Lots of good introductions here. I'm wondering how everyone is doing today? How have things gone for you? I'm on day 15 right now and feeling like I'm gaining weight rather than losing.

Hey everyone! I just started my very first Whole 30 on Monday 7th November, so I'm on Day 4 right now and still very much in the 'honeymoon' phase where it almost seems easy... wonder how long that will last! It's great to find a community on here, I always find the forums help massively with motivation and recipe ideas and such.

I have PCOS and insulin resistance, so I've been taking metformin for a couple of years but I'd love to be able to stop. I ate a ketogenic/low carb high fat diet for roughly a year (June 2015-May 2016) and while there were some aspects of this that worked really well for me (boundless energy when fat-adapted, no acne, regular hormonal cycles, sleeping wonderfully every night), unfortunately there were some downsides that I couldn't get past - mainly resulting in IBS-like symptoms that wouldn't go away no matter what I tried! Then I had university exams last summer so eating well went out of the window with all of the stress, and that sort of carried on all summer... until a week ago!

I've been feeling kinda dreadful recently - sleeping for maybe 4 hours per night, no energy to workout, terrible mood swings, more acne than I had even as a teenager - but it was when I went to give blood and I failed the haemoglobin test (to see if you have a healthy level of iron in your blood) that it was really 'brought home' just how badly I was treating my body. I found Whole 30 on the internet, read the book, and I really like it so far! It seems to have all the good elements of LCHF without the dairy (which definitely doesn't agree with me) and with more emphasis on vegetables and real food.

So I did all my meal prep last Sunday for this week - spinach, egg & ham cups for breakfast, salmon with roast veggies for lunch, and cottage pie topped with parsnip for supper. I prefer to just prep everything in one go and then eat the same meals all week, it's just easier and I don't really get bored thankfully! I've been a little hungry but I think this is mainly my body getting used to eating less stodgy carbs again. I'm actually feeling and sleeping better already - although last night I may have dreamt about cinnamon rolls and chocolate cake!

So what day is everyone else on? Any tips for a newbie? What's your favourite Whole 30 recipe so far?

Maeve x