Pondering Reintroduction

[emsers]

I'm just finishing Day 29 of my first Whole 30 and it's been a FANTASTIC experience.

In the past I have been a mostly "healthy" eater but had lots of struggles with binge eating. During this whole 30, I have not once been tempted to binge and even better, the anxiety around debating and arguing with myself was completely eliminated. These were the rules, I was not going to break them, and thus there was no choice.

I have not weighed myself yet, but it I obviously have dropped a good amount of weight (and my CrossFit performance has greatly improved) but I'm not yet to my goal weight.

I was always planning to stick with just a Whole 30 (in fact at the beginning I didn't share my plans with anyone because I wasn't sure I would want to stick with it) but now I'm tempted to keep going.

At some point I would like to be able to maintain this lifestyle with a little more leniency but I'm nervous about that right now - the strict rules are less scary.

On the other hand, I'm almost positive I have no negative reaction to dairy and I think adding some dairy (yogurt especially) probably won't slow down my weight loss goals or awake my processed carb/sugar dragons? So I'm tempted to try adding dairy back in but otherwise continue?

Thoughts? This is my first time posting, but these boards have been very very helpful to read through during these 29 days so far.

[Tom Denham]

I continued my first Whole30 for about 4 months when I started because I felt so good and did not want to do anything to endanger it. It is important to eventually relax, but you can keep going if you feel that your healthier relationship with food needs longer to "mature."

I think reintroducing one thing and living with only that one addition for a matter of weeks could be a good thing. The problem with reintroductions is that the effects of certain foods may be so subtle that you cannot tell quickly what they are doing to you. For example, it might take weeks to notice that reintroducing dairy has lessened the quality of your sleep. I'm not saying you will experience problems with you sleep from eating yogurt. I hope you don't! I'm just saying that our bodies don't always respond sharply to a food. Sometimes they respond just a little and it takes time to become aware of an effect.

[penotti]

I understand your nervousness, I finished my whole30 on Feb 6 and during the whole30 have been going through the same thing; feeling great, fantastic results with crossfit, it was awesome!

For me, when i was finished, it felt like a void, no more strict rules, no more blogging, etc. Almost like a post-Whole30 depression (not to scare you!) Made a few reintroduction mistakes (too many things at the same time), went back to whole30 eating and now still trying to figure out the proper balance. What i did notice, is that I look at certain non-compliant foods with a "it's not worth it" feeling. I simply don't want to eat them anymore. Can you pinpoint what you used to binge on? Maybe avoid those foods for a bit longer. Do you know what emotion would trigger it?

I like Tom's idea of just adding in one food for a while, so you can see if it has any effect on you.

Also bear in mind, that just because you don't notice an obvious reaction to dairy, that doesn't mean that there is still something happening; like inflammation.

During the whole30 I noticed I retained less water, and now that i've eaten some dairy here and there i'm more "puffy" again.

[emsers]

Thanks. I am pleased to be officially finished with my first Whole 30, but I think with things going as smoothly as they are I'm going to go ahead and extend it.

I want to do a proper reintroduction before a vacation I'm taking in April (just so I have a little leeway, not so I can "go crazy") but that still gives me time to turn this into a real Whole 60. I think there is no reason to add anything I'm not missing.

I would say binge foods were definitely mostly sugar and/or bread/pasta but I never really ate these foods unless it was a binge. I think mostly those were caused by stress/loneliness (post-break up blahs). But the thing I noticed in the last 30 days was that even when I felt those emotions I found other ways to handle them. In the past, I would feel stressed, binge on crappy food, and then feel gross and stressed about the food as well as the original problem. Now I've solved at least half that equation.

I think for right now since I'm really not missing dairy there is not really any reason to add it back in, but I will be very curious to take note when I do add it for the future. I'll keep an eye out for possible inflammation and/or sleep trouble and/or any other negative feedback.

A life changing experience for sure!

[dseale76]

I recently completed my first Whole30 and remained 100% compliant, I hope to continue this path.....as I have experienced so many positive benefits. However, on the weekend I was caught at a restaurant, while I was STARVING and mad some bad decisions....I ordered fish and chips - the fish seemed to be breaded in some kind of coconut breading, and wasn't the typical heavy batter - as soon as I finished my meal, my entire mouth seems to be irritated....it had the feeling of a burnt mouth, however, my food was not that hot. The feeling was throughout my entire mouth and I still can feel the reacation today. I'm wondering what the reaction was caused from - has anyone ever heard of this before? Now I'm definitely nervous to introduce anything else.