Day 1: 11/18

[monica4patience]

I joined Whole30 to get myself back on track with healthy eating. I've done a variety of programs with success, but still can easily go off-track.

My health issues: fibromyalgia, hypothyroidism, diabetes type 2, gluten-intolerance. My challenges: super strong sugar demon, family (DH, DS23, DS16) not interested in paleo, fatigue that has me grabbing anything, temptations. In addition, I don't react to off-program foods, even those I'm sensitive to, for weeks. Then it's bloating and cravings. I want an immediate slap on the hand, as my doctor says. Just as I want immediate gratification with food, I want immediate consequences for going off-track,

Did a bone broth fast yesterday on day 1 to jump start Whole30. Woke this morning to a plate of chocolate chips cookies on the kitchen counter.....really people, you just don't get that I have so little self-control. But I did it. I bagged up those cookies, trying not to breathe in their yummy, sugary, sweet goodness, and stashed them in the pantry.

Today's goal: create Whole30 space in refrigerator and freezer & prep some food: salad dressing, dip, fruit baggies.

[ArtFossil]

Can you get ANY non-compliant food out of your sight and reach? And train your family not to leave it lying around? After all, if you needed an oxygen tank, would they disconnect it? If you were an alcoholic, would they leave a martini for you on the counter? That's what leaving chocolate chip cookies out sounds like to me. 

 

Also, I'd focus on assembling veggie baggies, not fruit baggies. I love fruit but I only eat it once a day (and not necessarily every day) as I don't want it to push out vegetables AND it's such a concentrated rush of sugar.

[Tom Denham]

By bone broth fast, I get the idea that you only consumed bone broth for a day. The right way to prepare for a Whole30 is to start eating real, whole foods. Denying your body the nutrition that it needs (protein, fat, veggies) is not a good approach. 

 

The reason the Whole30 works is that your hormones begin to work with you instead of against you when you eat as we recommend. When you restrict calories or emphasize the wrong foods, your hormones resist... 

 

Please don't come anywhere near fasting again.

[ShannonM816]

I'm a little concerned about the bone broth fast. Nothing in Whole30 would ever ask you to do that. We want you to eat, and eat a lot -- some people find it's more than they've ever gotten to eat. And the thing is, when you're eating plenty of good, healthy foods, lots of veggies, proteins, and healthy fats, you'll have fewer cravings for off-plan items, and when you do have any cravings, you'll find it much easier to ignore them.

 

Eat three template meals a day, which means for each meal, have:

• 1-2 palm-sized portions of protein (that's length, width, and depth of your palm), or if eggs are your only protein source, have as many whole eggs as you can hold in your hand, which is likely to be 3-4, or possibly more.
• 1-2 thumb-sized portions of fat, or a heaping handful or two of olives or coconut flakes, or 1/2 to a whole avocado, or a small handful of nuts/seeds -- usually this needs to be in addition to the fat you cook with, as often that is left in the pan.
• Fill the plate with vegetables - 1-3 cups, three being optimal.

If you work out, follow the pre- and post-workout guidelines on the template, in addition to your three meals.

 

Most people feel best if they have at least one fist-sized serving of starchy vegetable each day, and people who are very active, who are prone to depression or anxiety, or women who are nursing, pregnant, or in the week leading up to their period often find they do better with more than that.

 

If you want to have fruit (and you don't have to -- many people give it up completely for a while, as they feel it feeds their sugar dragon), try to limit it to a serving or two a day, where a serving size is a closed fist, always with meal, not on its own.

 

Meals designed this way should keep you satisfied for 4-5 hours. If you're truly hungry between meals, it's okay to eat, but try to make it a mini meal of protein, fat, and vegetables, don't snack on nuts and fruits, as that will just feed your sugar dragon, not to mention spiking your blood sugar (the fruit) and possibly causing digestive issues if you have too many (the nuts). If you're consistently hungry less than 4-5 hours after you eat, you need to work on making your meals bigger.

[monica4patience]

Thanks for all your concern. I understand where you're coming from. But this was prescribed by my Nutrition Doctor. IVe been off-track for a while and failing at every attempt to reset by doing his recommended 4 day bone broth fast. This was my compromise to get back to whole food eating. It's also effective for me to get away from thinking about food all the time.

ArtFossil, the fruit baggies are just blueberries with seeds and spinach for the freezer. I add it to coconut milk for a smoothie. It's helpful for me to have a quick & easy breakfast or lunch option for the occasional time when my plans change and I need to drive one of the kids somewhere at the last minute.

I will be cutting up veggies and making dip after my grocery shopping today.

Thanks for your support.

[ArtFossil]

Danger Will Robinson! Smoothies are not a good idea on Whole30. The mods can explain all there reasons why, but they include the fact that they don't follow the meal template of protein-veggies-fats and they can be a big sugar blast. The idea is to eat - and chew - three real meals that satisfy you for 4 to 5 hours.

 

I can speak from experience when I say that this is the BEST way to get you from "thinking about food" all the time.

[ladyshanny]

Monica,

 

It sounds very much like you are trying to combine a fasting protocol with the Whole30 with your desire to retain certain aspects of your "old" intake (smoothies).  

 

There is no one here who is going to tell you that the Whole30 is easy or that it doesn't involve work.  Added to that, most of us have enormously full days and would probably love to "drink" breakfast on the way to wherever we're going.  What the Whole30 asks us to do though, is change our relationship with food.  For most of us that means preparing enough food in advance that we can put together a proper meal every 4-5 hours.

 

Smoothies, ingredients aside, are no different than a milk shake. It's a hit of liquid sugar into your blood stream and it allows you not to make any changes in your relationship with preparing and eating proper food...which is one of the biggest goals of this program.

 

You're free to do what you like, bone broth fasting, smoothies at every meal and grazing all day long if you wanted to.  Technically that's the Whole30.  But in 10, 12, 20 days when your head is exploding and you can barely pull yourself out of bed and the cravings for sugar at night are all but consuming you, know that spending time creating and eating template (linked below) meals every 4-5 hours would be the solution.

[Tom Denham]

You can drink a smoothie faster than you can eat the volume of whole foods used to make the smoothie. Therefore, it is easy to over eat when consuming smoothies. Also, your body digests smoothies faster than whole foods that you chew. Because of the faster digestion, you get hungry faster and start needing to eat again. So now you have two strikes. You over ate and you are hungry earlier. And during a Whole30, we want you to eat protein, fat, and veggies at every meal. Even at breakfast, we want you to eat a portion of protein as big as the palm of your hand (or bigger) or as many eggs as you can hold in one hand. Doing so is the most powerful way to get your hormones to establish a good rhythm and start helping you heal and improve your body composition. So you can get by with smoothies, but you cannot thrive. 

[ArtFossil]

I cannot describe how awesome it is to eat a meal with the Whole30 template and feel satiated and satisfied and clear headed and energetic for 4 or 5 hours and not be craving anything. (Day 12 here). But the only way you'll experience this is to follow the Whole30 template.

 

And hard boiled eggs and a container of veggies (or leftovers from last night's dinners) are just as easy to grab and go as a smoothie and you can eat them anywhere. But, you will have chewed, and experienced your food, and know you have EATEN.