatoes and rice.  On my first W30 in January I had also been off sugar for a while, and I got my starch from tons of carrots, parsnips, chestnuts, macadamias and cashews (intolerance to most other nuts and to coconuts).  I lost about 8 pounds that time (which I then gained back after restarting dairy).  I was too scared to eat sweet potatoes that time because of the sugar, but I really can't afford to live on macademias, and I knew I wasn't supposed to. 

 

So this time I've eaten almost an entire sweet potato every day, and I think it's killing me.  I feel like a big W30 failure, because I also kept finding myself overeating cashew butter this month.  I did eat a ton of proper food (at least a pound of grass-fed beef a day or the equivalent in other meats, plus literally several pounds of vegetables (a whole head of broccoli, plus a whole red pepper, a head of red leaf, etc.), and plenty of liver and bone marrow and bone broth, so I wasn't malnourished. 

 

I want to try this again, without eating sweet potatoes, and without eating nuts.  Would I be ruining the whole point of a W30 if I did it again but included white potatoes?  All I keep reading about sweet potatoes is that they're the greatest food ever and they don't raise blood sugar and the sugar in them is somehow magically counteracted by the fiber.  This just doesn't seem to be my experience with them. 

 

Wow, I didn't mean to write such a long rant!  If anyone did manage to read the whole thing, tell me, am I crazy?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Could you post a few days worth of food? There could be other issues causing your puffiness and rosacea...

Nuts are a fat source, not a carbohydrate - many people have digestive issues with nuts, and overeating cashew butter could be causing you problems. It's very easy to do a whole 30 without nuts- I only had nuts twice in 60 days, when I used almond butter in a sauce. I could have used an alternative easily if I didn't want to eat nuts..

Maybe you do have an issue with sweet potato - there are plenty of other vegies you can eat for starchy carbohydrates. Carrots, parsnips, beetroots, pumpkin, butternut squash etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're right- I'm not particularly pleased with myself about the cashew butter, and I'd like to do another W30 without nuts.  Most days I've been eating a pound of grassfed ground chuck with a whole red pepper, a massive salad with lettuce, cucumber, mushrooms, and carrots with olive oil and vinegar, and another serving of some kind of meat, like a chicken leg or a fish filet or some beef liver.  I throw in other vegetables like brocolli sometimes, plus of course all that cashew butter and sweet potatoes...

 

I feel like I need a fructose-free starch source, which carrots and squash are not.  After months off all fructose/sugar, my taste buds adjusted so that carrots were too sweet and black coffee tasted of chocolate.  I had to start leaving carrots out of chicken soup, because they made the broth taste like syrup.  This month of sweet potatoes reversed that.

 

If I'm not wrong, the major reason white potatoes are excluded from the W30 is to get people as far away from fries and potato chips as possible.  I gave up the SAD years ago and happily eat liver for breakfast and ground beef with a spoon, so I'm not worried about eating fries or trying to paleo-ify the SAD. 

 

My impulse is to do another W30 with zero fructose, no nuts, but with white potatoes.  (I am aware that it's not a proper W30 with the potatoes, but I guess I'm not in it for the glory.)  Looking at my food, the only other suspect thing in my diet is that I've been eating an entire red pepper every day.  Maybe I shouldn't have nightshades?  Tomatoes sometimes give me stomachaches so I don't eat them, but red peppers don't seem to, nor do white potatoes.  It seems like there's an emphasis on not eating "too many" carbs on paleo or W30, so I feel sort of like a failure for not being able to live on just meat and the carbs in zucchini or whatever, so maybe something is wrong if I have this need for starch? 

 

Thanks for helping me troubleshoot!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My impulse is to do another W30 with zero fructose, no nuts, but with white potatoes.  (I am aware that it's not a proper W30 with the potatoes, but I guess I'm not in it for the glory.)  Looking at my food, the only other suspect thing in my diet is that I've been eating an entire red pepper every day.  Maybe I shouldn't have nightshades?  Tomatoes sometimes give me stomachaches so I don't eat them, but red peppers don't seem to, nor do white potatoes.  It seems like there's an emphasis on not eating "too many" carbs on paleo or W30, so I feel sort of like a failure for not being able to live on just meat and the carbs in zucchini or whatever, so maybe something is wrong if I have this need for starch? 

 

 

This sounds like a great example of riding your own bike - something we want folks to do!  If you want to try using the Whole30 guidelines plus white potatoes are your regular lifestyle for awhile, go for it! No one's going to kick you off the forum or scold you :)  Just make sure you note that you're not strict Whole30 when you post and you're golden! It sounds like a worthwhile experiment for you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just another note - from what I understand the Whole30 is about re-setting your body to reduce inflammation and eliminate toxins. If you're having a reaction to an approved food that doesn't mean you HAVE to eat it. It's about listening to your body.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I only excluded white potatoes for my first couple of whole30s.. I also have problems with starch..... I mainly use squash for my starch.... Grilled, boiled or in soup.

Nuts inflame my skin as does coffee and coconut. I never added grains back in... Even rice no longer appeals.

Note that if you are having an issue with nightshades, white potatoes are nightshades.

Good luck in figuring it all out

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...