Reintro advice for a newbie?

[Miamis]

I am on day 28 of my first Whole30 and feeling great! I don't really have any foods that I want to reintroduce to eat daily, but I figured I'm going to do the reintro to see how they affect me, so I'll know, even if I only eat them occassionally  

 

I have a few questions:

1) If I want to do a separate reintro of sugar, would it be best to have this first or last in the reintro? I saw someone mention that sugar should be first?

 

2) I really want to have Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream.... But I don't really know where to put this, as it's both sugar and dairy (and probably also gluten?) - anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

3) If I have a glass of red wine one night (I have been invited out to a great steakhouse by my grandmother) can I wait just one day and then do dairy reintro? I am not very concerned about the alcohol reaction, because I know it doesn't agree with me  

 

Thanks in advance!

[jmcbn]

If I were you I woud do sugar as my first reintro because it is in so much of everything we eat & can most definitely cause a reaction of some kind - more often than not emotional, and also likely to cause cravings for more sugar. It's unlikely to cause stomach upset or any other physical reaction - but it's good to clearly see how adding it to your diet can effect food choices.

For the wine, even though you already know it doesn't agree with you I'd still leave the recommended two days so that your gut has a chance to heal before you reintro anything further. But why drink something that doesn't agree with you?

Something like Ben & Jerry's would have to come AFTER you've done separate reintros for ALL of the off-plan ingredients, otherwise you'll have no idea what, if anything, causes a reaction. As per the ingredients list below that covers just about everything that's off limits on Whole30..... sugar, dairy, gluten, legumes, alcohol, & carrageenan...

CREAM, SKIM MILK, LIQUID SUGAR (SUGAR, WATER), WATER, WHEAT FLOUR, SUGAR, BROWN SUGAR, EGG YOLKS, BUTTER (CREAM, SALT), EXPELLER PRESSED SOYBEAN OIL, EGGS, COCONUT OIL, CHOCOLATE LIQUOR, VANILLA EXTRACT, COCOA (PROCESSED WITH ALKALI), COCOA POWDER, SALT, MOLASSES, GUAR GUM, COCOA BUTTER, NATURAL FLAVORS, CARRAGEENAN, MILKFAT, SOY LECITHIN.

 

[kirkor]

My $0.02:

1. Save sugar til the end. Because the reintro can take some time, and you'll be eating compliant for the days between categories, the longer you keep the sugar dragon asleep the less you'll risk being distracted by cravings.

2. Also save til after reintros. It has dairy, gluten, sugar, carageenan, and soy.

3. Might have sulfites, which deserve their own day.

[Miamis]

Thank you for your answers! After seeing the ingredient list, I will definitely be leaving Ben & Jerry's for last - if at all...

Great points about the wine, will think about that. 

 

So one thing: sugar. What would you reintroduce as sugar? I have missed chocolate, but there's milk in that... so - honey? or what?  

[ShannonM816]

So one thing: sugar. What would you reintroduce as sugar? I have missed chocolate, but there's milk in that... so - honey? or what?

Sugar or honey in coffee or tea would probably be easiest.

You don't necessarily need to do sugar by itself, it's not listed as a separate reintro day in the sample schedule discussed here: http://whole30.com/step-two-finished/

[jmcbn]

My $0.02:

1. Save sugar til the end. Because the reintro can take some time, and you'll be eating compliant for the days between categories, the longer you keep the sugar dragon asleep the less you'll risk being distracted by cravings.

2. Also save til after reintros. It has dairy, gluten, sugar, carageenan, and soy.

3. Might have sulfites, which deserve their own day.

Kirkor makes a good point about keeping that sugar dragon asleep for as long as possible - my sugar reintro concept is based more on the fact that many hams & smoked salmons contain sugar, so by loosening the rules a little it gives you a few more protein options - especially around the holidays with foods like honey roasted ham, & smoked salmon starters on offer...

[Miamis]

Well, thanks again I think I might want to reintroduce sugar separately, even though it isn't neccessary, because I would like to see what it does to my body... Also, great point jimcbn about it being in a lot of stuff ^^ 

[Seafarer]

More two cents...

 

If you can keep the sugar separate, I would. By keeping as many things separate as you possibly can, you'll be much more able to pinpoint your exact responses to the specific foods that caused them. For example, I have the same response to dairy as I do to sugar, in that cravings for off-plan things tends to increase. Dairy also causes some other things, for me, and it took me two tries, with some very clean eating on either side of the dairy days, to pinpoint that particular response (reawakened cravings) as being specific to dairy, so I'm happy it wasn't clouded with a sneaky bit of sugar here & there.

 

One other thing that helped was reading the forums to see what reactions everyone else was reporting, so that I had a list of things to pay attention to, some of which I might have ignored or not attributed properly. The list seems kind of anal, but certainly led me to some "aha" moments. In case it's of help to you, in addition to tracking meals, I also tracked: sleep, water, stress, activity, energy, mood, cravings, elimination, headaches, joint-feel, tummy-feel, congestion, skin-clarity.

 

I haven't dared to try ice cream!       ​