Constant Headaches & Stomachaches Late in the Game

[mrsxmiaxwallce]

I am on day 26 of Whole30 and I am feeling the WORST I've felt the entire time despite a strict adherence to the rules. The first week I felt okay, the second week was a little rough at the beginning, but then I felt great. Late into the third week and now as I am nearly finished on my fourth week I feel awful. Headaches of varying degrees every day and now terrible stomach aches often accompanied by nausea. I NEVER got headaches prior to Whole30, NEVER.

I haven't introduced anything new into my diet that I wasn't eating before and I am eating at least 4 times a day if not more. I had a super comprehensive food allergy test done prior to starting Whole30 so I know I'm not eating foods that I have issues with. I have been hydrating like crazy. The only thing that has changed that I can point to is Whole30. I was expecting to feel even better than I did at the start of week 3, not significantly worse. I'm not running a fever or feeling poorly otherwise. Has ANYONE else had this issue?

I was planning to keep going for another 30 days while my parents do their first Whole 30 but I am not going to stick with it if I just feel like crap all the time.

[amandaalice]

I was just coming on here to post the same thing! I'm on day 19 and feeling really crummy... I hope you start to feel better!

[MelindaDee]

I was just about to post the same thing! I'm on day 23. I don't have any science to back this up but I'm wondering if it has to do with the timing of my eating? I've been eating my meals but the time that I eat varies from day to day. Some days I might eat a proper breakfast and others a brunch. I always eat my 3 meals and have minimized snacking except when I'm just starving for some reason. Eating seems to help but it never makes the headaches go away. I've had them for 3 days straight and I think the headache meds are upsetting my stomach even if I take them with food. My appetite is pretty shot and I'm like 90% over cooking and doing dishes. I feel like I'm going through the timeline backwards? I felt really good at the beginning. Should I be eating more fat? More fruit? 

[Urnesha]

I'm not one of the moderators but I can say that the moderators will ask each of you to perhaps give an example of your typical meals for the last few days so they can maybe see if your meal plan is the problem? It's easy to not eat enough if you're not following the Meal plan properly and that can lead to low energy/headaches etc esp if you're also working out. 

[mrsxmiaxwallce]

Hey All,

So today is my last day – I think I may have figured out my problems. 

I think the stomach ache was tea. I gave up coffee as part of Whole30 too and started drinking black tea in the morning and occasionally the afternoon. I have been fine the entire month so I didn't think for a minute about the tea, but I put two and two together after having none over the weekend and then having two cups Monday and getting the exact same horrible stomach ache. I have no explanation for that other than I'm having a caffeine or tanin reaction now. I've been a heavy coffee drinker for probably a decade so I didn't think it was the caffeine, but who knows. Signs my body is healing and able to throw up a red flag if it's not happy...?

I think the headaches may be attributed to my last sugar purge. I wasn't eating a lot of natural sugar, usually an apple with a healthy dose of almond butter for breakfast and a Larabar or dates for a snack, but I cut those out entirely as well. So I may have ended up detoxing again to some degree. I know the first few days of no refined sugar produced one of the worst headaches I've ever had, so that wouldn't be totally out of question to think even a minor detox caused more headaches. I've been doing well since Sunday other than the stomach ache Monday that solved my problem. 

Sorry, that probably doesn't help anyone else out very much! :-/ Hope you all are able to figure out what is happening to you too.