Side Effects of Reintroducing Food Post Whole30

[laura]

I finished my whole30 Nov 9. It went quite well. I am not "cured" of my emotional and binge eating but I am far more aware then I have ever been. I learned how to say no, even when the peer pressure was great. My training abilities have increased greatly. I'm down 10lbs and 10 inches.

I really feared reintroduction though. I am scared to gain back the weight I lost, as this is the smallest I have ever been and it means a lot to me to be around this weight. I thought when I added things back in that I would feel awful and I would use that as motivation to maintain this way of eating as a lifestyle.

I added back dairy and had NO side effects. I added cheese as its the only dairy product I feel I would even want to eat. There would be no point in adding milk since I never really use it, coconut milk is fine by me.

Then yesterday I added back a slice of pizza so gluten and dairy. NOTHING again today. I feel a teeny bit bloated, but it could have been from the sodium content as well as I normally don't consume much sodium.

I don't want to go hog wild with other foods and I feel they will get me to a place where I don't want to be. Now that they don't bother me much, I feel like I have to make my decisions based on more emotional reasons (ex. is that piece of pizza REALLY worth it?) since I don't seem to have physical paramaters to control my decision making.

Perhaps as I experiment more I will start to feel the sluggish and tummy hurting side effects of non-paleo foods as I had expected, but until then its up to me. I find that challenging.

[Tom Denham]

I don't seem to experience overt symptoms when I eat off plan most of the time either. For me, the question is not what I can get away with, but how healthy do I want to be. Since what we eat either makes us more healthy or less healthy, I want to be sure to eat mostly foods that make me more healthy.

I rarely experience cravings, but at a diner Saturday night, the patty melt looked really good to me. I don't think I've eaten a patty melt in 10 years, but it was the most attractive thing on the menu for some reason. I was especially hungry because I had been doing yoga for 4 hours and had not had lunch. I decided to order chicken and broccoli and promised myself I would order a patty melt if I were still hungry later. I filled up on the chicken and broccoli and stopped eating. After eating, I was glad I chose the foods that make me more healthy and didn't devote that meal to something that makes me less healthy. I may choose the patty melt another night, but maybe I won't. I really like being healthy and don't want to give up even a little bit of what I've made of myself.

[nutshell]

Thank you Tom - your reply was exactly the words of wisdom I was looking for this morning!

[Breezygoat]

I really like being healthy and don't want to give up even a little bit of what I've made of myself.

That sentence really hit home for me. I am only on Day 4, but have been steadily refining my diet ( in a good way, not the processed way!) for the last 5 months. We really are crafting our best selves, aren't we? I've never been a "my body is my temple" kind of person, but why would we *want* to spray graffiti all over our personal works of art, nutritionally?