Finished my W30... and weigh more now

[emp2014]

Ok- I know that not losing weight is not supposed to mean my Whole30 wasn't a success.  But I have to admit, that was a huge reason for starting it.  My fiance and I are generally pretty healthy (we both do triathlons, and did a 5 mile open water swim last fall) and eat relatively clean/paleo (it's sort of the 80/20 version-- no sandwiches for lunch, but brown rice now and then, for example), but I wanted to just lose that last 10 lbs or so before the wedding.  

 

I had several of the "symptoms" during my W30 (dreams of waffles covered in candy), and was 100% compliant, even when this meant making nearly everything I ate from scratch to avoid all the sugars in salsa, pasta sauce, etc.etc.  I cooked more and ate more vegetables in the past month than I ever have before in my life. 

 

My frustration is that despite this, I've really seen no benefits.  I'm actually up about 2lbs, slept pretty well to begin with, so haven't seen a change there, and after two days off my W30, am actually feeling more tiger blood-y after adding dairy and beans back in than I did before.  But notably-- I seem to have gained not only weight, but size.  I went to try on my wedding dress a week ago, and it's now too tight around the hips.  I'm so, so upset about this.  I just feel... i guess cheated? I feel like I put in the work and got nothing out of it.  Which just.. sucks. If I did nothing but run for a month, I could easily cut :30/mile off my time.  I'm used to seeing results... and so to go through this process, have the grumpiness and cravings etc. etc. and then as a result be bigger- it just makes me want to cry. 

 

If anyone has similar stories-- or more importantly, a similar experience that they were able to turn around/find a way to lose weight/size, I would love to hear them. 

[GFChris]

I'm sorry you're disappointed in your experience.

The fact that you were already 80% Paleo beforehand could be a factor here. Other than the vegetable increase, it may not have been that dramatic a change to what your body is used to consuming.

If you like, post 2-3 days worth of your typical food log, as well as your activity level, amount of daily sleep you're getting and amount of water you're drinking, and folks here may be able to provide some further insight. 

[emp2014]

I'm a creature of habit (plus the cooking just took so. long. that I tended to do it in huge batches) so I ended up eating a lot of the same things day after day.

Breakfast- a veggie/egg souffle with a little turkey sausage (veggies include spinach, zucchini, onion, sweet potato, mushrooms) and some blueberries

Lunch- dinner leftovers-- a bed of some kind of sauteed veggies (zucchini, yellow squash, broccoli, cauliflower, whatever) with either diced chicken breast, nomnom paleo's asian meatballs (with added spinach inside), shrimp, or some other protein.  Olives/avocado/whatever tended to go with it in terms of a fat.

Dinner- same.  Lots of chili, tex-mex paleo cassarole (http://popularpaleo.com/2013/11/05/paleo-tex-mex-casserole/), or other things that are veggie-heavy, and lots of zoodles. So many that I broke my first spiral cutter and had to order another one.  

 

I get 7-8 hours of sleep consistently (and did before the diet).  And I drink 64oz or more of water every day.  My workouts were more irregular on W30-- honestly, the amount of cooking really dug into my workout time.  Leaving work at 7pm and knowing you have to actually make a meal for dinner vs. grabbing something somewhere doesn't leave a lot of time to hit the gym. 

 

The only area I struggled with was snacking-- I tend to eat until I'm full (but that's usually about 4oz of protein and a bunch of veggies-- I used to weigh my food so I know what 4oz tends to look like) but then I'm hungry again 2-3 hours later.  If I don't eat a small snack (this involved a lot of boiled eggs at work to have a mini-meal snack with protein) I get super irritable.  Before I cut most grains/etc I would be nearly in tears if I didn't snack at regular intervals- not cravings (I wouldn't actually be hungry), but just blood sugar drop. But while that's better now, the need to snack to stay focused/balanced still exists. 

[GFChris]

Things look good. Doesn't look like you're eating excessive amounts. 

 

I wonder if including pre/post WO snacks would have made a difference in your desire to snack?  Did you also try tweaking your protein/veg/fat portions to see if you could create meals that satiate you for closer to 4-5 hours?

[runninglawyer88]

Could you be retaining water due to a particularly difficult workout? Are you nearing that time of the month? How's your sodium intake? Body weight fluctuates and from what you were eating it seems implausible that you gained fat during your whole 30.