I’m at the end of this Whole30, my third successful round. It’s been a great experience (as they all have), but I’m at the point that I seriously need to consider what my successes have been and where I intend to go from here.
More on that later, though.
Today, I’m thinking about my paleo framework.
To me, the genius of following a paleo or primal or ancestral or whatever-you-want-to-call-it form of eating isn’t just that it’s customizable , but that it’s encouraged to be so. We all have different backgrounds, we all have different health needs, we all need individual diets.
There is no one size fits all when it comes to what we eat.
I do strongly believe and strive to live by a point that’s made in It Starts with Food: every single bite of food we put into our bodies will affect it positively or negatively.
For me, that’s where Whole30 comes in. It’s that crucial dietary reset that gives me the clean slate I need to be able to figure out which foods do what. I confess, as I always do, that it’s not always easy to stay within a strict paleo diet for 30 days (though looking at some of the fad diets out there I’ve watched people put themselves through, it’s not so bad: green beans and hard-boiled eggs for a week? Gross!). Your body goes through some wacky stuff (and there might be a day or two that blowing up the universe seems like a good idea), but pushing through is the best way to get to the information you need to eat and live your best.
It’s the starting point – an elimination diet – from which to experiment.
It’s a chance to play mad scientist on your own self.
It’s not the only option, though, when it comes to getting started…
- Robb Wolf’s 30 Day Transformation
- 30 Day Intro to Paleo from The Food Lovers
- Practical Paleo – packed with lots of 30 day plans, recipes and the easiest to understand info in the paleo world
- The Primal Blueprint 21 Day Total Body Transformation
They’re all good. They’re all solid. It’s up to you which one to choose and commit to.
And as important as those 30 days are, it’s what you do afterwards that matters most: it’s when, with a little time and a little work, you figure out which foods belong in your personal diet framework.
Let’s put it this way: if you hit up a buffet on day 31 and taste a little of everything you see, you’ve wasted your time. You’ve spent 30 days removing a lot of foods – legumes, grains, funky oils, sugar, starches, alcohol, dairy – and dumping them all back into your body at the same time means you won’t be able to see how you react to them.
It could also be incredibly problematic, from a digestive standpoint.
Ahem.
Pick one of those foods that you actually miss and introduce it back into your diet a few times over the span of a day. How do you feel immediately after eating? What about a day or two later? Any bloating, headache, heartburn, stomach distress, itchiness, acne breakouts? Did that food make you feel hungrier after you ate it? Does it set off an incredible craving for more and more and more of that food? If it’s a yes to any of those questions, that might be a food you want to leave out of your framework.
And if it’s a food you don’t miss, forget about it. Seriously. Later on – if and when you actually are missing it – go ahead and give it a try, while still being careful to evaluate it for next time.
In It Starts with Food, it’s recommended to re-introduce and evaluate dairy on day 1, gluten-containing grains on day 4, non-gluten grains on day 7 and legumes on day 10. It makes sense. This is your chance to finish up the experiment you started on day one and collect the data you need to make the best choices going forward.
It also requires being honest. There are certain foods I can’t eat for very definite health reasons. There are others that I shouldn’t eat for the same reasons that I try to finagle. I spend a lot of time trying to convince myself I can eat a Greek yogurt every day. Once in a rather long while is more like it. Ice cream too. And you know – if it’s my aunt’s homemade banana ice cream on a hot summer’s day we’re talking about…well, that’s worth having my stomach blow up to about six months pregnant size and make noises like small trolls are trying to escape. But otherwise, it’s a big fat nope.
Where are you in the process of building your dietary framework?
Note: Please don’t take this as medical fact. This is my experience. That’s all. Talk to your doctor or other health care provider, do your own research and make the best decisions for you.
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Thank you for this post! I am at Whole30 +3 and I am really struggling with what to do/eat now. I followed the reintroduction plan in ISWF exactly as written for day 1. I ate grass-fed OG yogurt with breakfast, OG cheese at lunch and a big bowl of OG 6 ingredient ice cream after dinner. After the yogurt I was ok, fine after cheese, after the ice cream my stomach started groaning and I was not well. The next morning I noticed my nose was back to being stuffy and my stomach still wasn’t quite right.
Several friends commented that that was a lot of dairy to reintroduce at once! I had those thoughts too, but I was trying to follow ISWF as written just like I had for the past 30 days. But after I started thinking about it I felt kind of…betrayed. It is almost as if the Hartwigs knew that would be a lot of dairy, that it would probably make me sick, and maybe they hoped that would cement my commitment to Whiole9 Life or something.
The ice cream was not only dairy but also a lot of sugar – maybe the sugar was the culprit behind my stuffy nose? It most likely was what kicked my cravings off. Day 2 I drank 2 glasses of wine, and ate 2 chocolates before I got it back under control – pre-whole 30 it would have been a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates, so this is probably progress.
I am just kind of afraid of what to do next – an unusual feeling for me. I want to keep feeling good. I want to keep the Tiger’s blood feeling going, but I also live in the real world and have my sister’s wedding at Disney World coming up in 2 weeks. Day 4 is tomorrow – I want to test gluten but a whole-grain bagel, side of pasta, and dinner roll sounds like a crazy amount of gluten to eat for my 1st try back.
Any ideas, resources on a more gradual reintroduction or encouragement would be appreciated!
Hi Sandy~
Thank you for your comment. I’m probably not the best person to answer your questions, but I’ll give it a shot.
I do believe the dairy is the most likely is the culprit behind your stuffy nose and stomach issues – those are very common symptoms of dairy intolerance or sensitivity. You might try comparing how you react to regular dairy (milk or ice cream) and cultured dairy (cheese or yogurt). I can sometimes handle a bit of cultured dairy, but even a small glass of milk makes me sick.
Sugar definitely affects me the way you mentioned with the chocolate – one bite and it’s all I can think about and all I want. You definitely made progress with that!
I’m a little different than a lot of Whole30′ers in that there are a lot of foods that I don’t bother reintroducing because I know I have severe sensitivities to things like gluten and most dairy.
A gradual reintroduction might be a better fit for you, but I would recommend doing it before your sister’s wedding so that you’re not having stomach or other health struggles while you’re there. I do know that Disney World has lots of gluten-free and more whole foods choices now (we used to live half an hour away). It’s hard to know how much to reintroduce and when – some people react to just a little bit and for others it takes repeated exposure.
This is more specific to people following auto-immune paleo protocols from thepaleomom.com, but it might be a better plan for you:
Once you have decided to reintroduce foods, I suggest reintroducing from least likely to cause issues to most likely (I’ll order the foods below). When you reintroduce a food, consume only a small amount of that food, at least twice on two consecutive days. Reintroduce one food at a time, giving at least 3 days in between reintroduction before trying the next one (this is even true for seed-based spices). If you have a violent reaction to a food, you will have to wait a couple of weeks for your immune system to calm down before reintroducing the next food.
Good luck. It’s hard to know what to do, even when you’ve already been through a Whole30.