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Where is the guidance on reintroducing Alcohol?


Ernie Ambrose

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I know, I know... The official ISWF position seems to be "Don't" but for those of us that still want to occasionally imbibe, the book is sorely lacking on how and when to reintroduce alcohol.

Day 1 is dairy.

Day 4 is gluten grains.

Day 7 is non-gluten grains.

Day 10 is legumes.

Should I sprinkle alcohol in there somewhere? Wait until the end, do it first, or what?

Right now, I'm thinking I might reintroduce alcohol first so I can understand the effects of that before reintroducing anything else. Thoughts on this?

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I don't have any input on the alcohol question but I do have a suggestion on the reintroduction schedule.

It turns out that we should be prepared to allow 2 days for each reintroduction and then three days of clean eating to see if we react to it. (If we react the first day then no need to add the second day. But if we don't react the first day, we might not have enough of the food in our system yet and we should eat it a second day.)

So your schedule above (if allowing 2 days per food test) would be:

Days 1 & 2: dairy.

Days 6 & 7: gluten grains.

Days 11-12: non-gluten grains.

Days 16-17: legumes.

I'm whining that they should call this a Whole60 and not a Whole30 because we're really not off it until after we've tested all the foods that we're going to test.

I look forward to hearing the replies to your alcohol question.

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Tracy: I actually read that. It offers the Whole9 position on alcohol, which I understand. What I'm looking for are tips, maybe from other Wholers on how to add it back to the things I occasionally enjoy.

Terez: unless I'm entirely misreading the materials, they are asking 1-3 days of each reintroduced thing, but I don't see the additional 3 clean days after each time. The schedule seemed pretty clear that things were added (in isolation) on days 1, 4, 7 and 10. So, by day 13 or 14 you should have tried everything you plan to add. I agree however with some of your frustration. I would have planned for 40+ days had I read the book first.

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Ciria: considering that as well, but scotch (which at least one study says might have gluten, maybe) or a cider.

Was just wondering about adding that to the mix with dairy or what.

Right now I'm thinking day one is alcohol, and next up will be dairy. I don't miss gluten grains (other than those used for spirits) so maybe I'll just skip that.

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I know! Is it bad that I prefer my wine over dairy or anything else? I feel fine without them and I'm definitely not missing them too much...but the wine...the wine!

I might try non-gluten grains a few days down the road, but we'll see.

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  • Moderators

You can plug alcohol in to the schedule similar to any other food with the exception that you probably don't want to have a shot of whiskey at breakfast, a glass of scotch at lunch, and a glass of wine with dinner unless your lifestyle is friendly to drinking all day. :) Actually, a few servings of your favorite drink should give you an idea of how your body responds.

I was impressed with how much more detailed the reintroduction advice was in It Starts With Food than anything Dallas and Melissa had written before. Now I hear you guys asking for more details. Some of that is developing though our discussions here on the forum. I am kind of saying you may need to reintroduce for several days in order to have enough servings of a food to get a reaction if you are going to have one. And then I think you need several days of clean eating before testing a new food to let your body get back to baseline. If you crowd tests too closely together, you won't get as good an idea of how strongly something is affecting you.

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Ciria: considering that as well, but scotch (which at least one study says might have gluten, maybe) or a cider.

Was just wondering about adding that to the mix with dairy or what.

Right now I'm thinking day one is alcohol, and next up will be dairy. I don't miss gluten grains (other than those used for spirits) so maybe I'll just skip that.

This is my plan, too! (And no, I will not have red wine at breakfast, Tom! ;) Just thinking a glass of red tomorrow evening would be a nice reward for making it this far!)

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We did a glass of red wine with dinner tonight. From the first sip I couldn't believe how different my palate was. It was a Bogle Old Vine Zin, which is a fairly cheap wine. I could taste more sweetness than I've ever noticed and the variety of spices I'd never picked up on was amazing. Enjoyed the one glass with my husband and we corked the bottle for another night.

I have read from a number of people that your alcohol tolerance will be much lower and so we didn't want to push it. It turned out great but because more weight loss is our goal, it will only be a special occasion thing until we're done with the weight loss. Nice to know that we can handle it fine.

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  • 4 years later...

 I miss alcohol a little.   I had to cut it out for two babies and I thought my resistance would be much lower now hee hee.  So I'll hold off til day 13.  I'm thankful for the reintro guidance.  Everything off plan makes me nervous now.  I look at junk food and think "get away you'll make me feel terrible!"  I'm on the non gluten grains day.  I'm expecting to react.

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Thanks for  bumping this thread. It's a good one. 

"You probably don't want to have a shot of whiskey at breakfast, a glass of scotch at lunch, and a glass of wine with dinner unless your lifestyle is friendly to drinking all day."

Hi-larious. I do miss these kind of  briefers.  Short and straight to the heart of the matter. :D  Check out the Booze Edition, too.  Written by Melissa.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Im on day 20 of my first W30 and the 2 things I miss the most are alcohol and dark chocolate-which surprises me because I am an avid dairy and carbs fan. Oddly while it would be easier to cook with dairy and grains I cant say I have any cravings for them, or for that matter really anything, except a cocktail or beer once in awhile or a bite of bittersweet dark chocolate with sea salt. So for now I guess Ill continue with my laCroix  "mocktail". Glad I came to this topic so I know not to start with beer and to check the liquor I choose for gluten-something I had not considered. 

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I also think about wine and reintroduction.  This being Day 16 of my 2nd W30, I have a couple weeks, but part of what I miss is the social aspect.  I am planning to scale back on wine since that hasn't been a one-glass beverage for me.  But, I am thinking 80% of the time I will only drink with a compliant meal or even after I eat.  I'm planning to have something in my gut to go with the wine and always have a bottle or glass of water with the wine.  I've also started to make infused water to have at cocktail time.  When I mix that with some sparkling water, I feel like I'm having a cocktail.  Those are my thoughts for the day.

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  • 6 months later...

Forgive me if this is a repeated question, but I'm doing my first round (day 20, yay!) and I've meticulously planned both my final week and and my 12 days of reintroducing foods, so I'm trying really hard to not sabotage myself. In reintroducing alcohol, does that need to be a stand alone genre during reintroduction? I have a birthday party coming up that falls on the day I planned to reintroduce dairy and I was wondering if mixing the two is ill-advised?  Do I need to reintroduce alcohol all on it's own while eating according to program just like I would the other eliminated foods?

 

Thanks!!

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  • 6 months later...
  • Administrators

Alcohol has a high amount of sugar depending on what you select, but no, you would probably want to do alcohol separately from sugar as you may like to know what caused any reaction you have.

Alcohol & sugar could both give headaches, increased cravings, digestive issues etc. Although we don't specifically outline reintroduction steps for them, if you are curious about reactions, go ahead and treat them each individually.

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thanks.  I'm on day 19 and finding it easier than I imagined, I'm cooking far more creatively and mindfully and really enjoying the food but there is that milestone without which I don't think it would be sustainable.  The only things I really miss are porridge and a glass of wine (bit weird). would you recommend re-introducing alcohol and sugar after re-introduction of the other 4 food categories or doesn't it really matter?  Also I'm slightly confused about dairy as I'm sure I read something from Melissa that dairy out of all the eliminated food categories should not be included going forward as it's inappropriate for adults (a growth food).  I also saw she takes cream in her coffee but did note that full cream out of all dairy is not so bad in the scheme of things.. :)

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  • 1 year later...

I reintroduced alcohol first with terrible results. My bad, maybe. I had just straight vodka with a twist.  Next day stomach cramps, day after explosive diarrhea for almost a week until I got a probiotic.  Was fine for another week and had a glass of red wine with dinner. Same results as before. I was never alcohol intolerant and never had IBS. This is the only thing I have reintroduced in 2 weeks. My system was so regulated before Whole30, now I'm not sure what to do. Apparently, my system will no longer accept alcohol.  Sad, as my husband is a wine maker.

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  • 11 months later...

I am on day 31 of Whole 30 and am going to start my reintroduction phase soon (not in a hurry). I have read the guidelines on reintroducing alcohol and just have two questions that I can not seem to find the answers to? The first is why can you not have flavored vodka? Is it only because they have added sugar or is it due to other ingredients? My second question is can you reintroduce with the new hard seltzers? I am a big fan of these just because I can have 1 or 2 without feeling the usually heaviness of ciders or beer. 

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

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