Help, I can't eat this much!

[BisforBrooks]

Hi there, I am a 34 year old female on day 7. I am using it as an elimination diet in attempt to identify ongoing stomach issues. I have felt okay this past week and stayed fully compliant, but today I feel awful. My energy is non existant. I am certain that this is because I am not eating enough, but I am really struggling with the recommended portion sizes for each meal. I cannot eat 4 eggs and a plate of vegetables and a fat, or any other similar plate of food. I am SO full halfway through. I know I won't be successful in this if I cannot figure out how to intake enough to maintain my energy. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! TIA. 

[ShannonM816]

If your goal is to eventually eat three larger meals as recommended, you could try plating up a meal, eating what you can of it, set it aside and then as soon as you feel like you could eat a little more, go back to it -- some people find that doing this, they get to a point where they can eat the full meal at once over time. And for now, stick to the minimum size of meal, so just do one palm-sized portion of protein, one serving of fat, and a cup or two of vegetables. If that's enough to keep you satisfied for 4-5 hours that may be all you need. 

I will say that with the eggs, I can technically hold four eggs, but I generally eat 3. I've tried to do 4 and can't finish them all. Or sometimes it's easier to eat an egg or two alongside some other protein to make a serving. 

Three meals a day is just a recommendation, not a rule, so if for now you have to break it up into more meals to be able to eat enough food, you're not ruining your Whole30 or anything. The recommendations are how we think you'll get the best possible results, but not eating enough isn't in keeping with what we want you to do, so in this case, doing what you need to do to make sure you're eating enough is more important. That's not a license to graze all day or snack on fruit and nuts all the time -- when you do eat, try to plate up some combo of protein, fat, and vegetables, and keep the fruit to no more than a couple of servings a day if you have it at all, and eat mindfully, preferably when you're not distracted by other stuff. 

(And all of this is assuming you don't have a medical reason that you cannot eat large servings. The most common instance where this would apply is people who've had some weight loss surgeries that physically change the size of their stomach, but there could be other circumstances where it's just physically impossible to eat that much at once. In that case, you'd eat the amounts you could eat, just making each meal smaller sized portions, but following the template -- so a mix of protein, fat and vegetables, just in smaller amounts.)