discouraged

[yvonne123456]

Hi All. I'm on Day 11 and feeling discouraged. When I started, I immediately lost some puffiness in my face, waist, and hips, but I seemed to have leveled out and don't think I'm losing any more weight (though I'm not weighing myself). I'm tired, irritable (I was very short with my partner this morning  ) and also still missing pasta, bread, and sweets. Up until yesterday morning I was having consistent diarrhea. I'm feeling some non-scale benefits of the program, even ones I haven't read about: bad breath seems to be gone; I stay fuller longer; I'm not as reliant on coffee in the morning; skin inflammation seems to have gone down-- these are all great things!

But what I really want is to no longer have bread/pasta/sugar cravings and to experience this tiger blood energy I keep reading about. Is it simply too soon for that to happen, or am I doing something wrong? 

Here's my typical day (everything is homemade, so I know it's compliant because I check labels very carefully): 

Breakfast is usually eggs and sweet potato hash browns with black coffee and either a few strawberries or a couple of fresh pineapple slices. Lunch or dinner has been one of the following in the last four days: spinach salad with avocado and two hard-boiled eggs or steak; homemade meat marinara with zucchini or butternut squash noodles; grilled calamari with steamed broccoli; steak with green beans and 1/2 sweet potato. Anything I cook on the stove (except steak) has olive oil. Sometimes I add a couple strawberries or a slice of pineapple to lunch or dinner. If I can't make it to dinner because I'm hungry, shaky, or have a late meeting, I'll do a snack of an apple with almond butter. If I'm hungry at bedtime I'll have a banana with almond butter. 

Thanks in advance for your help! 

[ladyshanny]

31 minutes ago, yvonne123456 said:

But what I really want is to no longer have bread/pasta/sugar cravings and to experience this tiger blood energy I keep reading about. Is it simply too soon for that to happen, or am I doing something wrong? 

Yes it is too soon for that and no it isn't too soon for that. First, the initial 10-14 days of the program is where a lot of the rebalancing comes in, so I wouldn't necessarily get used to any one particular feeling during this time, be that bloat reduction, energy, skin, etc. 

In order to get rid of your carb and sugar cravings, you have to eat more food that is not carby or sugary. So here are my suggestions for you:

• move your sweet potato/starchy veggie to your evening meal and replace that at your first meal with non-starchy cooked veggies.
  • add another egg to that breakfast and a fat serving
  • reconsider adding fruit to breakfast.......which, if you add the other egg and the fat and 3 cups of cooked veggies, you shouldn't have room for anyway.
• make sure that your protein servings are 1-2 palm sizes. The calamari looks like not very much and you would want to add a fat to that. 
• we recommend 1-3 cups of cooked veggies per meal. If it's salad greens you're having, you need a mixing bowl full. Seriously.
• cooking fat stays in the pan for the most part or is split amongst the servings. Always add an additional fat source
• your apple/nut butter and bananan/nut butter combo is not doing a thing for you in terms of killing carb/sugar cravings. 
  • if you bump your meals up as I've described, you won't need to snack. If you do, have protein + fat or protein + veggie for optimal satiation/nutrition

Basically in order to get rid of carb and sugar cravings, you have to not use compliant sugars as a substitute. Eating adequate fat, protein and vegetables will go miles towards helping you through that, physiologically. PSYchologically is a different story and that just needs pushing through.

[laura_juggles]

Right off the bat, days 10/11 are usually when everyone is like "this is dumb, I want to quit". So hang in there. 

When your only protein is eggs, you need to eat as many as you can hold in your hand without dropping them. For women, that's typically 3-4 at least. 

Except for your mention of avocado, there's no fat. That's going to make you feel terrible. I know you said you're cooking things in olive oil, but cooking fat generally doesn't count. Add some ghee on that steamed broccoli or olives. That might also help the getting hungry/shaky between meals or before bed. 

[yvonne123456]

Thanks so much for your help. Using your advice, I created a meal plan and went grocery shopping. My plan is for the next few breakfasts to be eggs and asparagus or broccoli; lunch or dinner to be either a burger with a side of guacamole with cucumber and pepper slices, or tuna lettuce wraps with the same side. I also bought some macadamia nuts to try to add fat, and if I need a snack I'll try to do a hardboiled egg, nuts, and some veggies. To be honest, veggies make me want to gag right now. But, onward! Thanks again. 

[SugarcubeOD]

Nuts are not your best source of fat... they're very high in Omega 6 which most of us have too much of anyway, they can be food without brakes and they're notoriously disruptive to the gut.  Try mayo, avocado, coconut, dressinngs, olives, oils, animal fats etc.... those are all much better options!

[yvonne123456]

That's really helpful to know that nuts aren't great. I did some more searching and found that over eating nuts could be why I'm dealing with diarrhea and canker sores. I'm going to try to cut out fruit and nuts entirely and use avocado or drizzled olive oil as a better fat. This morning was eggs, broccoli, and a side of guacamole. Thanks again for your help!!