When to Restart the Whole30?

[Zozo2019]

Hi everyone, 

I need some advice, please! I am on Day 9 of my Whole30 and everything has been going great, until last night. Let me start by first saying that I am a medically diagnosed Celiac (autoimmune disease to gluten). So, I started this whole thing to repair my guts and figure out if any other foods have been bothering me. Last night, we went to Bennihana's for a friend's bday. I ordered everything whole30 compliant (plain steak, plain veggies, no rice, no dressing, etc.). After the chef started cooking, I noticed that he did not separate my food and cook it first as usual. He made the regular fried rice with soy sauce and then lightly cleaned the grill before he put my shrimp on top. I also noticed him sprinkle the veggies with soy and a drop or two may have landed on my food. I didn't know what to say or do about it, so I ate it anyway. As usual, my stomach bloated right after eating and I had a slight stomach pain (I was slightly glutened from the cross-contamination with the soy sauce). I know you are supposed to restart the Whole30 if you intentionally cheat, even by one bite, but what about cases where you eat slightly contaminated food with one of the off limit items? I am Celiac, so that probably started a small reaction in my intestine that caused my body to attack itself (I am not sure how long this lasts - could be days/weeks/months). I was feeling so great before this happened and I am really frustrated. My main issue is getting glutened on accident by people cooking for me and by going out to eat. As much as I want to never eat out again, it is not realistic. Do you think I have to restart the whole30 because of this? I feel like someone would not restart the Whole30 if this happened to them and they were not Celiac. Will this affect my gut repair if I do not restart it? I appreciate your help. 

[Settyfitness]

I'm sure one of our moderators will chime in...but I would restart for sure! You committed to the process of a 30-day reset. You didn't mean to have something off plan, so you know you got this! It can only help! This happened to me when I ate some sundried tomatoes that i realized after had sulfites. I restarted. I want the full benefits of every bit of research I do. I also have a disease that i manage and it was important to me to the program as intended to reap the rewards forever. Hope this helps 

[ShannonM816]

Restarting is always your decision. I would say, your body doesn't know whether you ate something on purpose or accidentally, it just knows it got something that clearly doesn't agree with it. 

If you don't want to commit to restarting right now, keep going, and when you get closer to day 30, think about whether you might be okay with adding nine days so you have 30 straight compliant days. When you get further in, you may feel like adding more days is not a big deal.

As for eating out, what I would say is that you are totally worthy of getting foods that will not make you sick. Learn to speak up. You can (and should) be nice about it, but you can be assertive and also nice. Stop the guy before he puts your food on, and remind him to clean the grill well. Or ask if he can do yours first to avoid cross-contamination. If you notice something wrong, say something. And then tip well, that goes a long way to offsetting anything the waitstaff may have grumbled about. 

When you're going to be dining out with others, suggest places you know work for you, or call beforehand and ask what you can order, or if worst comes to worst, eat before you go and just have salad 9r a cup of coffee while you enjoy everyone's company. 

[Martha Suarez]

Today I got asked to try local honey ( I am a sucker for all locally made products and supporting local community). As I dipped A tiny bit of honey into my body I realized that it wasn’t whole30 approved item. I am so bummed out about he idea of starting over when I made it past 2 weeks. But i automatically had a feeling like something wasn’t right and I should restart. It pains me to think about starting over but it pains me more to keep going knowing I’m not getting the full effect considering the honey changed my mood  almost instantly and that’s the reason why I decided to do this. I’m super bumped!!! Its hard and I hope you do what’s right for you.

[ladyshanny]

On 10/13/2019 at 2:19 PM, Martha Suarez said:

Today I got asked to try local honey ( I am a sucker for all locally made products and supporting local community). As I dipped A tiny bit of honey into my body I realized that it wasn’t whole30 approved item. I am so bummed out about he idea of starting over when I made it past 2 weeks. But i automatically had a feeling like something wasn’t right and I should restart. It pains me to think about starting over but it pains me more to keep going knowing I’m not getting the full effect considering the honey changed my mood  almost instantly and that’s the reason why I decided to do this. I’m super bumped!!! Its hard and I hope you do what’s right for you.

Sounds like you already know what to do. The honey changed your mood and you felt/feel like something isn't right. You could always do a "whole45" if going back to Day one is too disheartening.