Advice Needed: weeks 3/4 plateau, adverse changes + questions on adrenal fatigue

[NouM]

Hello everyone. I'm on the last ten days of my first Whole30. I have seen what feels like some regression over the past week and I'd like to troubleshoot for the next 10 days or so. I'm splitting up my concerns/questions into bullet points. Feel free to message me for more details on any particular one, and thank you in advance for any input!

-ON FODMAPS: While the first two weeks were great (almost immediate increase in energy, more stable energy levels, feeling lighter and happier) the last week I have felt heavier, fuller and significantly more bloated. Not much has changed in my eating or life habits, except that the daily stress quotient has increased, and I am being mindful of that and trying to offset. Ive seen after some research here that this could be a FODMAP problem. My diet is very heavy on those. Can someone give me a quick cheat-sheet on how long to eliminate these for? What next if that doesn't seem to resolve these latest symptoms?

-ON ADRENAL FATIGUE: I don't have diagnosed adrenal fatigue, but because of my lifestyle and profession and some discussion with my GPs there's strong indication this could be a problem, which I'll tackle separately in coming months. In the mean time, what tweaks are recommended to the basic Whole30 program to better target adrenal fatigue? One guess is to eliminate coffee, and I am a big drinker. Is there a guide out there on how to reduce caffeine intake gradually (lots of changes in one month and do not want to pile more on). As a result of being more mindful on this program, I've limited my cups of coffee to 2-3 per day so far. Is there any summary out there to the science on coffee on an empty stomach, versus coffee with breakfast? How much damage are we doing if we are drinking two cups of coffee over our first waking hour or so, and then having breakfast? 

-ON FAT INTAKE: I was a pretty restrictive eater pre-Whole30, mostly limiting carbs, but with sugar binges, and I think my fat intake was average for my estimated nutritional needs but protein intake on the lower side. To substitute for milk in my coffee, I've taken to using coconut cream (maybe a teaspoon), and I'm aware of the added fat in that, but sometimes I skimp on the added Whole30 recommended fat sources per meal, so thought this is ok. Could I still be overdoing it on the fat intake? For example, last week was a busy week and I had a wonderful (but fatty) salmon three times.

-ON MINDSET: While I have enjoyed the no-kidding-around approach to this program so far, I am worried that the planning involved (and the concerns I'm having now, forcing me to re-evaluate and restrict even more), might be making me even more obsessed with food and what I'm eating. What is the Whole30 recommendation for keeping a reasonable and healthy attitude about this? I understand some of it is just logistics and planning, but it is beginning to consume what I would consider a disproportionate of my thought process.

 

Thanks very much. 

[SugarcubeOD]

Hey there;

I see you have quite a few questions to which you seem to want some fairly indepth answers. This forum is not set up for one to one coaching and we generally don't respond in DM's to people's troubleshooting because having it out in the open is where the most people get the most help from both your questions and the moderators time to answer them.

For FODMAPS, take them out until you feel better and then start adding them back in and monitoring how you feel.  there is no cheat sheet to give you for how long to leave them out however if you google FODMAPS, there are colored lists out there that indicate which ones are the most impactful down to the ones that are the least impactful.  I"d advise you to leave them out till you feel better and then start journalling your intake to find your own level of tolerance.

For the summary you're asking for about coffee on an empty stomach, you'd want to do some research... google is a great place to start.  No one here are functional medical professionals or medical doctors of any sort, so again, you'd need to meet with your doctor and create a plan... if you feel coffee is bothersome to you, then I"d remove it entirely and see how that affects you.  The question about how much damage you're doing by drinking coffee before you eat and the comparison between drinking it with or without a meal is pretty indepth for this forum.  Perhaps you want to see if you can find a forum dedicated to Adrenal Fatigue... that might be more helpful with this particular concern.

Fat is an essential part of your body's functioning and as such an essential part of the Whole30.  You ask if you're overdoing it on fat but you've given no info except 1tsp (negligible) in your coffee and salmon 3 times.  We don't consider salmon a fat, so we'd expect you to add fat to those meals along with adding it in template recommendations to every meal.  Hacking the Whole30 to make it low fat is not going to do you any favors.

If you're concerned about the Whole30 triggering an eating disorder (especially if you have had one in the past), its often best to back away from the Whole30 because ED's are nothing to be messed around with.  If it's not that severe and you're just tired of thinking about food and food prep, as you get better and planning and cooking, that goes away... Whole30 does require significantly more planning and prep than eating a Standard American Diet, especially if you were used to eating out a lot or using a lot of packaged foods.  You can google 'whole30 - when your whole30 goes bad' and get the article about Whole30 triggering eating disorders and see if that's where are heading.

[NouM]

Thanks! I appreciate this Forum isn't for in-depth answers or one-to-one counseling, but I have browed the forum quite a bit and people ask all sorts of minutia and get all sorts of minutia answers in response. I am a bit surprised a question as broad as 'hey guys - whats the best way to taper off coffee in your experience' (for any Whole30-ers who are doing that) isn't getting any replies. Thanks again in any case of your guidance.

 

 

[slc_melissa]

I would cold turkey the coffee, preferably over a weekend/ couple days that you don't have much planned and don't need to interact with too many people, as headaches are likely. And your broad question about coffee was buried under a bullet point called adrenal fatigue. I didn't even see it when I first glanced at your post, since I know nothing about adrenal fatigue.

Also, if you think you're overdoing fat by adding a teaspoon of coconut cream to your coffee, then you are probably severely under eating fat.....try to get added fats up to template meal standards.

[SugarcubeOD]

2 hours ago, NouM said:

Thanks! I appreciate this Forum isn't for in-depth answers or one-to-one counseling, but I have browed the forum quite a bit and people ask all sorts of minutia and get all sorts of minutia answers in response. I am a bit surprised a question as broad as 'hey guys - whats the best way to taper off coffee in your experience' (for any Whole30-ers who are doing that) isn't getting any replies. Thanks again in any case of your guidance.

 

 

Your post wasn't asking for minutia answers, it was asking for cheat sheets and specific guidance on medical conditions that we are not trained to answer.

 Your question didn't read to me like you wanted tips on tapering off coffee, it read like you wanted 'a summary out there to the science on coffee on an empty stomach, versus coffee with breakfast' and and answer on 'How much damage are we doing if we are drinking two cups of coffee over our first waking hour or so, and then having breakfast'. You also asked 'what tweaks are recommended to the basic Whole30 program to better target adrenal fatigue? That's neither minutia nor a request for how others have tapered off coffee.

A lot of people have tapered off coffee by either quitting cold turkey (make sure you have advil and lots of water around) or cutting their coffee with decaf until they're all the way on decaf and then deciding if they need to cut that out as well.

[NouM]

9 hours ago, slc_melissa said:

Thanks re coffee tapering! Yes it was buried, thanks for reading through. On fat, I am following the per meal added fat template about 90% of the time but sometimes I'm on the run and the additions aren't available to me. I will do more strategic planning to have some of these on hand.

 

 

[NouM]

7 hours ago, SugarcubeOD said:

Your post wasn't asking for minutia answers, it was asking for cheat sheets and specific guidance on medical conditions that we are not trained to answer.

Ok, understood. By cheat sheet I meant "Whole30 material / guidance that already exists in print form and will be closer in spirit to the program than the vast material I can read on Google but wouldn't know which is best to apply." Also understood that my queries are too narrow/medical. Genuine thanks for your feedback.

 

 

[sweetz149]

I know this is an older post but I've suffered from adrenal fatigue and was a daily coffee drinker. You have to give it up for a while to heal your adrenals. I love coffee and hate the headaches from not having it so I weaned off by drinking Teecino herbal coffee. Their dandelion blend is gluten free. I now drink that in place of coffee most days. I really like it and occasionally I mix it with a little organic coffee and can tolerate it. Stress plays a huge role as well in healing. Hope that helps.