Day 7 - still snacking too much & no progress...

[PK2018]

Hi all,

I’m day 7 of the plan and have been 100% compliant, despite my 2 day trip to Seattle this past week and watching my friends eat the most delicious food and desserts!

With that said, however, I had to rely on snacks to get me through the trip and my airport connections. Even before my trip, I was still snacking a lot. I found it was too hard to carry around boiled eggs, so I relied mostly on Chomps grass fed jerky sticks, Lara bars, fruits, and NUTS. Although I portioned my nuts out into small Zip locks, I feel I’ve had way too many nuts this week. 

I know that snacking too much means my meals aren’t hefty enough, but I can’t seem to eat that much more in one sitting for my meals.

I feel really discouraged right now because I was hoping to see some results in my body and in fact, I feel the same if not worse (bloated wise) because of all the snacking.

Is there hope for me to change the way this program is going for me? Any recommendations are welcome! 

 

Also, I know weight loss should not be the primarily goal, but for me it is directly linked with my other goal of developing a better relationship with food. When do most people start seeing weight loss on this plan? It’s frustsating to feel you are sacrificing so much but not seeing (or feeling) any changes.

[ShannonM816]

Day 7 is way too early to be seeing weight loss results. (And you shouldn't actually be weighing yourself anyway, so I'm assuming you're going by how your clothes fit, right? You're heading into what is referred to in the timeline as For the Love of Gosling, My Pants Are Tighter!  https://whole30.com/2013/08/revised-timeline/ ) My first Whole30 I was convinced I was gaining weight until the very last week -- just hang in there and trust the process, and try to keep track of non-scale victories as they happen (like clothes fitting better, better mood, better skin/nails/hair, feeling more in control of food, etc. -- there's a checklist you can download here if you need more ideas:  https://whole30.com/pdf-downloads/) 

It takes some time to figure out meal sizes and timing. You totally have time to make changes and get the most out of this.

What do your meals typically look like (including portion sizes and specific vegetables)? Remember that you should be having 1-2 palm-sized portions of protein, 1-2 thumb-sized portions of oil or 1-2 of the other options listed on the meal template, generally in addition to whatever oil you cook in, and then you should fill your plate with vegetables.  If you're eating a lot of raw veggies, try cooking more of them -- cooked vegetables are less likely to cause bloating. Instead of nuts, have olives or avocado or coconut or make up some sauces or dips for your fat sources. Be sure you're drinking plenty of water, aiming for 1/2 oz per pound of body weight, so a 120-lb person needs at least 60 oz, and if you work out hard or are outside in the heat so you're sweating a lot, you'd need more. 

 

[PK2018]

Hi Shannon,

Thanks for the quick response. To answer your question, no I am not basing it off the scale. My pants are actually tighter than they were before I started the program. 

Here’s an example of what my meals looked like this past week:

Breakfast: egg scramble with grass fed hotdog (no sugar added) + tomatoes  potatoes + avocado + coffee with compliant almond milk brand

*Side note- I’m getting very tired of this breakfast so probably need a new one for week 2.

Lunch- eggplant and beef stu with green beans. 

Snack:  one of these options 

(1) apple and almond butter

(2) Lara bar or RX bar

(3) pear with some nuts (walnuts, tiger nuts, almonds, cashews)  

Workout (some days I don’t have energy for my normal high intensity workouts so I’ll just do 40 mins of treadmill instead).

I eat dinner right after my workouts so I don’t do a post workout meal. 

Dinner: sweet potatoes, spinach, green beans + a bunch of leftover veggies

OR 

yellow squash zoodles with sundried tomatoes and vegan pesto sauce with pine nuts and marinara sauce + veggies (green beans or mushrooms)

*note: I usually try to avoid having meat for dinner since I’m already having meat in my breakfast and lunch. Also, I’m allergic to most fish. 

I find myself snacking sometimes after dinner, so I do think I need to make my dinner heartier. But I can’t think of ways to do it without adding more meat or eggs, which I’m usually sick of by the time dinner comes around. 

 

Last note- my body fat percentage is higher than it should be for a woman of my age/size (I’m 29 years old, 5’4 and weigh 132 with 35% ish body fat). My triglycerides have also been high in the last few years. Because of this, I’ve been reluctant to add more fat to my meals, such as adding additional ghee or coconut oil to meals. I truly feel my body doesn’t need the extra fat. What do you think?

[ShannonM816]

Fat is what will help keep you satisfied between meals. Also, you're having fat in the form of nuts between meals anyway, so why not try adding it to the meals instead and see if you can avoid the snacks?

Nuts cause bloating for a lot of people. Try to limit them to a small closed handful every other day or so and see if that helps. If you need to eat between meals, try to have a combo of protein, fat, and vegetables, or at least two of the three. 

If you are eating more meat than you're used to, you might look into digestive enzymes to help you digest it more easily -- here's an article about those, although it's older, so I'm not sure if the brands they recommend are available or compliant anymore:  http://whole9life.com/2012/09/digestive-enzymes-101/  If you really, really want to try to do dinner without adding meat or eggs, definitely be sure you're adding fat to those meals. Do you notice if you stay more satisfied when you have the sweet potato dinner versus the other? If you do, you might make sure you have some kind of starchy vegetable with dinner -- sweet potato, potato, beets, turnips, carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, or winter squashes like butternut or acorn or kabocha squash.

I do realize this is a very different way of eating than most diets you might have heard of before. I'd really suggest following the meal template to the best of your ability and trusting the process. The idea is to get into a fat burning state where your body uses fat as readily as carbs (not necessarily ketosis, which requires going much lower carb for most people). To do this, fat is important. If you're interested in the science behind the recommendations, you might look for a copy of It Starts With Food which explains why the rules are what they are -- https://whole30.com/itstartswithfood.