Finished an Entire Whole30 with Next to No Results.. What Gives?!

[Barney77]

Hi everyone! I successfully finished my first round of Whole30.. YAY!!!

I come with a question about my results- why didn’t I feel anything? I really wanted to feel Tiger Blood and I wouldn’t be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping to de bloat. My clothes are just as tight, if not tighter, than before Whole30.  That being said I am prefacing this post with this: I know that the point of Whole30 is NOT to lose weight, but, I did not even feel an increase in general.  I am a female, I workout 6x a week (cycling in and out of studio, HITT workouts as well as yoga!), I ate relatively "clean" leading up to this (think: Paleo) but lost it the two weeks after Christmas and gained some weight.  I ate badly and really fell off with drinking wine a lot, so, I was hoping that the bloat from that would have dissipated.  I read SO many success stories and was so hopeful for an increase in energy and a difference in the way my body feels.  

 

My meals were mostly this:

Breakfast: 2 eggs scrambled with zuchinni, green pepper and cauliflower rice. Cooked in coconut oil. With a banana and 2 tbsp of Mixed Nut Butter. I also have coffee with compliant Califia Creamer. 

Lunch: leftovers from dinner. Almost always shrimp or chicken but sometimes steak. With peppers, onions and broccoli. I would pair this sometimes with a kiwi (not often) and also a guacamole single (compliant) as my fat.  On occasion if I made something with sweet potatoes that would be included, too. 

Dinner: protein (chicken thighs, chicken wings, ground chicken, ground turkey, shrimp, salmon and sometimes steak) with peppers, onions, butternut squash, carrots, cauliflower rice and whatever else I could find. Sometimes I would have potatoes with my meal. My go to menu items were fajitas (no potatoes), the burger salad (made with the nutritional yeast sauce) or chicken thighs with butternut squash and carrots. My plated fat for dinner would be 1/2 an avocado or dump ranch or the nutritional yeast “cheese mayo.” 

Very rarely I had an RXBar. If I was out and knew I wouldn’t eat for a while I would have one. Sometimes I had a Chomps stick. I really just stuck to three meals a day following the Whole30 template.

Does anyone have any advice as to why they think this happened? Or, what I should change going forward? I’m wondering if the fats were just too much for my body? Maybe I should have done a few slices of avocado instead of a half of one. Or, not had the nut butter every day?  I just was looking forward to seeing a change. Inches lost or de bloating as well as a boost in my energy levels. I plan to follow the Whole30 lifestyle from here on out so I am looking for any and all advice and tips for going forward. 

[Maria45]

I am very new to this (on Day 29), but I have read all of the Whole30 books and all of your meals look good to me.  I hope that one of the moderators will respond to you with more knowledge than I have.  One thing that I did notice is that you were basically eating Paleo prior to this, so the differences you would see might not be as great as someone who was having carbs and dairy all the time.  I am having the same issue with bloating.

[Jihanna]

A few things are standing out as I read the post about meals...

1 - a serving of eggs is what we can hold in our hand. Your meal 1 protein of 2 eggs is a little on the light side, unless your hands are even smaller than mine (I can easily hold 3 eggs, 4 if I stretch).

2 - coffee can act as an appetite suppressant. If you're drinking it before or with your breakfast, it could actually be causing you to eat less than would be ideal. It sometimes becomes obvious because hunger comes too quickly (and strongly), well before next mealtime, but it might be that you're getting enough fat with meal 1 to compensate.

3 - the meals you describe would probably have me bloated if I ate that way every day, also. Cruciferous veggies tear me up if I eat too many of them too closely together, so having meal after meal with things like cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, etc. would fill me with gas and make me feel like a blimp. It's possible that you might experience similar sensitivities that could be looked at (I have a friend who can't eat onions and peppers without bloating for days, as an example).

4 - nuts and/or nut butter daily would be my undoing. Nuts wreck my hormones, throwing me totally out of balance - if I eat them on more than just a once-per-week basis (and not many then), they'll throw my cycle out of whack and noticeably affect my moods, too.

5 - the template suggests an "occasional" serving of fruit, which is basically the size of your closed fist. A banana every morning seems more than just occasional for me, but my perspective might be off on that because I only eat fruit once or twice each week (and I skip it entirely for the first week or two of any Whole30-type reset, to help make sure my sugar dragon gets/stays under control).

Moving on -- I have no idea why you wouldn't experience Tiger Blood, unless you did and didn't realize that's how your body does it. Mine definitely doesn't look like what others posted, but I'm also nowhere near as active or "fit" as many people who gave reviews... it's one of the reasons why I didn't bother to look at the timeline at all for my 2nd time through; I wanted a more organic experience, without tainting it by "what to expect", as it were.

The only other observation I've got is that you noted that you intend to live the Whole30 lifestyle going forward. I highly encourage you to go ahead and do the reintroduction phase, even if you have no intention of eating those foods (and even if you'd left them out while doing paleo previously). The reason I suggest this is that I've read where people find that certain foods left out of these types of programs actually help them feel better, lose bloat, and move into better health overall once they're brought back into their diets. I mean, dairy certainly doesn't work for me personally, but I know people who function best with it in their diet. I also know people who have better gut health with the inclusion of non-gluten grains, even though I have to limit my own intake.

My point here is just that knowledge is power, and the ultimate victory moving forward from Whole30 is to be able to create the "WholeMe" -- a manageable and sustainable dietary plan that works for your specific body, with room for deviation when you're ready to make a "worth it" decision that falls outside your normal standards.

[kirbz]

I second the comment that you may want to experiment with eating fewer cruciferous vegetables and fewer nuts. Those are commonly disruptive and will likely help with the bloat. 

I just finished my fourth round of Whole30 and it was my least successful Whole30 to date, mostly in terms of energy and athletic performance. I. Was. Tired. Obviously I was disappointed but after further reflection, realized that two things were different with this round: (1) I was eating WAY more cruciferous vegetables in the form of cauliflower rice and (2) I was eating WAY fewer potatoes, which make me feel awesome on Whole30. 

So you may also want to consider more starchy, carb-dense vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, parsnip, etc. I'm also very active and find potatoes essential to feeling good on Whole30. It's recommended to have at least one, fist-sized serving of starchy vegetables per day, with women on their period and those with mood disorders often needing more. I don't have any mental health concerns and I'll sometimes each starchy vegetables with all three meals. 

Anyway, I wish you the best! Hopefully some of this advice will help turn the tide for you! 

[Barney77]

33 minutes ago, kirbz said:

I second the comment that you may want to experiment with eating fewer cruciferous vegetables and fewer nuts. Those are commonly disruptive and will likely help with the bloat. 

I just finished my fourth round of Whole30 and it was my least successful Whole30 to date, mostly in terms of energy and athletic performance. I. Was. Tired. Obviously I was disappointed but after further reflection, realized that two things were different with this round: (1) I was eating WAY more cruciferous vegetables in the form of cauliflower rice and (2) I was eating WAY fewer potatoes, which make me feel awesome on Whole30. 

So you may also want to consider more starchy, carb-dense vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, parsnip, etc. I'm also very active and find potatoes essential to feeling good on Whole30. It's recommended to have at least one, fist-sized serving of starchy vegetables per day, with women on their period and those with mood disorders often needing more. I don't have any mental health concerns and I'll sometimes each starchy vegetables with all three meals. 

Anyway, I wish you the best! Hopefully some of this advice will help turn the tide for you! 

Thanks so much! I actually re-weighed a week later and I lost 6 pounds. And inches. I didn’t reintroduce anything and I don’t plan to simply because I had a very binge relationship with sweets, alcohol as well as breads/pasta. I also know that broccoli, brussel sprouts, etc doesn’t really bother me or bloat me at all. The nut butter I will limit to every other day but will have to figure out a breakfast replacement fat! 

[CGinDC]

On 2/18/2020 at 3:26 PM, Barney77 said:

Thanks so much! I actually re-weighed a week later and I lost 6 pounds. And inches. I didn’t reintroduce anything and I don’t plan to simply because I had a very binge relationship with sweets, alcohol as well as breads/pasta. I also know that broccoli, brussel sprouts, etc doesn’t really bother me or bloat me at all. The nut butter I will limit to every other day but will have to figure out a breakfast replacement fat! 

I realize this reply is way late, but I came across this post today. If you're still trying for the W30 lifestyle, and needing other fat ideas, I usually make a batch of homemade mayo when I'm doing W30s and just put a dollop of that on my breakfasts, which are usually some kind of hash or scramble with eggs and different veggies.