Whole30 made me intolerant?

[Baptiste]

Hi there!

I followed the whole30 program around 2 months ago, and it did me a lot of good, I had a sugar addiction, binge-eating disorder, I didn't really know the difference between hunger and just wanting to eat… Anyway, Whole30 did help me solve all those problems, and thank you for that!

Before the program, I never had any gut problem, I could eat anything and everything, I've always had a happy belly!

But now, well, it looks like I became intolerant to gluten and lactose… Every now and then, I'd like to share a pizza with friends, but my gut won't let me! If I do eat pizza (or any sort of gluten or lactose), I know that I'll be sick for at least 24 hours...

So now, I'm kind of scared every time I try a new food, and I just mainly stick to the exact same diet... For someone like me, who loves trying new cuisines and tastes, it's really annoying

Would it be a good idea to forcibly reintroduce gluten and lactose, and make my gut used to them again, just so I can indulge in a snack from time to time?

 

Thanks!

[SugarcubeOD]

It's not that you've become intolerant in the last 30 days.  It's likely that you WERE intolerant to those items but your gut does try and protect itself and creates a mucus layer to keep it as safe as possible from those things.  In the 30 days, your body got rid of that because it wasn't necessary - now you're bringing those foods back and gut doesn't have that built in protection.

Could you force your body to go back and tolerate it again? I guess... to me it seems like you healed a wound and now you want to make a wound again just to put a bandaid on it so that occasionally you can eat pizza... and to keep the bandaid there all the time, you'd have to be consuming these non tolerated foods regularly... I don't know... if my body was telling me that it really didn't like a thing and that thing wasn't the only thing keeping me alive, I would probably look for alternatives... 

It's also possible that while you thought your gut was super happy with cheese and bread, there were trickle down effects of those things that you didn't notice... grogginess, itchy scalp, irritability etc... so if you did re-up the mucus bandaid, that  could solve the 'sick for 24 hours' thing but it might cause other problems... usually when we are intolerant to a food it impacts us in more than one way.

 

Also, for you and anyone else reading, this is what the Whole30 was designed to do. 1. Heal your gut. 2. Try out the foods that are generally problematic and find out which ones are okay and not okay (for you, lactose and gluten= not okay). 3. Make a decision of consumption based on what you now know about yourself.  

[Baptiste]

Thank you for your answer and advices!

It does totally make sense, and yes, it would be stupid to "keep the band-aid" all the time.

I guess what bothered me was the shift of between "I'm the type of person who can eat anything", to "if you give me something to eat, there's an 80% chance it'll make me sick". But if I was born knowing that I was intolerant to those things, I wouldn't even think about it. That's just who I am, I just have to forget my old habits, and accept the new me.

 

Again, thank you!

[SugarcubeOD]

On 8/27/2021 at 11:11 PM, Baptiste said:

"I'm the type of person who can eat anything", to "if you give me something to eat, there's an 80% chance it'll make me sick"

Ya, I agree with you there - it's a frustrating transition! The cool part is that once you know these things and potentially grieve the things you have to leave behind (yes, that's a real thing), you know that you're pretty safe that you're going to have an amazing experience at the Fall Fair because you didn't eat something that maybe your tummy was okay with but that gave you a headache or made you tired or grouchy... for instance... it's quite freeing but there can definitely be a grieving period as we move through this.