Day 16 & discouraged

[Cait28]

Hello, this is my first Whole30 and I'm starting day 16. I have not weighed myself but my pants are very tight and I'm not seeing too many non scale victories other than more consistent daytime energy... In fact I'm actually sleeping poorly and it's hard to get out of bed in the morning. For some background, I'm a 28 yr old female, not overweight but have gained 10lbs in the past year due to probably getting older and a lot of binge eating of sweets and generally 75% of my meals eaten out. My first 15 days I have eaten at least once piece of fruit daily with almond butter (typically a whole banana or an apple) and after reading some posts I think I'm going to cut that out as I believe I am over consuming nut butters and snacking when I probably don't need to. I also have realized that eating a banana seems to fuel some intense sugar cravings for me. Besides that, could you look at my general meal plan and let me know if it looks okay? I'm worried about eating too much fat... I know this may sound like a dumb question but when I make my eggs and veggies for example, I use way more than a thumb size of ghee of olive oil to sautee and I'm pretty sure that all gets absorbed.

Bfast: 2-3 whole eggs with about 1/4-1/2 of a sweet potato sautéed along with probably about 1-1.5 cups of kale baked down into chips (I just use olive oil, salt, pepper and crushed red pepper on these). Sometimes I add tessameas buffalo to this adding to the fat content.

Lunch: zoodles! I use a store bought compliant Mariana (rao's) with ground beef (I typically get grass fed, for this week I got a lean beef). 1lb of beef will last me three lunches so I'm having about a 1/3 lb a day... Sometimes I sprinkle nutritional yeast ontop

Dinner: varies- last night I had a spring green salad w onion and cucumber with Tessameas zesty ranch dressing and two chicken thighs I had baked w Italian seasoning (compliant) and a little tomato sauce. I also eat a lot of whole foods naked rotisserie chix w a large salad w a whole avacado for dinner or make salmon/sweet potato patties. I've also done w a salad with two applegate grass fed hotdogs and sauerkraut.

If I eliminate my snacking w fruit and nut butters do you think these three meals are enough? I have a very sedentary office job but a circuit weight class at the gym three times a week. No cardio.

[Staggolee41]

Hi there, Cait28! First off, I'm so glad you came here for help. The forums are full of supportive members and knowledgeable moderators. To frame my advice: I am not at all an expert, but I did finish my first Whole30 last Tuesday, and I've been reading these forums very regularly since before Day 1. I am 30 years old and mostly healthy (though overweight).

 

Your meals sound delicious! Your protein portions, however, seem small. The template suggests 1-2 palms of protein at each meal (comparative to the size and thickness of your palm), and this means a minimum of three eggs each time you eat eggs. How many eggs can you hold in your palm? I have very small hands and can hold three well enough. Most women need at least 3-4 eggs. Also, the circuit training is a workout, so you should be having a pre-workout and post-workout meal each of those times. This could be a big reason why your body is not running optimally, as it's raiding for nutrients after those workouts and not finding what it needs.

 

The sugar/fruit connection... To be honest, any time I ate fruit in the early part of my Whole30, it made me want to binge on sugar right away. Even though fruit has natural sugars, they are still sugars, and for some, that connection is too deep. I made the decision to limit fruit consumption to one time a week at the beginning of the second week, and that really helped me kill the sugar dragon. I have had limited amounts of sugar since I finished, and I have not felt the need to binge since, so I would say I'm glad I cut out most fruit.

 

Snacking is not permitted on the plan. You are guided by the book and template to, if you NEED to do so, have a mini-meal (ideally, a combination of protein-fat-veggies) in between meals. Snacking the way you are - on fruits and nut butters - is only keeping alive the habit of snacking for habit instead of nutritional value. Not that fruits and nut butters are devoid of nutritional value... there are just much better options out there. Additionally, if you need to snack, that means your meals are not big enough. You should easily make it 4-5 hours before you feel the need to eat again.

 

Fat... don't count your cooking fat. I know, it seems illogical, but don't. I felt much better once I heeded the advice of a wonderful moderator on these forums, stopped counting the cooking fat, and started adding more fat to my meals. Pitted kalamata olives are my favorite way to add in fat, and I often end the meal that way (it's a nice final note and cleanses the palate a bit).

 

Restrict electronic device usage beginning at least 30 minutes before bed. I promise... this will help your sleep. I didn't believe it at first, finally tried it, fantastic results. I've also heard that magnesium supplements can help those struggling with sleep.

 

I know I've given you a lot of advice here, and I'm sure one of the moderators will chime in shortly. I know this plan is framed around tough love. But I want to give you some encouragement, too. This isn't easy, and you've been doing it for over two weeks already. Look for NSVs in all parts of your life - some of them aren't obvious. Are you approaching food differently? Are your anxiety and stress levels lower? Are your nails feeling stronger? Do you respond to advertisements for food differently? Do you feel freed by not having to count calories?

 

I wrote my NSVs on my bathroom mirror in dry erase marker as I went to help keep myself motivated. I gave a full list of them in my post-mortem - and I think I still forgot some - and there were so many, even if they were small. You can find my post-mortem here: http://forum.whole30.com/topic/37944-first-whole30-down/

 

I really hope we can help you tweak what you're doing so that your NSV list gets out-of-control long and awesome. I hope that you find this plan changes your life. Everyone's journey will be different, but the consistent theme overall is that life gets better as a result of this. Be fully bought into it, mentally, emotionally, and physically. If you don't have any NSVs of mention, then make a list of reasons why you chose to do it. But you CAN do this, and it IS worth it.

[ladyshanny]

Everything Staggolee said (except the line "snacking isn't permitted" I would change to "snacking isn't recommended" as meal timing/composition is a recommendation, not a rule).

 

If you were very accustomed to eating out and eating junk, you could very well be experiencing a radical shift of your gut bacteria which would cause your pants to feel tighter as you are probably rather bloated.  Give some thought to adding a digestive enzyme or some food-based probiotics such as kombucha, kimchi or sauerkraut (the refrigerated kind, not the shelf-stable kind). This could help give your gut a fighting chance in re balancing.

 

The other thing I would suggest is to avoid eating fruit on its own or with nut butter, especially if you are doing it when you are craving sweets/treats. And you could try moving your fruit away from your morning meal if you are dealing with early hunger following a meal. Lots of people report that fruit had in the AM causes cravings and false hunger later in the day. For sleep you could also try moving your starchy veggie to your evening meal as that can help with sleep.

 

As far as meal composition tweaks, 1-2 cups of kale chips isn't exactly what is meant when we say "fill your plate with veggies" or "1-3 cups veggies".  Add some actual cooked vegetables that have some substance to them. Your lunch doesn't report fat, make sure you are having fat at every meal.  Salad, when eaten as a meal, needs to be huge.  Like...mixing bowl huge. If not, add some other sturdier or cooked veggies to those salads.

 

So in answer to your fat question: no you are not eating too much fat.  In answer to your question about the three meals being suitable: you tell us. Are you going 4-5 hours in between meals comfortably? Is your energy consistent? How's your sleep? Is your mood stable? 

[Staggolee41]

Everything Staggolee said (except the line "snacking isn't permitted" I would change to "snacking isn't recommended" as meal timing/composition is a recommendation, not a rule).

 

You're right! I think I probably should have said "mini-mealing is suggested in place of traditional snacking." I think of snacking as something you do with foods that don't really fill your body's needs. Another thing that has changed about me since beginning Whole30.

[Cait28]

Thank you so much for the responses! If I am eating ground beef for lunch does that not count as a fat and a protein? Or does the fat in a fatty cut of meat not count? I also count my eggs for the fat in the morning.

[Staggolee41]

Thank you so much for the responses! If I am eating ground beef for lunch does that not count as a fat and a protein? Or does the fat in a fatty cut of meat not count? I also count my eggs for the fat in the morning.

 

Do NOT count the fat you perceive is in your protein. You need to add fat on top of that. Avocado, olives, etc. This is another thing that SugarcubeOD had to tell me, and before you say "holy cow! that's a lot of fat," yes, it is, and this is part of forcing the bodily adaptation laced through this plan (using fat as fuel).