Allia's nondetailed log

[Britishgal]

I really wish you luck but I'm really concerned now that you are asking to get pointers about my diet at a time I was underweight and I'm sorry but I can't do that.

[Allia]

Ahh I'm just wondering about how to sort out a Whole30-style-long-term-diet and how that works. It's not about your weight at that time - I was just wondering about how people that do Whole30-style-eating for life eat.

 

Some days I think, wow, how is my life going to change after this, and it just really confuses me even though it's just the first week! I am bad at making decisions about the future. That's why I asked XD

 

Thanks for the good wishes. The same for you!

[Allia]

Update:

Day 6.

Woke up late today. It's still summer vacation so it's okay.

I'm getting a bit confused. I don't know if I feel any different on this diet, and I am worried that I'll have no benefits/reactions when I reintroduce.

Is this normal?

[fmr_sailor]

Update:

Day 6.

Woke up late today. It's still summer vacation so it's okay.

I'm getting a bit confused. I don't know if I feel any different on this diet, and I am worried that I'll have no benefits/reactions when I reintroduce.

Is this normal?

I don't think 6 days is long enough to really know. Maybe closer to day 15-20 you will see some things. I am on day 12, and over the past 3-4 days I have been sleeping better and having ZERO after meal cravings. I used to always crave something sweet after meals, I was a big time dessert person. But the past few days all I've noticed is "wow, I actually don't want anything else! how strange!" My sleep is deeper and more sound than I can remember as an adult also. It feels really good.

[Allia]

Thanks for the reply.

Day 7:

I've actually been really tired ugh... I need to sleep moreeeee and have more water or something.

I'm struggling with understanding hunger cues... I feel like sometimes I don't think of being hungry until I stop what I'm doing as drink some water and stand up and all of a sudden I'm ready to eat. Weird, is that what hunger feels like?

I feel very strange. I don't even have regular bowel movements on Whole30... Suggestions? I might take more Natural Calm.

How am I going to deal with food after this? I feel like I can't eat out or try new food from different places on this plan without being annoying about it...

[Allia]

Day 8!

I feel I have more energy today, but I'm still sort of blocked up

I've been looking at the salmon cakes recipe from ISWF. It seems convenient but not enough vegetables. Are we supposed to eat them with something else?

[Allia]

Day 11 ish I guess.

I tried to drink more water and I have lots mor energy today. Yesterday too, which is great.

But I'm already having anxious thoughts about the future, I don't know if I can love my whole life like this.

[J9er]

Day 8!

I feel I have more energy today, but I'm still sort of blocked up

I've been looking at the salmon cakes recipe from ISWF. It seems convenient but not enough vegetables. Are we supposed to eat them with something else?

Every meal should be a template meal. 1-3 cups of veg, 1-2 palms of protein and 1-2 thumbs of fat

[Allia]

 

Every meal should be a template meal. 1-3 cups of veg, 1-2 palms of protein and 1-2 thumbs of fat

Are cups cooked or uncooked? Spinach shrinks sooo much o.o

[ShannonM816]

 

 

 

Are cups cooked or uncooked? Spinach shrinks sooo much o.o

 

 

Cooked, especially for something like spinach that shrinks a lot.

 

If you have just raw leafy greens, like a salad, aim for three cups or more, because they tend to shrink down a bunch as you chew them. Or add denser vegetables to your salad -- roast sweet potato chunks or beets are good on salads, or add lots of other vegetables like carrots, celery, cucumber, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, jicama, zucchini, summer squash, onions, peppers, or whatever other vegetables sound good to you.

[Allia]

Cooked, especially for something like spinach that shrinks a lot.

 

If you have just raw leafy greens, like a salad, aim for three cups or more, because they tend to shrink down a bunch as you chew them. Or add denser vegetables to your salad -- roast sweet potato chunks or beets are good on salads, or add lots of other vegetables like carrots, celery, cucumber, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, jicama, zucchini, summer squash, onions, peppers, or whatever other vegetables sound good to you.

Thanks!

 

Do you know of any starchy veg recommendations? I like sweet potato, potato, and kabocha (highest carb u___u) as well as turnips and carrots, but I find butternut squash sort of sour-smelling and beets sort of mushy. I don't really know how to gain weight unless I eat lots of starchy veggies haha.

 

I've read that a serving is one fist. But carrots, beets, and turnips aren't as dense as the other root veggies, so a fist sized of those is not as much as a fist-sized potato. How much carrot would be one serving?

[ShannonM816]

For you, in your circumstances of trying to keep weight on, eat as much as you want of the starchy vegetables, don't worry about the one fist size. It's hard to say what a serving is exactly, just as much as you feel like eating.

 

If you don't like butternut squash and beets, stick to other starchy vegetables. In addition to the ones you mentioned, there's jicama, rutabaga, any of the winter squashes (you mentioned butternut and kabocha, but there's also acorn and spaghetti squash, and usually in the fall my local health food store has some other ones, a turban squash I think and some others), pumpkin (just make sure you get plain pumpkin if you get the canned stuff, not the pumpkin pie filling with other stuff in it) -- some people add pumpkin to chili to make it thicker, and I tried this pumpkin scrambled egg thing that was pretty good, obviously sub ghee or coconut oil or something else for the butter, or there's plantains, although I'm not sure those are as common in other places as they are around here.

 

If you're up for giving beets another try, they really shouldn't be mushy -- try this Belly Dance Beet Salad sometime. There's also this Velvety Butternut Squash casserole, and if you really, really don't want to use butternut squash, just sub pumpkin or sweet potatoes instead, it'll still be good.

[Allia]

For you, in your circumstances of trying to keep weight on, eat as much as you want of the starchy vegetables, don't worry about the one fist size. It's hard to say what a serving is exactly, just as much as you feel like eating.

 

If you don't like butternut squash and beets, stick to other starchy vegetables. In addition to the ones you mentioned, there's jicama, rutabaga, any of the winter squashes (you mentioned butternut and kabocha, but there's also acorn and spaghetti squash, and usually in the fall my local health food store has some other ones, a turban squash I think and some others), pumpkin (just make sure you get plain pumpkin if you get the canned stuff, not the pumpkin pie filling with other stuff in it) -- some people add pumpkin to chili to make it thicker, and I tried this pumpkin scrambled egg thing that was pretty good, obviously sub ghee or coconut oil or something else for the butter, or there's plantains, although I'm not sure those are as common in other places as they are around here.

 

If you're up for giving beets another try, they really shouldn't be mushy -- try this Belly Dance Beet Salad sometime. There's also this Velvety Butternut Squash casserole, and if you really, really don't want to use butternut squash, just sub pumpkin or sweet potatoes instead, it'll still be good.

Thanks I find that butternut squash has sort of a slight sour (?) flavor. Do other winter squashes taste very similar to butternut? I hope they don't! What does rutabaga taste like?

[ShannonM816]

Rutabaga tastes a lot like turnip to me. I don't have either very often, they're not my favorite, but they seem very similar. 

 

I don't notice a sourness to butternut squash, so I'm not sure if other squashes have it -- but they do all taste slightly different, but similar, if that makes sense. Like if you cut up acorn squash and roasted it, and cut up kabocha squash and roasted it, I'm not sure I'd be able to tell which was which, even if I could tell they were two different things. Spaghetti squash is noticeably different just because of the texture thing -- once it's cooked, you scrape the inside of it out and end up with spaghetti-like strands. 

[Allia]

Rutabaga tastes a lot like turnip to me. I don't have either very often, they're not my favorite, but they seem very similar. 

 

I don't notice a sourness to butternut squash, so I'm not sure if other squashes have it -- but they do all taste slightly different, but similar, if that makes sense. Like if you cut up acorn squash and roasted it, and cut up kabocha squash and roasted it, I'm not sure I'd be able to tell which was which, even if I could tell they were two different things. Spaghetti squash is noticeably different just because of the texture thing -- once it's cooked, you scrape the inside of it out and end up with spaghetti-like strands.

That's great. I think I like turnips

Butternut squashes have a flavor that's sort of hard to pinpoint for me; I'm not sure if "sour" is the best word. I might try acorn and other varieties. I hope I'll find one I like!

Recently I've just been eating mainly sweet potato as starchy veg haha. The ones my family gets are super small so two of them is as big as my fist sometimes! O.o I don't know if that's a usual size or not because my hands are not very large either hehe. It's really fun trying all the different types of food on Whole30. I didn't even know there existed so many cultivars of squash before.

[Allia]

Oh god I'm half done. I've been sleeping quite a lot these days but I at least feel well rested. I was able to like... have a bowel movement yesterday without laxatives which is great because I've relied too heavily on them in the past. (TMI)

Is cauliflower pizza okay? I've read that they were given the green light somewhere on the forums but I don't see why cauliflower tortillas aren't okay. Pizza seems to me like just stuff on the tortilla.

[ShannonM816]

Oh god I'm half done. I've been sleeping quite a lot these days but I at least feel well rested. I was able to like... have a bowel movement yesterday without laxatives which is great because I've relied too heavily on them in the past. (TMI)

Is cauliflower pizza okay? I've read that they were given the green light somewhere on the forums but I don't see why cauliflower tortillas aren't okay. Pizza seems to me like just stuff on the tortilla.

 

Yay, a bm without laxatives is cause for celebration!   Although maybe not one you want to post on Facebook...  (Be careful with those laxatives, really -- my grandma has basically taken them like candy all her life, and now she can't go at all without them, but she gets the dosing wrong and tends toward the opposite problem a lot, and doesn't get around well -- let's just say when you're in your late 80s, you don't want to be that person in the nursing home, it's not pretty.)

 

So the deal with swypo stuff can be confusing. If you're having to add a bunch of nut flours of some kind to get the texture right, it's probably better not to have it. If you make it and eat it and it leaves you craving the real thing, psychologically, it's probably better not to have it. If it's basically cauliflower topped with pizza sauce and toppings, go for it. In Well Fed 2, there's actually a recipe where she doesn't even mash the cauliflower up, she just spreads a bunch of veggies on the baking sheet, adds typical pizza type spices (oregano, garlic, parsley, pepper flakes, basil), tomato paste, and tops it with olives and pepperoni (I have yet to find compliant pepperoni, but I have found some Italian sausage before, so that would work instead), and roasts it all -- it's not really a pizza substitute, since I doubt you could pick it up and eat it, but it would give you the flavors. There's also this recipe that actually uses the meat as the crust, and tops it with vegetables.

 

If the recipe you're looking at has mostly cauliflower for the crust, with probably egg and just a little of some kind of nut flour to bind it, I'd say it's probably fine. If it's mostly nut flour, you're probably better off without it.

[Allia]

Yay, a bm without laxatives is cause for celebration!   Although maybe not one you want to post on Facebook...  (Be careful with those laxatives, really -- my grandma has basically taken them like candy all her life, and now she can't go at all without them, but she gets the dosing wrong and tends toward the opposite problem a lot, and doesn't get around well -- let's just say when you're in your late 80s, you don't want to be that person in the nursing home, it's not pretty.)

 

So the deal with swypo stuff can be confusing. If you're having to add a bunch of nut flours of some kind to get the texture right, it's probably better not to have it. If you make it and eat it and it leaves you craving the real thing, psychologically, it's probably better not to have it. If it's basically cauliflower topped with pizza sauce and toppings, go for it. In Well Fed 2, there's actually a recipe where she doesn't even mash the cauliflower up, she just spreads a bunch of veggies on the baking sheet, adds typical pizza type spices (oregano, garlic, parsley, pepper flakes, basil), tomato paste, and tops it with olives and pepperoni (I have yet to find compliant pepperoni, but I have found some Italian sausage before, so that would work instead), and roasts it all -- it's not really a pizza substitute, since I doubt you could pick it up and eat it, but it would give you the flavors. There's also this recipe that actually uses the meat as the crust, and tops it with vegetables.

 

If the recipe you're looking at has mostly cauliflower for the crust, with probably egg and just a little of some kind of nut flour to bind it, I'd say it's probably fine. If it's mostly nut flour, you're probably better off without it.

Thanks for the info about the cauliflower pizza!

 

Thankfully, I didn't post about the laxative issue on Facebook. It's actually really hard for me to have a be again after that, so I have started to take more magnesium and might find some digestive enzymes.

[Allia]

I realized how bad my mental barriers are and eating more seriously bothers me. Sometimes when I'm hungry still I can't bring myself to eat because it very much is a scary process. So being healthier, for the state I am in now, is impossible, no matter what diet I'm on. I'll probably be one of the few people who at the end of Whole30 say that their health didn't get better or something. Ack.

 

-Day 16

[ShannonM816]

Allia, do you have a counselor or someone you talk to about these things? Everybody here really, really wants the very best for you, but there's only so much we can do to help you with this stuff -- you really need to find someone you trust to talk to. You're still young, you have a whole lifetime ahead of you, and you deserve to be healthy and happy for all of it, and the way to do that is to get a handle on this stuff.

 

The bottom line is, food is healthy. Eating is healthy. You have to eat food to survive. And if you want to do more than survive, if you want to thrive, if you want to be able to go out and experience everything that life has to offer, you have to eat enough to nourish your body and give it that energy that it needs to go out and do everything you want to do. I don't know if you really realize that, but I know that there are doctors and therapists who do know how to help you work through these things and get this figured out. 

[Allia]

Allia, do you have a counselor or someone you talk to about these things? Everybody here really, really wants the very best for you, but there's only so much we can do to help you with this stuff -- you really need to find someone you trust to talk to. You're still young, you have a whole lifetime ahead of you, and you deserve to be healthy and happy for all of it, and the way to do that is to get a handle on this stuff.

 

The bottom line is, food is healthy. Eating is healthy. You have to eat food to survive. And if you want to do more than survive, if you want to thrive, if you want to be able to go out and experience everything that life has to offer, you have to eat enough to nourish your body and give it that energy that it needs to go out and do everything you want to do. I don't know if you really realize that, but I know that there are doctors and therapists who do know how to help you work through these things and get this figured out. 

I don't have a counselor because I feel uncomfortable talking about my issues in person. Thank you so much for responding to my log, though. I think that it would be nice to eat enough, but I often don't know if I'm eating healthily or not, even on Whole30. I eat some amount of starchy veg every meal, and in all it's like a small fist (mine) and a quarter. But I also don't exercise a lot, and I've just maintained my weight. I don't really add fats, but I eat sort of fatty meat (beef and pork sirloin).

 

If I'm already eating more than average right now, the amount I'd actually eat to make me "thrive" would be even more, and I'm worried that I'll have to eat a lot more than everyone else for the rest of my life.

 

Everything is just super confusing!

[Allia]

I'm almost done (sadly) Everything is picking up though.

 

I think I just take some pills with glycerin and sweetener. I don't know if it is soy free either... They are stool softeners. Is this okay (on a regular basis)? I don't want to start over!

[Allia]

Day 27!
I for some reason managed to join a gym. I realized on this diet, i cannot get heal their due to my mental roadblocks against eating enough, but that isn't Whole30's fault. I also struggled on a normal diet. In fact I think il struggle for my whole life. I can't eat more than minimum templates because then I feel like I must be eating too much. Nevertheless I thank Whole30 for its culinary newness.

 

On the other hand logically I know that if you technically followed the template with small handed absolute minimum portions of everything it probably wouldn't be enough food even for maintenance.

 

I made chocolate chili and used lbs instead of hands (it was a big pot and when the meat was bought it was labeled 2 lb which the recipe called for). Ehh.

[Allia]

I know you aren't supposed to count calories, but I'm worried. I'm following the template but only eating around 800 every day. How is that a minimum? I thought a minimum might be higher...

[Allia]

Today marks the last day of Whole30!

 

My summary for the whole thing:

Effects/Evaluation

• I got to explore different kinds of food.
• I became more adventurous in trying new food.
• Weight-wise I did end up losing weight which became unhealthy for me as I was already underweight. Needless to say I didn't get my period this month.
• My disordered thoughts were not conquered and I was always too hesitant to eat more than minimum.

I wonder what is next, as I would like to nourish my body better and become healthier, but the structure of Whole30, with no snacks, makes it hard to get in enough food.