1/2 way results & some changes, help, please?

[jwitcraft]

Hi everyone!

Start Date: 1/02

Re-start date: 01/11

Beginning weight 189, 5'3

Current weight, 178,BMI 31.4

Medical conditions: hypothyroid 118 mcg levothyroxine, asthma: occasional inhaler use

Goals: erase heel calluses, stabilize blood sugar (not diabetic), get into healthy weight range @ 125ish, heal hip, inflammation, asthma, depression, & sleep patterns.

Supplements: Occasional vitamin D, occasional 250 mg of magnesium oxide <--I know,I know.

Nationality: Native American

Food:

We eat lots of leafy greens, some sweet potato/roots, ground beef/pork, eggs, fish. Usually stir fried w/ small bits of protein. (He's Taiwanese.) I've also made pork neck broth & beef marrow/broth which I turned into soup. I am not normally thirsty and if I drink much, I have the world's smallest bladder. I drink loose leaf green tea & water. Usually 3 cups + 1 bottle daily.

We restarted January 11th because of the Thai food dinner, which likely had sugar, soy sauce, and/or additives. Immediate splitting headache, intense stomach pain.

This week I added in quite a bit of almond butter and made some desserts that were "Paleo-fied" which is against the rules, but I used them in place of dinner or for "something different" not because I was craving.

Random cravings: raw milk, eggnog, blueberry muffins/pancakes, chai tea w/ honey & heavy cream.

Changes I've noticed: onions & cabbage give me sharp pains around kidneys & gallbladder area and/or gas.

Nuts apparently cause acne breakouts on my back & face.

My sleep is horrible--I can't seem to fall asleep before 3am, and I sleep til noon, brokenly.

I can easily intermittently fast for 16 hours.

Constipation is much worse, but it's not alternating with diarrhea like usual.

Huge energy surge in the beginning, but not so much now.

Huge sex drive burst in the beginning, but it's blunted now, even though it's ovulation time according to my app.

Down 11 pounds since January 2nd--I have weighed a couple times out of curiosity, I've never been a scale addict. My clothes are fitting looser, and my belly fat is getting looser. No exercise yet outside of light walking & random crazy dancing when caffeine kicks in because I want to get my sleep/work stress sorted first.

Any...suggestions for fixing the energy/sex drive loss, sleep cycle, and random sharp pains in the abdominal area or additional bloodwork? I'll be getting tests done in Taiwan about a week after theWhole30 ends for thyroid, inflammation, blood sugar, and cholesterol.

Yay, me, for breaking past the 5th day! #proudface

[kitmao]

It seems to me that you haven't given this program long enough to really form an opinion. It is best to do the full 30 days before deciding how it is making you feel (I know that can be hard, especially if it's a bumpy ride). For me, with complete compliance, I notice a lot of changes - many unpleasant - during the course of the 30 days. For example, in a Whole50 I did last year, up until close to the end of the 30 days I had all kinds of weird (and sometimes very uncomfortable) digestive issues coming and going. But, right around 30 days they suddenly started to improve. My acne didn't really go completely away until the very end of the 50 days. I had initial weight loss (probably water weight or something) but then nothing felt loser or better until I got past 30 days. Then, I suddenly started dropping sizes.

As far as sleep, my sleep wasn't all that improved until this go around. I'm 19 days into a Whole100 and this time the sleep suddenly improved at the end of the second week. I didn't see the kind of improvement I had hoped for last year when I did 50 days. I believe this had to do with not addressing certain stress issues (all kinds of things aside from diet can wreck sleep). I do yoga every day now to help manage my stress and sleep fantastic when I do this on top of eating clean.

The point I'm making is that it is a funny ride to the top and can take the whole month or even longer. I would just put your trust in this, based on whatever brought you here, and do it for the full 30 days before making any decisions. You may also find, especially with your goals, that 30 days just isn't long enough and decide to keep going. 30 days certainly wasn't long enough for me, but at 30 days I was at a point where I was convinced I was on the right path. You may also find, as I did, some issues improve but in order to get to your end goal, you may need other lifestyle adjustments. That was certainly the case for me on a couple things! But, eating Whole30 was a huge step in the right direction.

[CAK911]

It sounds like you're not getting enough fluids, and maybe also not be getting enough fat. Probably some of the more seasoned folks will weigh in with more specific stuff. I'd axe the paleofied desserts, because I think they can derail a Whole 30 really fast.

The digestive stuff usually clears up on its own at some point. What does a typical day of meals look like?

[1Maryann]

If you eat veggies with only "small bits of meat" you probably aren't getting enough protein.

You had an offtrack meal and a restart on the eleventh, but this week you added "quite a bit" of almond butter. That could be part of your problem, nuts give a lot of people trouble. And it probably wasn't wise to change your basic template at the same time you were trying to restart.

Also, making paleofied desserts and using them "in place of dinner" means you didn't get the proper balance of meat, veg and fat at those meals.

My advice would be to do another restart, this time clean, without the nut butters which may be a problem, and without subbing empty calorie desserts for real meals. You really can't justify those types of substitutions on this program. You either follow it as written, or you're doing your own thing. And if you are doing your own thing, you can't expect the kind of results that people get from doing a 'clean' Whole30.

[jwitcraft]

As an example, today was: mango to tame hunger before breakfast followed by walking the dog. Then 2 fried eggs in porkfat, with roasted eggplant, tomato, onion seasoned w/ turmeric, ginger, garlic.

Testing coconut tolerance: 2 servings of coconut butter. 4 Brazil nuts. Increased dermatitis/puritis at the moment, so nixing coconut butter/milk and almond butter.

Dinner: half bunch of spinach sauteed with ginger, swiss chard/bok choy sauteed with beef broth/fat leftovers & half large filet of cod, half sweet potato with homemade lemon pepper salt, and two large bunches of green beans sauteed with garlic. Fat was from the beef marrow broth. Less salt than usual, we usually use 2 tablespoons per meal for the 2 of us. Completely full after the sweet potato, and I probably won't eat or be hungry until tomorrow evening with sleep/work. If I am hungry, then I will eat.

2 glasses of water, 2 large mugs of tea, working on a third. Temperature tolerance is terrible, which is why I added sweet potato, seaweed yesterday & Brazil nuts today. I'm not doing low carb by any means. I eat when I am hungry, and stop when I'm mostly full, which normally puts me into a 6 hour eating window w/ 2 meals on weekends and 1 during the week w/ a snack.

Yesterday was half pound ground beef with mixed veggies, 2 eggs, and the aforementioned almond/coconut butter w/ cocoa & egg, mug of bone broth, and a mango at some point during the day. Almond butter is all gone, thankfully. It's never caused an issue with my primal way of eating before, but I may be sensitized at this point, given the repeated/regular exposure.

I don't have any kind of a schedule with sleeping, working, or eating--haven't for the last 15 years or so.

As far as restarting again, I've eaten entirely within Whole30 limits. Stressing about timing will turn it bad very quickly. I have had better than expected results so far w/ the exception of skin issues and digestive problems, which I'm hoping will be fixed by removing nuts/coconut.

What is going to be very hard is the 2 weeks in Taiwan. I'll do my best to remain grain/soy/vegetable oil free there, but I'd rather not eat tea eggs & raw fruit the entire time I'm away. Gene & his family think I'm a little on the crazy side, so I'm not sure how much translating they are willing to do for me when we go out for every meal. *sigh

[TracyP]

I'm pretty new to this whole thing myself... But it might me that your eating sleeping pattern isn't optimal. They do recommend 3 meals a day and 8-9 hours of sleep. Those factors could be contributing to your symptoms.

[Melissa Urban]

To be honest there is way too much going on here for any of us to be able to help you via an internet forum. You're not actually doing the Whole30, which is entirely your prerogative but your bending of the rules means we can't rule out 100% compliant food choices for a full 30 days as a factor. Sounds like you're mucking with meal timing (implementing some sort of IF protocol?), which is profoundly stressful on the body and is likely not helping your situation, as you have a long-ish health history and not much margin for adding additional stress, in my estimation. And the current health conditions you are dealing with are complicating things even further.

So, really, we'd need to do a full consultation with your situation before we could possibly come up with suggestions for improvement. These things are complicated, but I will say that the first thing we'd tell you during a consult is to do the Whole30, 100% sticking to the rules while following our healthy meal planning template, as a starting point.

Best,

Melissa

[Michaela Elmore Cogswell]

The Whole 30 is more than just eating the compliant food. It's also eating within the meal template which means eating 3x a day, starting with meal 1 within a hour of waking. then meal 2 within 4-5 hours. Then meal 3 is 4-5 hours after that. If you are not hungry for meal 2 when it's time to eat, then you need to possibly adjust your portion at meal 1. If you want to see results, this is important to help reset your hormones.

My husband and I used to almost never eat breakfast. Occasionally we'd eat on the weekend but we were pretty much eating 2 meals a day before the Whole 30. We are, at day 27 and finally the last few days I've woken up hungry for the first time on the whole plan. But we've eat breakfast EVERY morning.

You don't have to eat at the exact same time every day. My husband and I tend to sleep in on the weekend if we have nothing going on but we get up and have breakfast and then I just adjust the times.... aiming for the 4 hour window. My husband is rarely hungry when we go to prepare food, but by the time we sit down to eat, hunger has kicked in.

Eating when your hungry and stopping when you are full.... I've done that diet. The second part is a good philosophy. The first part has to be modified for the Whole 30.... Eat every 4-5 hours. Try it and the hunger will follow. If you aren't hungry for meal 2, maybe look at lowering your fat intake at meal 1.

[Melissa Urban]

Michaela, I will correct you a bit here. The Whole30 includes some hard-and-fast "rules" to follow, which are outlined in the program. We also recommend some strategies for success, like no fruit smoothies or eating three times a day... but those aren't technically necessary for Whole30 compliance. So eating more or less frequently than we recommend isn't a Whole30 issue - but it MAY lead you to experience less than optimal results.

Most folks find that (hormonally, metabolically, and from a hunger/energy perspective) eating three meals a day works the best - which is why we recommend it (and back those recommendations up in detail in It Starts With Food). But you could still be Whole30 compliant with your food choices and lack of scale time, and choose to eat in a different pattern.

Just wanted to clarify this for everyone, as it has been confusing in the past.

Best,

Melissa