unexpected initial weight gain

[happybean]

Hello, Please excuse (most probably) rookie query.  I'm feeling like I'm rapidly gaining weight and am a bit (very) concerned. I'm on day 5 of Whole30 and am finding the eating realtively simple (adding a breakfast in is somewhat of a challenge as I'm used to intermittent fasting) but otherwise all good.

 

A bit of history (feel free to skip alllll this!)... Over the past few years I've thrown myself head first into all sorts of diets all with relatively good success... paleo, primal, perfect health diet, plantbased, high carb low fat vegan, raw vegan, low carb, all mostly out of curiosity and to see if I could help my running and recovery along. This time last year I was following a raw vegan diet and was doing really quite well but then I started experiencing health issues. I found some fantastic info through Denise minger's website rawfoodsos.com which made me realise I'd been following a doctrine that really wasn't too good for me. So I went back to high ish carb vegan and then paleo ish (still with loads of raw veggies) and started to feel better and my running and racing was pretty good with a great 100k race and a good time in a half marathon. Then I started learning about ultra runners who are fat adapted and thought I'd give it a go to see if it could make me run for more sustained periods without having to carb up. So I went low carb and then keto all while training at a low base rate. Then in november last year I ran a surprisingly fast and strong 10k while fat adapted. With the benefit of hindsight I think this is when I broke myself (set off the wheels for adrenal fatigue) as I didn't replace the glycogen from the really quite hard effort and just carried on with keto. By December I was starting to feel burned out and my running and general energy was lacking.[oh I need to say too that I'm a mum of four, run a pretty successful home based business, run most days (well I did before I broke myself) and am/was generally healthy] . I was craving energy so decided to go back to what I was good at (and had given me good results in the past) and went hclf. But after a few weeks this wasn't helping either and I was thinking that it might be the anaemia I tend to suffer with. So in January I decided to do keto properly (I thought maybe I hadn't done it properly or something before). The first few weeks were okay and my energy was lowish but I expected that so wasn't too worried. I practiced intermittent fasting and didn't feel too hungry (apart from just before meals when i was ravenous). As my energy wasn't picking up I decided to do an extended fast to kick my bod into some sort of shape. I felt pretty good during the fast (72 hours) and even managed a run at the end of it as my stomach felt happy for the first time in weeks (no heavy feeling) and my energy levels seemed to be coming back... yay! Alas it didn't last. Once I went back to keto eating I just couldn't stomach the meals. The fatty foods were making me feel sick and my morning bpc went out the window (nearly literally!) So I added more carbs in but still no energy. then out of desperation I went back to plantbased for a week which gave me a bit more energy but not great. And then I found It starts With Food last week and thought Yessssssss! What a revelation - and it makes perfect sense.

 

But even though I'm eating according to the Whole30 plan, I'm finding that I'm gaining weight. This is really quite demoralising. I realise I'm not training at the moment (apart from around half an hour every other day of uphill walking on a treadmill and half an hour of kettlebells and maybe a little stretching). And it's starting to get me down. If there's anyone out there that's still actually reading this and can give me some pointers I'd be most grateful. Here's what an average day's food looks like... Breakfast: 2 eggs scrambled in ghee with loads of sauteed spinach and a couple strawberries (sounds odd but is so good!), lunch: huuuuge salad with palm sized protein and homemade mayo/vinaigrette, also sometimes half an avo, dinner: similar to lunch but normally with less salad and more cooked veggies. No snacks. loads of water (mainly in the of hot water with slices of lemon), 1 or 2 decaff coffees.

 

Ugh I never realised how a bit of extra weight can have such an effect on me. If it's one of those things that will pan out then I can go with it. But at the moment my heart is telling me just to eat less. Or revert back to a high carb diet. I need energy. And I need less of me!

[SugarcubeOD]

Okay, I'm glad you listed out what you've been doing to yourself in the past because it's the key to what is happening.  When your body is confused (and do you blame it??) and you start giving it real food, it's going to hold on to that real food because it doesn't know when you're going to take it away again... you have a history of bouncing around from one thing to the next... I didn't quite get what the timeline on that whole first part of your post was but that's a lot of changing around and restricting.

Second, you're not really eating enough... eggs when they are your sole source of protein are as many as you can hold in one hand without dropping... you should be starting at 3-4 or adding another source of protein in there with them.  Your breakfast has no fat (we don't really count cooking fat) and spinach isn't 'loads' unless you're eating bags and bags of it at one time.

Try and make your meals match the template for starters.  I think the biggest thing you need to do tho is to calm down... take a few deep breaths and tell yourself and your body that you're going to stick this out for AT LEAST 30 days... you're going to fuel it without worrying about calories or high carb or low fat or vegan or raw or blah blah blah.. .you're stressing yourself out so much and that is going to impact your hormones.

Do not eat less.  Don't do it.  You deserve to eat proper amounts of real food for an extended period of time to remind your body that you actually do respect it and all the hard work it does running after 4 kids and a business and you know, living.... and in order to fuel it for that, you need to eat.

This temporary weight gain will straighten itself out if you just give it time and relax... easier said than done, I know but I also know that you're not the first to come here with this type of story and you're not the last and I know for a FACT that you'll come back here in time and tell us how amazing you feel and that you're SO GLAD you posted to the forum that first time because it helped you stick it out and look at you now!  And then we all cheer! 

[happybean]

20 minutes ago, SugarcubeOD said:

Okay, I'm glad you listed out what you've been doing to yourself in the past because it's the key to what is happening.  When your body is confused (and do you blame it??) and you start giving it real food, it's going to hold on to that real food because it doesn't know when you're going to take it away again... you have a history of bouncing around from one thing to the next... I didn't quite get what the timeline on that whole first part of your post was but that's a lot of changing around and restricting.

Second, you're not really eating enough... eggs when they are your sole source of protein are as many as you can hold in one hand without dropping... you should be starting at 3-4 or adding another source of protein in there with them.  Your breakfast has no fat (we don't really count cooking fat) and spinach isn't 'loads' unless you're eating bags and bags of it at one time.

Try and make your meals match the template for starters.  I think the biggest thing you need to do tho is to calm down... take a few deep breaths and tell yourself and your body that you're going to stick this out for AT LEAST 30 days... you're going to fuel it without worrying about calories or high carb or low fat or vegan or raw or blah blah blah.. .you're stressing yourself out so much and that is going to impact your hormones.

Do not eat less.  Don't do it.  You deserve to eat proper amounts of real food for an extended period of time to remind your body that you actually do respect it and all the hard work it does running after 4 kids and a business and you know, living.... and in order to fuel it for that, you need to eat.

This temporary weight gain will straighten itself out if you just give it time and relax... easier said than done, I know but I also know that you're not the first to come here with this type of story and you're not the last and I know for a FACT that you'll come back here in time and tell us how amazing you feel and that you're SO GLAD you posted to the forum that first time because it helped you stick it out and look at you now!  And then we all cheer! 

Ah what with feeling I was giving a bit too much of a life story there I didn't put in any scale by time frames.. All of the above eating regimes lasted around a year of so each, maybe more, maybe a little less. But you're right, i give it my all but when I'm feeling as though it's not working I then do tend to search out an alternative. It just seems that the alternative I choose tends to be diametrically opposite! I know the egg thing and read it in the ISWF but I guess I feel as I'm already not exactly on the large side (I'm 5'5" and currently, well 5 days ago when I weighed myself at the beginning of Whole30 I was 121lbs. My weight when I'm running lots tends to be around 110lbs - and that's with muscle, of which I'm currently feeling I have very little of

I honestly thought I was matching the meal template so I think I need to re educate myself. But... (here's the mental block thing)... I'm already feeling full and not needing to snack between meals (unlike my hclf days) which means I'm now pretty terrified of adding more weight on. Ugh... mindset.

 

But you speak sense so I may just have to stop, and breathe, and listen to you. And I very much like your last paragraph!!

 

Thank you SugarcubeOD (love your name!)

[DansiA]

Thanks for sharing! Have you changed anything, and if so what? What has the outcome been?