Anxiety, insomnia, meat aversion: is W30 for me?

[SaladeNicoise]

Hi, I am currently a W30 dropout having given up on day 10.  Please help me understand whether W30 can help me with the issues I have, and if so, help me figure out how to overcome the obstacles that caused me to give up!!  Maybe there is an adapted version of it that would be good?

 

I am overall in good health, but had a health scare in April of 2015 and have not relaxed since.  I have had hardcore health anxiety/hypochondria and insomnia and have seen many specialists and had many tests over small aches and pains that turned out to be nothing or went away once i got normal test results back.  

 

8 months into the anxiety, having done a lot of therapy etc., I decided to try medication.  The first three meds I've tried have all given me horrendous side effects and hardly any benefit.  I saw more specialists and had even more testing due to side effects from the first two SSRIs.  Now I am taking Remeron.  It helps me sleep a lot, which is good, but it makes me forgetful and starving hungry all the time.  My weight went from 110 to 125 in the first month and the gain showed no sign of slowing.  

 

B/c of the weight gain and the ongoing anxiety, and my strong desire NOT to take psychiatric meds, I decided to try the Whole30 and was committed to it, but I felt *terrible* while I was doing it.  Obstacles to my doing it are:

 

1.  I hate meat.  I normally eat "vegeterranean" plus homemade desserts and that's what I like to cook and like to eat.  I thought if I pushed through it I'd start to like meat but ten days in, I was hating it more.  This meat aversion started when I was pregnant with my first child 9 years ago, and it has never gone away.  Toward the end, marching into the kitchen to cook and then eat more meat felt like a sadistic punishment.

 

2.  I need a lot of calories.  I am breastfeeding and I run.  Between that and the Remeron I felt starving all day every day while I was doing this.  I searched in the forum and was cracking up about places where people were recommending that breastfeeding mothers eat 4 meals a day and 3 cups of veg at each meal.  I do eat 4 meals, but I have a demanding schedule and I literally don't have time to chew that many cups of vegetables.  I was eating a lot of potatoes and sweet potatoes while I attempted the W30 but I was running out of energy.  On day 9 i went jogging and came back and ate 2 HB eggs, then lay down on the couch and needed to get up and felt like I literally could not walk up the stairs. I never feel that way--I normally have great energy on my normal diet.  It just felt like it was impossible for me to get enough energy eating this way.  

 

SO it sounds like I'm just saying "I don't like the W30 and don't want to do it" but the thing is, I DO feel like my anxiety has sharply increased since I stopped doing it-so maybe that means that it was helping the anxiety somewhat, even though I also felt too hungry and these other bad ways while I was doing it??  I would do anything to heal the anxiety and insomnia but I have to be able to function and get through the day.  I can't just suffer and crawl around for 30 days just to see whether dairy and grains bother me, KWIM?

 

I saw that often you all ask for a sample day when troubleshooting, so maybe I'll go ahead and post that:

 

Breakfast: 3 eggs fried in olive oil, large sweet potato

 

Lunch: steak and red potatoes over large salad with bistro vinaigrette, green beans, other veg

 

Second lunch/snack: smoked salmon, raspberries, broccoli

 

Dinner: Roast chicken with roasted veg (brussel sprouts, turnips, carrots, etc.), an apple, two handfuls of almonds

 

 

Would it be worth trying to do a "Fairly good 30" where I eat the above but add a serving of non-gluten grains at each meal and maybe cheese once a day, and see how I feel??  Or is you guys' recommendation that I just suck up the bad feeling and commit to doing the real W30 no matter how bad I feel?  Oh, one more thing that motivated me to quit was that I had the worst breakout I've had since I was a teenager.  5 days after quitting my skin is perfect.  Is it possible that meat just doesn't agree with me?  

Thank you SO MUCH for your time and sorry for writing so much.  Hope someone can help me...

[Physibeth]

You could certainly attempt a vegetarian style "Whole30" which isn't really a true Whole30 because it makes allowances for some off plan foods. I'm not expert on this version of the program.

 

This article might help you with being able to do a proper Whole30: http://whole9life.com/2013/02/eating-meat-a-primer-for-the-meat-challenged-2/

 

Overall your meal composition looks good though your meal 1 lacks veggies. I try not to eat carby things in the morning because I've found I have better energy and hunger cues if I don't.

 

A post workout meal should be lean protein and some carby veggies - 2 hard boiled eggs has enough fat to delay getting the protein to the muscles. 

 

Another suggestion that you might not like - if you are dealing with anxiety and stress and insomnia running might not be the best thing for your body. That kind of cardio can be viewed as stress to your body and just make things worse. 

 

As far as the "meat just doesn't agree with me" you can get allergy tests done - some people have allergies to say poultry. However, our bodies are designed to eat meat but not eating meat for a long time makes it hard to start up again because your body has stopped producing the enzymes that break it down.

 

Hope some of this helps...I know its a bit rambly. 

[SaladeNicoise]

Hi Bethany, thanks so much for your reply!  I saw it a few days ago but I couldn't remember my password at first

I really appreciate your taking the time to read and think through my situation.  It sounds like maybe I need to browse around some in the forums looking for vegetarians' experience with a version of W30.  AFA jogging, I am doing a very mild version of interval exercise with planned walk breaks a la Jeff Galloway.  I probably shouldn't even call it "jogging"   So I don't think it is a big stressor.  I do notice that since I quit the W30, even though I have more energy again I have a LOT of aches and pains--enough to make me think that I was in fact experiencing some of the anti-inflammatory benefits of the W30 even though I was feeling bad and having trouble getting enough calories. 

 

SO maybe I'll take another stab at it!  Maybe a W30 plus non-gluten grains and cheese?  Thanks again...

[tmhampton1]

I wouldn't include the grains and cheese as these can be inflammatory to you. I suggest you bring in red meat slowly and maybe after a week or so. 

 

The acne makes sense as your hormones will fluctuate as they attempt to regulate themselves. This could also be one of the reasons for the fatigue and other symptoms you had. I would suggest you review the timeline and see if you were in line with the side effects stated. I think our bodies are tricky and they will do anything in their power to get us to eat what we shouldn't be eating. 

[SugarcubeOD]

Hi Bethany, thanks so much for your reply!  I saw it a few days ago but I couldn't remember my password at first

I really appreciate your taking the time to read and think through my situation.  It sounds like maybe I need to browse around some in the forums looking for vegetarians' experience with a version of W30.  AFA jogging, I am doing a very mild version of interval exercise with planned walk breaks a la Jeff Galloway.  I probably shouldn't even call it "jogging"   So I don't think it is a big stressor.  I do notice that since I quit the W30, even though I have more energy again I have a LOT of aches and pains--enough to make me think that I was in fact experiencing some of the anti-inflammatory benefits of the W30 even though I was feeling bad and having trouble getting enough calories. 

 

SO maybe I'll take another stab at it!  Maybe a W30 plus non-gluten grains and cheese?  Thanks again...

I wouldn't do cheese and grains if you want to get the best out of a Whole30... there is a vegetarian shopping list and if you eat eggs and maybe fish you can get through a whole30 without those two food groups... of course it's your decision but because we know that dairy is very inflammatory, if you've not tested it for yourself yet, you're kind of hamstringing your results

[Karen_Suep]

If your interested in reintroducing meats, start light (fish, poultry), and work toward red as red is probably more difficult to add in. Maybe start adding chicken or fish stock to some dishes, then slowly add in more of the muscle meat, then work to adding more dense proteins like pork and lamb and then reintroduce red meat. Kinda like a slow roll reintro for post w30. Googling "reintroducing meat" may help more with the science of it.

[Oksana Banana]

How much fat do you eat? I would add more fat for energy, not starch unless you do vigorous exercise. Coconut oil is easiest to digest.

 

I did my first whole30 after being vegan and my crab withdrawal symptoms were horrible. I had panic attacks when I was vegan. Plus I had

 a reaction to eggs, so eggs were out for that whole30. I also recommend trying enzymes for protein digestion. My second whole30 is much easier, I hadn't had a panic attack since (2years).