My WHOLE30 Journey | Week 5 | Reintroduction

I can’t believe that it has been more than 40 days since Vesely and I started our whole30 journey. I feel like it was yesterday when I planned and prepped for our first week of the challenge. I must say that I am really proud of my husband, who made it through this with me (he did have a lot of tough days). This doesn’t mean that we’re done with our whole30 journey. We have decided to incorporate it into our lifestyle. Keep on reading and you’ll see our plans and decisions. Also, this whole30 reintroduction was very tough but we did manage to get through it together.

If you’re just joining me here, and not sure what I’m blabbering about, I recommend you read my first post from this series –> Why I’m Doing the Whole30 Challenge and all the other related posts that are listed at the end. That way we’ll all be on the same page.

Now let’s move on to the final ten days of our whole30 journey

First, I must say that these final days of the challenge were the most challenging. Even though we were both very excited to reintroduce all of the „good“ stuff we used to eat, we didn’t expect that it was going to be this tough. You’ll see what I mean by that in just a minute.

And the second thing that I want to tell you is that we have „decided“ that we are better off of the bread, grains, and milk, so we won’t eat those very often.

Here is the last 10 days’ timeline

Day 31

We were worried about what we’re going to reintroduce first. There are no specific rules that specify that you must eat something of the day 31 etc, but there are some guidelines that you can follow if you want. For us, since we’re not used to eating a lot of legumes regularly, we’ve decided to reintroduce the non-gluten grains on the day 31. So, for breakfast, I made us the oatmeal with coconut flour and banana. It was very delicious. Later, I cooked some white rice as a side dish for dinner and I also popped a little bit of popcorn for the movie night.

I felt really great after the oatmeal, but rice made me a bit bloated. On the other hand, Vesely said that popcorn was really heavy on his stomach and for the digestion later on.

For the next two days, we’ve returned to the whole30, and everything got back to normal. No bloating, stomach pain or anything unusual.

Day 34

Since Vesely is lactose intolerant, and we’ve decided to travel for the weekend and go to the beach, I planned on reintroducing the bread on this day. I realized that this was the best option because we are visiting his cousins and we didn’t want to be the „picky eaters“. So, I made my no-knead bread (I made it with wheat flour) and took it with us. I also brought some other food so we don’t get cravings during the road trip.

When it comes to bread (at least my homemade bread) I felt a bit bloated, but not so much. Maybe it’s because I made that specific “no-knead” bread where the gluten didn’t manage to form, as it does in regular kneaded bread. Or maybe the store-bought stuff makes me really bloated? I really don’t know, because I just don’t want to eat the store-bought bread anymore, so I’ll be eating the homemade occasionally.

Vesely didn’t have any issues with the gluten whatsoever, so I’ll make the bread for him whenever he wants, as he also decided to eat less of the foods that are off-limits during the whole30.

And again, for the next two days, we ate as we did during the challenge.

Day 37

Today we reintroduced the dairy products. Even though Vesely is lactose intolerant, he wanted to give it a try. So, he decided to eat a few dairy products that have tiny amounts of lactose, like homemade yogurt and cheese. Unfortunately, he ended up with stomachache and cramps for the next two days. And that means no more dairy products for him, EVER!

On the other hand, I am happy to say that nothing bothered me when I reintroduced dairy, especially yogurt (YAY!). Since this is the only thing that I was missing during the whole30 challenge, I must say that I’m really glad that I’ll be eating yogurt again. The only “problem” I had with the dairy is that I got really hungry a lot faster than I expected. I don’t know how to explain this, but I believe that I’ve got full faster with less food, so I didn’t get enough energy. I don’t know. Do you have any idea what could that be all about? Leave your suggestions in the comments below.

Day 40

Legumes – as I said before, we are not big legumes-eaters, but we had to reintroduce them because we eat peanuts and peanut butter once in a while. I also like chickpeas, so we wanted to see how will that work. And, to be honest, it all just felt a lot heavy on my stomach. As if I just swallowed some rock or something. Especially after eating roasted unsalted peanuts. I won’t give up on any of those, but I won’t ever eat them through the day in almost every meal.

Again, Vesely didn’t have any problems and I am really glad about that. 🙂

And that was it. For the next few days, we returned to the whole30 protocol. We didn’t reintroduce the added sugars because we just don’t want to have a lot of sugary stuff in one day. Since I like making homemade jams, muffins and cookies, and other stuff containing sugar, that is what we’ll have once in a while. But NO MORE store-bought sugary junk food! ?

Also, I couldn’t think of a way to reintroduce sugar without combining it with some other ingredients, like flour. I’m not that type who would take the jam and eat it all by itself, or who would just take the spoon of sugar and eat it like that. So, sugary stuff will wait for the opportunity to be reintroduced.

Conclusion

These last days, the whole30 reintroduction, were the longest and the toughest days compared to any other day during our whole30 journey. Even when I felt very tired at the very beginning, I didn’t felt this hard. Every time we would reintroduce something new, both of us would get hungry really fast, and we had cravings. Honestly, I didn’t crave anything (except yogurt) during the whole of this process, so reintroduction was really hard for me. Vesely had similar „symptoms“, and that is why we have decided to turn this whole30 journey into a lifestyle with a little bit of adding this and that.

We don’t want to be picky when we’re at the family gatherings or hanging out with our friends. So that is when we’ll be eating what is offered. But when we’re at home, just the two of us, whole30 is what is going on. Whole30 has become our way of living, and we’ve become the WHOLE30.

Honestly, there is no reason for us to start eating again like we did before this little experiment because we feel GREAT and most importantly HEALTHY at last!

Just as I said in the post on Why I’m Doing the Whole30 Challenge, one of my goals was to feel healthy. I finally do feel that way, and there is no reason for me to go back. Also, Vesely is finally keeping his IBS under a control, we can finally go anywhere without any second thoughts, so again there is no reason to go back to the old eating habits. 🙂

If you would like me to post occasional lifestyle updates with meal plans, feel free to leave me the comment below or contact me directly if you have any questions.

Love,