Starting re-intro early?

[AdriannaJean]

Hi,

 

So I know I'm about to be barraged by a bunch of "it's not whole30 unless you do it for the full 30 days". I'm well aware, so no knickers in knots please.

 

My husband and I have been paleo for almost a year and just wanted to do a whole 30 to reset a little. I just found out that I have to go on a trip and stay with (non-paleo) friends and family for a couple weeks right after our 30 days is up. However, I know that re-introductions to test for issues require eating the food on one day and then going back to strict compliance for 2 days to see what happens. So the re-introduction phase is also a fairly strict diet which I don't think I would be able to accomplish eating at other people's houses.

 

I want to test a couple things before I go to see what I can handle, what I can handle in tiny amounts, and what is totally off the table so I can be a more reasonable house-guest. We didn't have wheat for a long time before starting the whole30 so I think I will start re-introducing that first (perhaps on day 21). The other ones I think I need to check are butter, cheese, rice and soy.

 

Does anyone know the digestive recovery time on those items? I want to figure out how well I can tolerate them and if the "reset" phase is reached at different times with different items I would like to order them accordingly so I have the best chance at figuring out how my system handles them.

 

Thanks!

[Roz Griffiths]

I think the usual advice would be to leave about 2-3 days for each food group. Personally, I'd probably tell my hosts in advance that i couldn't eat gluten - it's pretty nasty stuff, & it's reasonably easy to cater for gluten-avoidance - and just test dairy, legumes & non-gluten grains.

[AdriannaJean]

Can you test dairy all at once, or do you have to do various types separately? Because handling a bit of butter or cheese is different from being able to drink a glass of milk or eat a bowl of yogurt.

[jent103]

If I recall correctly, the general recommendation in the book is for "dairy" - but I know I react differently to a latte than I do to a piece of cheddar! It's pretty common for people to have better tolerance for cheese or even yogurt (due to the fermentation) than straight up milk. If you don't know how you tolerate milk, it might be good to test them separately, but under your time constraints and if you don't have much interest in reintroing milk, you could just do cheese at first.

 

The "recovery time" will depend a lot on how you react. For me, milk doesn't agree with my stomach that well, but otherwise I didn't have any major reactions. But people who find that dairy triggers allergies or eczema or anything along those lines might need longer to recover.

[cmccoy]

Hi,

 

So I know I'm about to be barraged by a bunch of "it's not whole30 unless you do it for the full 30 days". I'm well aware, so no knickers in knots please.

 

My husband and I have been paleo for almost a year and just wanted to do a whole 30 to reset a little. I just found out that I have to go on a trip and stay with (non-paleo) friends and family for a couple weeks right after our 30 days is up. However, I know that re-introductions to test for issues require eating the food on one day and then going back to strict compliance for 2 days to see what happens. So the re-introduction phase is also a fairly strict diet which I don't think I would be able to accomplish eating at other people's houses.

 

I want to test a couple things before I go to see what I can handle, what I can handle in tiny amounts, and what is totally off the table so I can be a more reasonable house-guest. We didn't have wheat for a long time before starting the whole30 so I think I will start re-introducing that first (perhaps on day 21). The other ones I think I need to check are butter, cheese, rice and soy.

 

Does anyone know the digestive recovery time on those items? I want to figure out how well I can tolerate them and if the "reset" phase is reached at different times with different items I would like to order them accordingly so I have the best chance at figuring out how my system handles them.

 

Thanks!

I completely understand. I was planning on finishing up my Whole 30 and heading over to my brothers for Thanksgiving for a feast of everything from wine to mac n cheese to pumpkin pie.  However, I freaked out after reading about people getting sick so I stopped a couple of days ago to give myself some breathing room.  I'm now doing 80/20 trying to figure out what makes me sick and what doesn't.  So far, I've realized gluten and dairy are not my friends so I'm going to need to bypass the mac n cheese.  I'm hoping for another WHOLE 30 in January and a re into the right way.

[Physibeth]

The other thing you could do is finish up your W30, advice your hosts of your dietary restrictions, and do the best you can than come back and do a few days of W30 compliant eating (enough that you feel good again) and then do reintroductions. That is what I did when I did my W30 and my brother came in to visit for a couple of days on my day 30. I didn't want to be that person when we ate out so I just did another 4 or 5 days after he left.

[praxisproject]

Recovery time will depend greatly on your tolerances. Wheat and soy make me the sickest, dairy mostly gives me cold-like symptoms, but I can live with those if neccessary.

I'm less healthy eating rice, but it doesn't make me actively ill, unlike other grains. It's my go-to grain if I have to make a least-worst choice. Wheat/gluten makes me really sick for around two weeks and is very unpleasant on a holiday. If you do have a reaction to gluten, be aware lots of soy sauce also contains gluten.

 

Offer to cook for a few meals during your stay, then you can make things you can eat without it being a hassle.