Worried About After and Being Normal....

[Beccatherine16]

I'm set on beginning my Whole30 tomorrow...but I'm worried about continuing life afterwards.

 

A little background info:

I'm 17 years old and really wanna lose some weight that I gained recently (like 30 pounds). I've never been this fat in my life and after trying many diets and failing over the last 2 years, I decided to do something drastic. It is summer after all and I have time to experiment right? So I started Paleo a week and a half ago and it changed everything. I lost 5 pounds already! I'm never hungry and everything's going well.

 

I want to sort of cleanse and get serious through the Whole30 and I've seen some amazing results on YouTube and Instagram and stuff. Now...for my worry: life after I complete the Whole30. I'm a teenager. I love pizza, cookies, brownies, going out to eat with friends, celebrating birthdays!!! But I am very very freaked out that somehow when I reintroduce gluten or dairy or whatever, my body will suddenly have a problem with it, even though it never has before. It seems to me like people discover these foods they have eliminated all of a sudden make them feel really bad after they eat them. I'm so afraid of feeling sick every time I want to go out or go to a camp or trip or something!!! With Paleo it's a little less strict and I think I could manage 'real life' better with it, but I want the amazing results people rave about with the Whole30.

So, WHAT DO I DOOOOOO????

please help a girl out!! thankyou!!!

[theheywhohaa]

Dear Becca,

Whole 30 is a very good way to deal with food issues, its not necessarily a weight loss program though. Lots of people lose weight as a side effect, but its true benefits are in improved sleep, general health, and energy stabilization, not a better BMI. You are afraid because you probably have a few addictions to certain foods, and while this program can help you break the physical addiction, you will have to work on the mental side every day. At 17, you are still very young and your food habits are not ingrained yet. You can change your own future, but don't do it to lose weight (I see from your avatar photo that it isn't necessary anyway), do it to have a better relationship to food and a better understanding of your body. Whole 30 is paleo (though paleo isn't necessarily whole 30 if you get what I mean), its very strict paleo for 30 days with some helpful rules to give you structure. All those paleo treats you see on Pinterest.... well that stuff is often not even really paleo (sugar isn't paleo and its in a million of those recipes). Real world situations like parties are also a good testing ground for riding your own bike. Yes, you can occasionally have cake or ice cream or pizza, but you have to make peace with the possible effects you'll feel and you have to deal with saying no to foods that push your 'MORE' button.

Please read the book It Starts With Food before you commit to a whole 30. There is a lot of useful information in there and many better reasons to commit to a w30 than weight loss.

Good luck and well done for caring about yourself enough to consider a big change.

Rose

[GoJo09]

People don't "suddenly have a problem" with foods - they had the problem all along they were just so used to it they didn't realise! That might be the case for you, or it might not. The question then is: is eating a piece of cake (for example) worth the consequences? You won't know that until you've completed the Whole 30.

 

No-one expects you to eat Whole 30-perfect for the rest of your life. But you might learn some great lessons about nutrition and what works for your body, which you can easily work in to your school/social life/camping trips - and you might learn that you don't need to eat cake to celebrate someone's birthday!

 

And please, stop calling yourself fat! Would you call your best friend fat if she put on some weight? I sure hope not!

 

There's a new book out called Paleo Girl, that you might want to check out (I haven't read it, but it's published by Mark Sisson and I rate his work). It's only $10 on Kindle, so worth a read.

[Tom Denham]

I ate 4 or 5 pizzas without any noticeable consequences last year. A new place with a wood-fired grill opened near my house and I helped them get established by eating their food until they got so busy I quit trying to go there. I have been eating Whole30-style for over 4 years and that was my first pizza since 2009-2010. I did not have a problem. 

 

Some people can get away with eating conventional food occasionally, but some are more sensitive. You have to eliminate foods for at least 30 days and then add them back carefully to figure out how your body reacts. Of course, overeating and getting fat is one consequence of eating some conventional foods. Lots of conventional foods do not make you feel full and they trigger cravings so that you keep eating them. So even when you do not feel bad when you eat them, you may have problems including them in your diet. Unfortunately, a lot of people (teenagers) eat a lot of those foods. 

 

The Whole30 is meant to be an introduction to the world of eating good food and to entice you into eating more meat, fish, veggies, and fruit and to reserve other things for special occasions. Conventional wisdom says that every day is a special occasion and you should eat pizza, french fries, and ice cream every day. Conventional wisdom lies! Every day is not a special occasion in the sense that you can eat problematic foods daily and not suffer consequences. But you can eat anything every once in a while and be healthy. 

[MeadowLily]

"Conventional wisdom lies! Every day is not a special occasion in the sense that you can eat problematic foods daily and not suffer consequences. But you can eat anything every once in a while and be healthy."

 

Amen.