Semi-started a week ago, starting in earnest on 3/20!

[golden]

I found the Whole30 this week as if by magic, but before that, I had been searching for ways to step up my health. I'm young (25) and fairly healthy, but yet I crash hard every afternoon after eating lunch, and often come home from work so tired that I can hardly peel myself off the couch. I also have respiratory allergies and asthma and struggle with depression and anxiety.

A few weeks ago, I started going to yoga classes and found that reintroducing exercise in my life was giving me a lot more energy. That tipped the balance, and I became hungrier to up my health. I've been cooking foods from a paleo slow cooker stews cookbook and enjoying them without really thinking too much about it. This weekend, I had a moment and just decided I wanted to eat healthfully and started reading about paleo eating, which I've read a bit about before. I went for it and decided to ditch dairy, grains, and legumes. I felt great for two days and then what I presume to be carb flu hit me on the third day. I felt sluggish and achy and had a sore throat. The next morning I woke up, and still felt a little off, but my sore throat was better. Sometime that day, the funkiness lifted, and I felt great. I felt great eating primally until I'd been doing it for one week, when I got really grumpy/weepy.

Sometime this week, I was looking for books to send my dad, who has diabetes and has been attempting a low-fat vegan diet for health reasons. I think this way of eating would be easier for him to adhere to, and would be better for him too. I found the Whole30 book and devoured it, and realized that I had been eating some things that won't do for the Whole30, namely corn, honey, and some almond butter that has sugar in it. So I've been eating almost Whole30 for about a week, and going to start my actual Whole30 on Wednesday.

I'm excited, but I still feel a little scared of all the fat I've been eating. I'm also scared of becoming obsessed with what I eat, although I know it's probably better to be scrupulous with what I eat than to be obsessively counting calories or obsessively serving my food cravings.

Salud!

[Kirsteen]

Hi Golden, welcome. Our society has become so fat phobic that it can be a leap of faith switching to eating so much fat but believe me it works. Eating good fats really does make us healthier. When I started, I just kept reminding myself that the West's obesity crisis and it's spiralling health problems started at the same time as we were all persuaded to stick to a low fat diet. It just doesn't work and isn't healthy.

Ethically, I won't knock the vegan diet, I have a friend who's a commited vegan for ethical reasons. She seemed to thrive on it for years, now in her 50s she has major digestive issues and is facing surgery. She suffers major pain after eating legumes and grains but won't give them up, each makes his own choice.

I had a slew of health issues and tried a vegan diet for years, I was even a raw food vegan for a couple of them. Unfortunately my health got worse. W30 is the only thing that started to turn it around and it really has helped. I envy you starting it at your age. Good luck, don't be afraid to ask any questions you may have and keep us posted how you get on.

[golden]

Yes, I'm also a former vegan and (briefly) raw foodist, and a fat-phobe for sure, but just because I want to be healthy and have been taught that sat fat is unhealthy. I'm also a fat lover based purely on taste, and slowly now on how it feels, but it's hard for me to trust that even though I feel pretty good that it's actually good for me. Good point about the popularity of low-fat diets coinciding with public health problems.

I don't knock the vegan diet on an ethical level either. That's a lingering issue I have with this way of eating because "Diet for a Small Planet" made a big impact on me in the past, and even though I'm supporting industrial farming as little as I can, I am worried about the environmental impacts of having animal proteins occupy a large part of my diet, since I've read about how producing animal meat also produces greenhouse gases. What if it's no longer feasible for most of the world to eat this way since there are so many of us? Has anyone written about that? I guess I'll still do it at least for now until I'm convinced that the detriments to the planet outweigh the benefits for my well-being.

Thanks for responding to my post! I'd read around the forums and know you as a familiar face.

[Kirsteen]

Hi, I too read 'Diet for a Small Planet' when I was younger, in fact it was that book that first turned me vegetarian. I don't have any references off hand but if I find them I'll post them. You see I now believe that it's not producing the animal protein that's the issue, it's things like CAFOs, subsidies for unhealthy foods, the monopoly of the supermarkets and, of course, the unequal distribution of wealth throughout our planet that's the problem nowadays. Anyway, I don't want to stray into the political but I do believe this is the healthiest way to eat and fully sustainable if it was approached properly.

[Kirsteen]

Hi, I found some links that might interest you on the subject of sustainability

http://paleohacks.com/questions/129116/must-we-really-concede-that-paleo-primal-for-all-is-not-sustainable#axzz2O4bVKuOM

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/can-we-feed-the-world-on-the-primal-blueprint-diet-part-1/#axzz2O4cAtotm

http://robbwolf.com/2012/05/17/paleo-diet-sustainability-economic-growth/

[sd1004]

I am starting (or re-starting) today too! Best of luck to you!

[golden]

Thanks for the links, Kirsteen! I don't know how I missed this. Those links are right up my alley.