namtrag Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 So my stepson's wedding was this weekend...Friday through Sunday, I ate whatever I wanted. Partially because I am weak, and partially because I wanted to see what happened. Here is a list of what I ate over the weekend, in no particular order, and from memory, so there could be some things I left out: Fresh made donuts (3), with various toppings, including peanut butter frosting and peanuts. Pork BBQ, cole slaw, baked beans, cheesy potato casserole at the wedding. Trail mix with m&m's, peanuts, and pretzels, and raisins Half and half and heavy cream in my coffee Wedding cake Cheese cubes Pizza with lots of meat toppings and cheese Party mix with bbq corn chips, tortilla chips, pretzels, and fried cheese crunchies. Trader Joe's coffee ice cream. What I ate little or none of: I ate only 3 eggs the entire time, and no tree nuts. What I learned positive: much better bowel movements. No lower stomach cramping, no loose stools, no diarrhea. I had been suffering this for the last 3 weeks or so eating almost 100% compliant (I am way past the 30 days, which I ate perfectly on). What I learned negative: return of heartburn, particularly from pizza and the wedding dinner. A little tiredness. That's it. It's almost suckered me into thinking I should go back to eating the old way...but then I came to my senses. lol It is almost bad to my way of thinking that I didn't have a worse time of it, as if I have been rewarded for eating crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peg541 Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Funny your positives are much better than your negatives. Are you willing to start again? Do you think they will quiet down? I had a lot of stomach pain the first week and I cut out raw veggies. Even salads for a while. I get plenty of cooked veggies. I guess I'm too old for all those raw veggies. I'm really fine now. No GI problems at all. I am going to a wedding in NYC this week so eating for the 5 days will be different. I'm planning to do my best but I'll just start over once I get near my food again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoJo09 Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 Did you do a proper reintroduction after your Whole 30 so you can narrow down exactly what it was causing your negative symptoms? Ie. was it the cheese, the processed meat, or the wheat base in the pizza that caused the issues? Or maybe all 3 at once causes a perfect storm of indigestion . Good on you for not falling down that rabbit hole of thinking just because it didn't kill you it must be ok for you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
namtrag Posted April 29, 2014 Author Share Posted April 29, 2014 Funny your positives are much better than your negatives. Are you willing to start again? Do you think they will quiet down? I had a lot of stomach pain the first week and I cut out raw veggies. Even salads for a while. I get plenty of cooked veggies. I guess I'm too old for all those raw veggies. I'm really fine now. No GI problems at all. I am going to a wedding in NYC this week so eating for the 5 days will be different. I'm planning to do my best but I'll just start over once I get near my food again. Did you do a proper reintroduction after your Whole 30 so you can narrow down exactly what it was causing your negative symptoms? Ie. was it the cheese, the processed meat, or the wheat base in the pizza that caused the issues? Or maybe all 3 at once causes a perfect storm of indigestion . Good on you for not falling down that rabbit hole of thinking just because it didn't kill you it must be ok for you! I did the Whole30 for 30 days, and then another week or so...I tried adding dairy back around 40 days in, and had diarrhea and lower abdomen cramps, and assumed it was the dairy. I never tried grain or legumes until the wedding weekend. Even though I only tried dairy one day, I continued having the weird cramps, feeling like I had to go to the bathroom, but nothing would happen. When I did go, it was loose, or diarrhea. This was happening many of the days (we are about 60 days in now). This made me start thinking it was not dairy, but instead one of the compliant things I have been eating. I have narrowed it down to almonds, I think. The two possibilities are almonds and eggs. I eat a lot of eggs (4 a day on average), but I would think if they were the problem, the symptoms would hit in the morning after I eat, but they hit in the evening, mostly 2-3 hours after I eat a handful of almonds or almond butter. This past weekend, I had zero tree nuts, and no cramping. I just think it's ironic that eating what I am supposed to eat is causing me the problem, but my only concern cutting tree nuts out is that I will have no source of fat other than cooking in coconut oil or ghee, or eating avocados. I am unsure what caused the heartburn, but I did not suffer much from the doughnuts or the snack mix. I have no intention of adding grains back anyway, but it would be nice to know exactly what they do, so I may do a grain reintroduction day specifically to find out. I know back in my grain days, I would get some of my worst heartburn when I ate oatmeal, of all things!!! I suffered almost no heartburn on the Whole30 program, and before that, I suffered it daily at least once! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Physibeth Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 Some thoughts. Grains and sugars can most certainly be the cause of your heartburn. After a year of eating mostly paleo I only get heartburn now if I eat too much of one or the other (or both). I've also been trying to track down some similar bowel issues (though not quite as severe). My thought is that I might be too low carb for my body sometimes because eating non-gluten grains usually makes a big change. It is worth experimenting. This is the beauty of life post-W30. Once you have done the work to clean everything up you can be your own experiment and find out what truly works for you. It might be worth getting yourself to a place where you feel as good as you did at the end of your W30 and do a proper grain reintroduction. Might also be worth experimenting with less eggs and almonds over a longer length of time and see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
namtrag Posted April 29, 2014 Author Share Posted April 29, 2014 I love eggs so much, plus they fit our budget...where else can you get 2 meals for 2 people for $4? If I have to give them up, or cut back on them, I am not sure what we are going to do to replace them in the breakfasts...I eat 4 every morning, and then we make dinner one night a week with eggs, so I am eating 32 per week. It's a wonder I haven't turned into a chicken! I am pretty certain the stomach crampiness and loose stools are being caused by nuts because I haven't had the issue since Thursday, the last time I ate almonds. Since then, even while eating like crap, I have managed to avoid tree nuts 100%. I have had eggs 3 times since Thursday with no issue (knock on wood). But yeah, it's really good to be able to alternate things and see what they do. I should have been more scientific this time, but I can still do it. I have been back pure Whole30 yesterday and today, and will do it for a few more days before I try wheat, beans or dairy again. Thanks for all the help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LisaLulu Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 I've become aware of issues with compliant foods within my whole 30. Almonds do NOT agree with me at all and other nuts aren't much better. Coconut oil has a limit before it makes me nauseous and a lot of starch makes me REALLY crampy/bloated/gassy (a whole sweet potato= no, 1/2 = fine). It's good to fine tune all these things within it with general gut health before I reintroduce all the others I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
namtrag Posted May 1, 2014 Author Share Posted May 1, 2014 I am at a loss...I had zero nuts yesterday and still got the stomach pain. I have noticed it always seems to happen in the evening around 6 or so. My wife is also having the issue starting to occur (for the past week or so). She is getting discouraged enough to chuck it and start eating like we used to. I have to admit, it's tempting. Heartburn is a minor issue compared to bowel pain, plus I can take something for heartburn. It sucks that we did the Whole 30 fine, lost weight, felt better, and were psyched to eat like this forever, and now we are being punished for it. I am so discouraged. The only thing we are eating that might be an issue is eggs, but why don't we have the pain constantly, or during the day after eating the eggs? Typically we have eggs for breakfast at 6 am, could it really take 12 hours for the bowel pain to start? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Physibeth Posted May 1, 2014 Share Posted May 1, 2014 I am at a loss...I had zero nuts yesterday and still got the stomach pain. I have noticed it always seems to happen in the evening around 6 or so. My wife is also having the issue starting to occur (for the past week or so). She is getting discouraged enough to chuck it and start eating like we used to. I have to admit, it's tempting. Heartburn is a minor issue compared to bowel pain, plus I can take something for heartburn. It sucks that we did the Whole 30 fine, lost weight, felt better, and were psyched to eat like this forever, and now we are being punished for it. I am so discouraged. The only thing we are eating that might be an issue is eggs, but why don't we have the pain constantly, or during the day after eating the eggs? Typically we have eggs for breakfast at 6 am, could it really take 12 hours for the bowel pain to start? Unfortunately yes it could. It is worth it I think to go back to exactly the way you were eating while you were feeling good for a while and then when you feel good again try adding one suspect thing at a time, starting with eggs. If you find eggs are the culprit there are a couple of other experiments. Some people are sensitive to just the whites and can handle the yolks so that is worth trying. Some people are actually sensitive to soy enough that if they chickens were fed soy (most chickens) they react. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators LadyM Posted May 1, 2014 Moderators Share Posted May 1, 2014 From what I've read, you can actually develop a sensitivity to a food by eating it too frequently and consistently, and eggs are on many folks' list of intolerable foods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pjena Posted May 1, 2014 Share Posted May 1, 2014 What Bethany said. Go back to eating how you ate when you felt good. And then give it some time. You may have picked up a bug or something. In the past year, I have spent many a week overthinking, overanalyzing, stressing, etc about my diet. Random weeks of stomach aches happened a few times. I gave up coffee. I gave up eggs. I gave up kale. I measured the ph of my kombucha. Etc. Etc. But none of the elminations made a difference and the random stomach ache went away on its own each time. And I'm pretty much eating now exactly what I ate on W30 (never mind the Easter candy... that is a different subject). Not to say you might not have a new sensitivity, but don't assume that is the case. Just go back to what you were doing that worked and wait it out. If it doesn't get better in a week or two, then try something new. Good luck! btw - I also agree with M, so if just going back to your W30 eating doesn't work, cutting out eggs for a bit is probably worth a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jennor Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 Go to the doctor. Bowel pain is not always related to what you eat. I won't hurt to have it checked out. It could be something you don't want to ignore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
namtrag Posted May 6, 2014 Author Share Posted May 6, 2014 I may have been too vague, but to let you guys know, when I was doing strict Whole30, I was eating anywhere from 4-6 eggs per day, every day. Most days I was eating cashews as well. Not a single stomach ache the entire 30 days. I am afraid I have built up a sensitivity to one of those two items. Anyway, I did a pretty strenuous backpacking trip this weekend, eating as paleo as possible, but not always. I had no eggs, but I did have trail mix and larabars. Zero stomach aches. Not sure if it was because my body was burning everything as I ate it or what. lol I am not sure I can give up eggs. They are so cheap and we are on such a tight budget, that I have no idea what I would substitute for them. I may have to just live with some discomfort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoJo09 Posted May 7, 2014 Share Posted May 7, 2014 Maybe drop them back to every other day and see how that goes? Tinned tuna is also pretty cheap, although not as palatable to my tastes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
namtrag Posted May 7, 2014 Author Share Posted May 7, 2014 Thanks for the advice. Eggs and me were a match made in heaven. I never get tired of eating them! I am going on another backpacking trip next week for 5 days and 4 nights, and honestly will probably not eat paleo for a lot of the meals. I definitely won't have eggs. I will have some nuts and legumes (peanuts) in my trail mix, and probably a little dairy in the form whey protein powder and/or powdered whole milk mixed in some paleo granola. If I have no stomach aches, I think we can safely conclude it was eggs causing the distress. I wish it were easier to figure out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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