puffy stomach

[Ellen915]

Hi,

Middle aged ladies--my midsection is not going away!  Help!

 

I'm on day 29 of my first whole 30.  I have ibs and fibromyalgia, and I think I will continue on whole30 because I don't feel so great yet.

 

I don't feel like I've lost much weight on whole30 but maybe I have it's just that my stomach still feels really poochy.  At first I had lots of gas, like a blown up balloon, very uncomfortable.  Then I cut out most of the coconut milk and sweet potatoes, started eating just one veggie with each meal (but more of it), and started taking digestive enzymes.  That really helped.

 

I had also had some dizziness so started drinking my water with lemon and salt in it.

 

So the bloating and dizziness went away.  But I'm constipated now, because I think I may need to add back in some sweet potato and have a little more salt.

 

My question is this:  if I keep going will I eventually lose weight in my abdomen? Do you think it's just all the bloat and constipation that makes me feel like I haven't lost weight? Do you have any other suggestions? 

 

Thanks so much!

[AmyS]

Could you post a couple of days' worth of meals, water, exercise, sleep, any added stress? Then we can help you troubleshoot.

[Ellen915]

My typical daily meal is:

 

coffee

two eggs

sauerkraut

smoked salmon

 

leftover meat (meatballs, pulled pork, hamburger, steak, roast beef)

greens (kale, dandelion, chard)

and potato or cauliflower rice or an orange or two kiwi

 

meat (meatballs, pulled pork, hamburger, steak, roast beef)

greens (see above)

potato or cauliflower rice or squash

 

I have been slacking off for the last few days and not writing down my meals.  Maybe I had too many eggs?  I'm wondering if I shouldn't eat eggs?

Sometimes when hungry I'll have a snack of nuts or a couple of bites of meat or a lara bar.

 

I try to drink half my weight in water every day (so like 75 oz.) but I usually only make it part of the way--Maybe 50 or 60 oz.

 

Since I have fibro, I don't exercise that much (fatigue--part of the reason I'm doing whole 30).  I walk the dog twice a day for a total of about 40 minutes, but it's pretty leisurely.  I also stretch.

 

Sleep--I've been getting up a lot in the night to pee.  I've been cutting back on afternoon and evening water intake and now am getting up only twice (this is a common problem with fibro).  I generally sleep 8 hours a night and sometimes have a nap or a lie down rest if I'm fatigued during the day.

 

I don't have much immediate stress; I'm not working right now.  But I do have a history of a lot of stress, which lead up to the fibromyalgia.  I'm working in several ways to reduce that pattern of stress, but it could be that my sympathetic nervous system is still on overdrive (maybe moved from 100% overdrive to 80% overdrive!  LOL).

 

Thanks for your help!

Ellen

[MeadowLily]

I don't feel like I've lost much weight on whole30

 

My question is this:  if I keep going will I eventually lose weight in my abdomen? Do you think it's just all the bloat and constipation that makes me feel like I haven't lost weight? Do you have any other suggestions? 

 

Amy can advise you on your food.

 

What kind of foods were you eating before?  If preWhole 30 foods didn't assist you with your goals, continuing on with whole foods will help you.   Yes....abdomen weight will go.  It's not like a rapid weight loss "diet".   Meal by meal and day by day, you'll see those changes.  It may take longer than 30 days.

 

[Ellen915]

I ate pretty paleo before whole30 but i was still eating non-gluten grains, so that's a big difference I think.  I've also been in and out of ketosis for a while.  I think I'm one of those people who goes into ketosis without cutting carbs too much because I haven't felt like my carbs were so low.

 

Thanks for the encouragement @meadowlily.

[AmyS]

Your meal composition looks good, so you're on the right track there. I'm going to go out on a limb then with a couple of suggestions, based solely on my own experience (and I am not a statistically relevant scientific sample, so take this for what it's worth):

 

1. Cauliflower, in any form, even well cooked, can cause digestive distress for some folks. I have discovered that I can't eat it in any form if I don't want to blow up like a balloon and stay that way for a few days at a time afterward.

 

2. Greens, same story - though I've found that I can eat them if I cook them down, down, down, down.

 

Sometimes when we're dealing with an autoimmune condition, it can be hard to separate what was caused by food and what has appeared as a symptom of the AI condition. So I'm suggesting those two possible tweaks to see if they work for you, but with the understanding that they might or might not make a difference.

 

Some folks take on the AIP (autoimmune protocol) after a time on a standard Whole30. You can look at the Whole30 AIP and also at paleomom.com (her book The Paleo Approach deals with a whole-life approach to the autoimmune protocol - as such, it includes recipes that may not be Whole30 compliant - its target is folks who choose the autoimmune protocol as the basis for their diet long term).

 

Does any of this ring a bell for you?

[Ellen915]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I'll definitely check them out.

 

Yes, this sounds familiar. I have gone through the whole fodmaps challenge and found my diarrhea causing foods are apples and broccoli.  I haven't tested for what causes gas though. Since broccoli and cauliflower are both cruciferous veggies...maybe that is the trigger.   I'm trying to figure out what veggies to eat.  

 

Fyi:  Technically Fibromyalgia is not an autoimmune disease as it is neurological and nervous system related, rather than immune system related.  It does ACT like an autoimmune disease though, so you're right on there.  Some people have called it an AI disease, but it's really not.  I'll check out the protocol anyway.  It may also mean I need to go through the fodmaps  again, eliminating and adding back one group at a time, this time looking for gas causing foods. I'm not sure how many veggies that's going to leave.  

 

Again, thanks for your help Amy! 

[Ellen915]

Oh, I just got the whole30 low fodmaps shopping list, so I'm going to use that to help me figure it out.  :-) I had found it before but couldn't print it and then forgot about it.