Food Freedom Forever Reset Plan -- Whole30 kind of?

[Charlynn]

I tried Whole 30 a few times over the past 18 months and struggled primarily with the eating only three times a day with no snacking (unless I exercised). Since the new book FFF doesn't require a strict Whole30 per se, would it be "ok" for me to do a 30 day reset using all of the Whole30 rules in terms of what I can (and cannot) eat, but eat on my own timeline? I know there is a reason for the three big meals with no snacking, but since this has proven to be an obstacle for me in the past, would you say it is better for me to at least do an "unofficial" Whole 30 as my FFF Reset, or would there be a reason not to do this (not healthy, not beneficial, not likely to work)?

Thanks!

Charlynn

[kanmuri]

I think you have to do what works for you.  I sometimes only eat only two meals a day, even on the Whole30.  Trusting your hunger is very important.  You just want to make sure you're not snacking because it's snack time, but because you're hungry.

[Charlynn]

Thank you! I can get so caught up in doing the program "perfectly" that if I am truly hungry and have a snack of 5 -10 almonds I feel like a failure. If I go in allowing myself to eat when I am hungry, and truly evaluate that, then my hope is that I will be more successful. I guess regardless going 30 days eating all the permitted foods will be a huge improvement, even if some will not count it as a true Whole30.

[ShannonM816]

Three meals a day without snacks is not a rule, it's a recommendation.  If all the foods you eat are whole30 compliant, you've done a whole30.

[SpunkyBug]

I would recommend, however, trying something like olives instead of almonds for your snack. Nuts can be tough on the gut. And during my first Whole30, I ate a lot of nuts and found them to be a food that is easy to eat mindlessly , hand to mouth. 

[Tom Denham]

The Whole30 encourages you to eat when you are hungry AND we encourage you not to snack. The point is that when you are not lasting 4-5 hours between meals, instead of scheduling a snack, make changes to the size and fat content of your meals so that you can last 4-5 hours between meals. This is a critically important skill to being healthy and enjoying food freedom. Keep working on this skill. Skipping it means missing some of the real value of making this effort. 

[Tom Denham]

11 hours ago, kanmuri said:

I think you have to do what works for you.  I sometimes only eat only two meals a day, even on the Whole30.  Trusting your hunger is very important.  You just want to make sure you're not snacking because it's snack time, but because you're hungry.

Something is off in your body if you don't get hungry every 5 hours give or take a bit. So if you eat only two meals a day more than once every other week or so, you need to be trying to figure out what is off.

[kanmuri]

Have you heard of intermittent fasting? This is usually what my body works best with. Humans didn't eat three square meals a day in the past.  On an evolutionary stand point, it would have been impossible to survive because hunting and gathering meant a constant fluctuation between abundance and scarcity. Also, once you become fat adapted your hunger cues diminish because unlike glucose, fat burns more slowly, allowing for more time between meals.  Some of the great names in the Paleo world sometimes eat only one big meal a day (although research has proven that women don't thrive as much on extended periods of fasting and should have a daily 8h eating window rather than longer fasting periods.)  I am perfectly healthy and my holistic can vouch for that.  Don't forget that your body is an experiment of one; what works for me, doesn't work for everyone, and vice versa.