Confused About Reintroduction

[sholmes]

Hi there,

 

I'm wrapping up my whole30 in a couple of days so I'm starting to think about reintroduction and what that looks like for me.

 

Since I feel so good now, part of me doesn't feel the need to go through an official reintroduction since I won't be eating those foods on a regular basis again. I'm wondering if I could just reintroduce the foods I want back in my diet when the opportunity presents itself and I've decided it is worth it and continue on eating whole30-ish in the meantime.

 

Another part of me recognizes that this could be a great learning opportunity for me to, once and for all, really understand how these foods affect me.

 

From what I understand though, just because my body may tolerate milk, yogurt and cheese, it doesn't mean it can tolerate all dairy. If that is true, you could end up doing an official reintroduction for months to find out what you can and cannot eat and I'm not sure I'm up for that.

 

I would love to hear what others have done and how it helped them (or didn't) going forward. The main food groups I'm interested in is dairy and gluten as I don't eat legumes much anyways and rice only every once and a while.

 

Please share your thoughts and personal stories. I want to make the right decision in how I approach this.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Physibeth]

I introduced what I was interested in eating again. I separated out rice and corn for my non-gluten grains. The only potential issue with waiting until an opportunity presents itself is if you get multiple things introduced at the same time and have a reaction because then you won't know what caused it. If you look at the beginning of my post Whole30 log it is devoted to my reintroduction period. Ultimately it is up to you, I felt it was worth it.

[Brewer5]

I did my first Whole 30 back in May, and I really didn't feel the need to do the individual re-intros.  I didn't think I wanted to go back to eating many things, because I felt so great eating this way.

 

My husband wanted to go out to a new Mexican restaurant on the evening of my last day, so we did.  I ate tortilla chips, cheese dip, corn tortillas with my fajita meat & veggies...  We eat gluten-free anyway (as much as possible without obsessing at restaurants about sauces, etc) so there are never any wheat choices for me -- but for sure, I got dairy, corn, probably sugar in the salsa, and who knows what else -- all at once.

 

Fast-forward to September -- here I am doing another Whole 30.  Why?  Because I am tired of feeling like crap.  Because symptoms started creeping back up on me.  Do I know what is causing it?  Ha, yep!  I've been eating like crap!  haha    But seriously...  I want to KNOW.  Is it the dairy?  Is it the corn?  Is it both?  

 

You have a golden opportunity here, as I did a few months ago.  You have as clean of a slate as you are probably going to get -- unless you decide to continue your Whole 30 to a 45, 60, etc.  I say take the time to do a proper re-intro of *anything* that you see yourself *possibly* eating again in the future.  EVEN if those things don't sound good to you now, today, I can almost guarantee you that you will hit a point in life (stress, lack of sleep, emotions, holidays, social situations) where you may find yourself strangely wanting to eat those things again.  It will be easier to tell yourself "no" if you know that they do not make you feel well.  Or, you make a conscious decision to not feel well, because that food is worth it to you.  But at least take this opportunity to arm yourself with the knowledge to make educated -- rather than purely emotional -- decisions from here on out.