Day 21 and minimal results

[jmtennant]

Good Morning everyone - 

 

I have searched through this forum quite a bit trying to find insight on what my "issue" may be. 

 

Today I am on day 21. I did my first whole30 in February of 2013 and it was great. 

 

This time around...I am feeling good (aside from some bloating issues that I later realized was due to too much broccoli and cauliflower consumption!), sleeping well, but the actual physical changes on the outside are not there. 

 

I have been working out: intervals on the treadmill, weights, occasionally doing HIIT or other forms of cardio. I follow the meal plan template so I don't understand why my body looks the exact same as it did on day 1. My clothes are not much looser if at all and while I realize you're not supposed to take progress photos until the end - I took photos this morning and compared them to day 1 and there is NO change whatsoever.

 

It's causing me to seriously fixate on that and wonder "am I eating too much? too little? am I eating the wrong things?"

 

Meals today look like this:

 

Breakfast: two eggs, 1 cup of green beans, 1 chicken & mushroom sausage (the bigger ones that you get from Wegmans) and 1/2 avocado. 

 

Lunch: 1 cup of green beans, 1 buffalo burger, some sweet potato, other half of the avocado

 

Dinner: will probably be chicken breast and some form of veggie cooked in coconut or olive oil. 

 

I usually don't snack, but yesterday I did and I had 1 orange and some raw cashews. After my workout (cardio + light weights) I had a lara bar and some chicken epic bites. 

 

Any insight would be much appreciated! 

 

Thank you!! 

[Tom Denham]

You are not following the meal planning template. You are not eating enough. Your metabolism slows when you do not get enough nourishment and so it becomes almost impossible to lose body fat. Study the template and follow it closely.

 

How much to eat

http://whole30.com/downloads/whole30-meal-planning.pdf

[ShannonM816]

To be a little more specific than Tom was:

 

One cup of vegetables per meal is the bare minimum you need -- aim for closer to 2-3 cups.

 

Don't forget to add fat to your supper, in addition to the cooking oil, especially with chicken breast as it tends to be very, very lean. Add some olives, or some mayo, or some chimichurri sauce, or a little of all of the above.

 

If you're hungry between meals, that's a good sign your previous meal or two may have been a little light, so look at adding to your meals. The template suggests a range -- 1-2 palm-size portions of protein, 1-2 thumb-size servings of fat, 1-3 cups of vegetables -- and it's a minimum. Aim for the upper end of the template or more if you need to. If you do eat between meals because you're hungry, have a mini meal of protein, fat, and vegetables, or at least two of the three.

 

Post workout meals should be lean protein and starchy vegetables.

[jmtennant]

Thank you both very much for your response. I have been trying to figure out what portion sizes work best for me. Some days after breakfast I am SO stuffed that I don't want to eat again until late in the day, other times I am hungry around 10:30am. 

 

I will try adding in olives, making my own mayo or other sauces to help out. 

 

I guess I got confused and hung up a bit because I've done things like the 21 day fix (you measure all your food in containers) and WW and had decent results as far as losing body fat - so I started to think during my whole30 that perhaps I was eating too much.

 

I am not concerned with the number on the scale, just how my body feels. Right now it feels okay, but my clothes are not getting any looser which was a huge concern. 

[praxisproject]

It's worth keeping a food log (including how you feel, eg: stuffed, hungry at 10.30am).

 

That way you can see the days which feel good and the ones where something feels a bit off.

This helps us in a few ways, one we can tweak things to suit us better, but it also helps us listen to our bodies (as a lot of "diet culture" is to override and ignore the signals from our bodies and this can take some time).