What am I missing? Whole30 and a healthy relationship with food.

[abbyp828]

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around a few things regarding the Whole 30 and this may not come out completely clear. The biggest "piece" I feel like I am missing is how is doing a Whole30 supposed to fix my relationship with food? I've seen that phrase/claim pop up here and there and I am just not seeing how. I am on day 11 officially (but more like 15 - I had a minor error on day 4 and had to start over), so maybe I will be more enlightened in a few more weeks. I understand the restrictions and the reasoning for those restrictions, but I don't see how that in itself is going to fix a tattered relationship.

 

I feel like I am probably not being completely clear and maybe that is because I do not know exactly what I am asking or how to ask it. Overall, I am feeling a disconnect between the Whole30 and the mental/emotional part of eating.

 

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

[SugarcubeOD]

Hi Abby - 

 

The relationship with food is a difficult one and I'm glad you asked the question. You were perfectly clear and understandable in what you were asking.

 

The first question is, do you HAVE a tattered relationship with food?  Maybe you don't and that's where it's hard to see what the improvement would be.

 

Things like mindless snacking, wine every night after dinner, sugary foods when we are feeling down, eating for comfort and emotional eating in general are all things that contribute to a poor relationship with food.  If you are using food to soothe, calm, reward, entice, belittle, punish yourself, you have a disordered relationship with it.  If your only coping mechanism for a bad day that you can think of is red wine and pretzels, you might have a poor relationship with food.

 

There are many things that we learn to do to cope with the above experiences when we can no longer lean on wine and pretzels or ice cream and whipping cream.  We can learn that we are substituting food for healthy coping skills, which is always good to know.  If you have a bad day and at the end of the 30 days, you know that a bath, a walk, a cup of tea, meditation, prayer, a chat with a friend or a nap can be a coping strategy and that you don't NEEEEEED the wine and pretzels, that's a healed relationship.  If you CHOOSE to take that bad day and eat pretzels and drink wine, even tho you have all these other coping skills, that's a decision but a lot of people who come to the Whole30 couldn't think of a single strategy outside of food/drink to help themselves feel better.

 

Does that make sense?  

[MeadowLily]

You're very clear.  Understood and appreciated. 

 

The Food Reset is reasonable restriction. It's not over-restriction.  The Whole 30 is only 30 days to gain a greater understanding about food sensitivities.  After 30 days,  you conduct a proper reintroduction phase. This gives you knowledge of how you will proceed with your own plan.

 

If you don't have food allergies you won't have to contemplate how you will manuever without said foods. You will simply carry on.

 

If you're working on mental/emotional attachments to foods this will take longer than 30 days.   It could take months or a year.   Some will seek help from a registered nutritionist or medical professional.  Others have found through a few Whole 30's during the course of a year that their thinking changes.

 

I can sum it up into one word.  Focus.   Not the policing of every morsel of  food that goes into the mouth kind of focus but focus and awareness.   There's a new focus that naturally happens.  It is different for everyone, very individualized and personal.

 

I moved out of all or nothing, abstainer or moderator thinking.   No good eating vs. naughty eating.  It took months and months but  I  went back to the future.  I've returned to the way of life before I'd ever heard about dieting and weight loss. 

 

I can enjoy my life.   I don't fear fruit or nuts.  I've become fearless that way.   

 

http://whole30.com/2014/05/dear-melissa-eat-part-3/

 

I didn't know how you could become an overcomer like Melissa in articles 1, 2, and 3 ^^^^ but now I understand.

 

I get it and I made it there. 

[MeadowLily]

"I understand the restrictions and the reasoning for those restrictions, but I don't see how that in itself is going to fix a tattered relationship."

 

The reasonable restriction, paying attention/avoiding non-compliant foods for 30 days brings focus back into your life.  With a new focus you move into reintroduction.   That focus is the tool that will put our house back together and completely change a relationship with food. 

 

Laser focus.   Honed in, tuned UP and that focus will catch you before you head back wherever food may be sold or stored.   "Hello there,  remember where you've come from and what brought you here today." This is your focus speaking.      

[jburth7]

I have done a couple Whole30's and still feel like I don't have the absolute best relationship with food. When I'm stressed, I still want to reach for the sugar and sometimes do  

 

However, the biggest thing I learned from my first Whole30 was how to actually eat, fill my belly and use food as nourishment.  I came from a long time of weight watchers, counting points, using low calorie bread, eating egg whites, etc. all things to minimize my calories.  It was really freeing with Whole30 to just be able to eat until I was full, take a break from food and then eat again at my next meal.  I enjoyed eating healthy fats, feeling like I could eat an avocado (without fitness pal screaming at me that I was over my fat intake for the day with just one measly avocado) and being full!

[WholeMama]

However, the biggest thing I learned from my first Whole30 was how to actually eat, fill my belly and use food as nourishment. I came from a long time of weight watchers, counting points, using low calorie bread, eating egg whites, etc. all things to minimize my calories. It was really freeing with Whole30 to just be able to eat until I was full, take a break from food and then eat again at my next meal. I enjoyed eating healthy fats, feeling like I could eat an avocado (without fitness pal screaming at me that I was over my fat intake for the day with just one measly avocado) and being full!

1,000x, this!! Whole30 has helped me release my guilt over food. I'm not there all the time, but this helps so much. And my stress eating has reduced dramatically. Still a work in progress, but so much better.

[praxisproject]

My changes were more about nutrition and sleep.

 

I'd spent most of my teen and adult life starving (not eating enough food, as all my life doctors and well meaning advice givers kept telling me to eat less to lose weight), not getting enough sleep (shift work) and deficient in many nutrients (grains cancelling out what I did eat and not enough nutrients overall), with erratic blood sugar and energy levels.

 

Despite all the time I spent feeling like I was starving myself, I just got fatter (which certainly wasn't encouraging).

 

I didn't have any binging issues in the traditional sense, but I was a fueller (not enough sleep, eat more sugar!) with massive cortisol (feeling flat, eat more) problems, my fuelling was a (poor) way to try and mitigate my crazy blood sugar and hormones, along with chronic vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Not getting enough sleep made everything worse (more cortisol).

 

My body no longer lives in a endless roller coaster of stress, cortisol, feeling hungry all the time and lacking nutrients.

But I'd have had no idea how deficient I was until I stopped eating grains and dairy, they were really messing up my nutrition (I have the blood work with the numbers). Whole30 was also the first time I really didn't feel hungry. Even on Atkins I had been consuming small amounts of gluten and it really ruins my health.

[laura_juggles]

I think that it may not be until near the end or even after the 30 days that we're really able to evaluate our relationship with food and how the Whole30 may or may not have changed that. 

 

Mindless snacking - it's not really something that most people think about until you can't do it anymore (it's called "mindless" for a reason). But having to just outright stop the hand-to-mouth eating through an entire bag of chip or whatever makes us reevaluate what it feels like to be actually hungry vs supposedly-hungry because we're bored. 

 

Foods we just can't stop eating - maybe chips or cookies are your foods with no brakes and then the nature of the Whole30 makes not being able to stop eating them a little easier because you straight up can't have them in the first place. For other folks, though, there are compliant foods that have no brakes. For me, it was nut butters. Hello, me eating almond butter with a spoon (or just sticking my finger in the jar, I really have no shame in sharing that it was a car-with-no-brakes-careening-down-a-mountain food for me). I had to decide if I was going to try to include nut butters in my Whole30 or eliminate them. Up until yesterday I chose to eliminate them. But yesterday at the store I decided to buy a brand-new jar of almond butter and see if I could stop myself from just going in with a spoon. I had some with a banana when I ate dinner last night and I was okay. It was yummy and made me remember why it was a food with no brakes, but I wasn't grabbing for the jar after I'd finished what I'd served myself. Time will tell if I've really backed away from that craziness I had before. 

 

It's also really refreshing not watching the clock to make sure I eat every 2-3 hours on the dot because I don't want my metabolism to crash or any of the other crazy stuff "diets" tell you. A coworker is obsessing over points and wondering why her salad for lunch with 4 points of chicken and 1 point of fat free dressing still leaves her hungry. She is constantly talking about food. It never stops. Because she's constantly hungry. I feel bad for her. 

 

We each have things to work on and they're all different, so maybe that's one reason why it seems so vague about fixing our relationship with food. It is really interesting to reflect on, though. 

[abbyp828]

Hi Abby - 

 

The relationship with food is a difficult one and I'm glad you asked the question. You were perfectly clear and understandable in what you were asking.

 

The first question is, do you HAVE a tattered relationship with food?  Maybe you don't and that's where it's hard to see what the improvement would be.

 

Things like mindless snacking, wine every night after dinner, sugary foods when we are feeling down, eating for comfort and emotional eating in general are all things that contribute to a poor relationship with food.  If you are using food to soothe, calm, reward, entice, belittle, punish yourself, you have a disordered relationship with it.  If your only coping mechanism for a bad day that you can think of is red wine and pretzels, you might have a poor relationship with food.

 

There are many things that we learn to do to cope with the above experiences when we can no longer lean on wine and pretzels or ice cream and whipping cream.  We can learn that we are substituting food for healthy coping skills, which is always good to know.  If you have a bad day and at the end of the 30 days, you know that a bath, a walk, a cup of tea, meditation, prayer, a chat with a friend or a nap can be a coping strategy and that you don't NEEEEEED the wine and pretzels, that's a healed relationship.  If you CHOOSE to take that bad day and eat pretzels and drink wine, even tho you have all these other coping skills, that's a decision but a lot of people who come to the Whole30 couldn't think of a single strategy outside of food/drink to help themselves feel better.

 

Does that make sense?  

Thank you, that does make sense. I do feel like on some levels I have a poor/disordered relationship with food. It is one that I keep under control fairly well (depending on life), but I just want to be FREE from it! Maybe what I am missing right now during my first Whole30 is my own personal focus on the cravings, emotional/mental desire to eat vs actual hunger, etc. I feel like a lot of my Whole30 energy is just going into eating compliant meals.  

[abbyp828]

 

If you're working on mental/emotional attachments to foods this will take longer than 30 days.   It could take months or a year.   Some will seek help from a registered nutritionist or medical professional.  Others have found through a few Whole 30's during the course of a year that their thinking changes.

 

I can sum it up into one word.  Focus.   Not the policing of every morsel of  food that goes into the mouth kind of focus but focus and awareness.   There's a new focus that naturally happens.  It is different for everyone, very individualized and personal.

 

I moved out of all or nothing, abstainer or moderator thinking.   No good eating vs. naughty eating.  It took months and months but  I  went back to the future.  I've returned to the way of life before I'd ever heard about dieting and weight loss. 

 

I can enjoy my life.   I don't fear fruit or nuts.  I've become fearless that way.   

 

http://whole30.com/2014/05/dear-melissa-eat-part-3/

 

I didn't know how you could become an overcomer like Melissa in articles 1, 2, and 3 ^^^^ but now I understand.

 

I get it and I made it there. 

Thanks for the reply. I am seeing that the FOCUS is huge and the fact that this part is going to take longer than thirty days. Those articles are helpful in understanding the big picture.  But I'm reading them and I just don't have confidence in myself that I can ever get to that point. 

[laura_juggles]

Thanks for the reply. I am seeing that the FOCUS is huge and the fact that this part is going to take longer than thirty days. Those articles are helpful in understanding the big picture.  But I'm reading them and I just don't have confidence in myself that I can ever get to that point. 

 

You can get there   You just need to give yourself time. 

[ShannonM816]

. I feel like a lot of my Whole30 energy is just going into eating compliant meals.  

 

I think this is pretty normal during a first Whole30, especially the first couple of weeks. Over time, you get better at meal prep and figuring out what works for you so that doesn't take as long, and you get used to what things you buy, so instead of reading all the labels every time you go to the store, it's just pick up the stuff you usually buy and glance over the label to be sure they haven't changed it. It just takes some time and getting used to living this way.

[MeadowLily]

Thanks for the reply. I am seeing that the FOCUS is huge and the fact that this part is going to take longer than thirty days. Those articles are helpful in understanding the big picture.  But I'm reading them and I just don't have confidence in myself that I can ever get to that point. 

You will get there.  The Whole 30 science is explained in ISWF.   The forum provides every Whole 30 Manifesto and recent articles.   I read all of them as a I was tooling along. I used to quote them for the forum folkaronies.  

 

Abby,  when someone embarks on a new 'diet' they're all jacked Up and super stoked.  There's hypervigilance. That can cause increased anxiety and it's exhausting in the end.  They keep dieting and dialing their life down into calories, pounds, micros, macros and mackerels. 

 

If there's over-restriction they can slide off that goose and end up rebounding back with old behaviors. Another yo-yo cycle of hypervigilance and over policing every morsel of food with renewed 'dieting' focus.

 

One does not have to wait for the other shoe to drop...starting another exhausting cycle of dieting to jack one's self back up.

 

It may take a few months but one day you'll be walking down your hallway,  not distracted and headed for the kitchen.. Focus grabs you by the ankles and confidently reminds you -  in the past,  all you were really interested in was that full to the brim feeling. 

 

It didn't matter what we used to get that feeling as long as we felt stuffed.  After months of real whole foods that desire to feel loaded to the gills with multi-crap goes away.  For good.

 

I detect a pearl in your oyster, Abby.  You're going to get there.