Day 29 - Planning for the future...

Well here we are...one day to go! I can't believe it's July 6th tomorrow AKA day 30! I thought that day would never get here at times and other times it's gone so fast. Particularly this past stressful week.

My Mom is still in the hospital and starting to move around more which is good. I will speak with the transition support people tomorrow hopefully to find out what is next for her. I'll be relieved when we get a plan figured out.

Now, for my reintroduction plan...

I've decided on the "slow roll" reintroduction which is described in more detail here but essentially, you follow the guidelines below:

1. Relax the sugar rule - don't worry as much about sugar (or types of sugar) as an ingredient. I'll be keeping my sugars at under 25g per day (recommended amount for women) as a general guideline. This will be for the foods I'm not already eating, I won't be including the fruit or natural sugars I'm already eating on Whole30.
2. Follow the plan for reintroducing only one type of food that I eliminated at a time. For me, this week I will be trying out some types of dairy on day 31 (cheese, yogurt, cream) and grains (whole wheat grain) on day 4.  
3. Always give 2-3 days between reintroduction and go back to full Whole30 on the in-between days. 
4. Pay attention to my symptoms and see how these foods individually affect me. Watch out for physical symptoms but also for things that could be waking up my "sugar dragon". If I have too much sweet (i.e. yogurt, smoothie, etc.) does that make my cravings come back? 
5. Reintroduce other things as I feel I want to have them. Following the guideline of only 1 thing at a time and 2-3 days between.

That's about it. I hope that by the end of July I have figured out what food makes me feel good, and what makes me feel bad. What keeps me craving free an able to make good choices without the "hard rules" of the Whole30?  To be completely honest, it's a little scary. The last 29 days have been easy to navigate within the confines of the very strict rules - pick up something at the store, read the label, does it have sugar? yes? back on the shelf....easy. Now it's going to be a lot more judgement and decision making on my part.

It was very exciting for me today selecting a yogurt to have next week...it was shocking though to see that most of the flavoured yogurt has between 17-23g of sugar per serving! Seriously!?!? I'm not spending my entire sugar budget on one little bit of yogurt!

Overall, I'm feeling good. I really notice now when something bothers my tummy (too much salt in a day, not enough water, too much oil, etc.)

I'll do a full post on Tuesday morning with my results for the month and my thoughts going forward.

Until then...

T