Not sure what to do…

KLELifts
KLELifts Posts: 16 Member
edited October 31 in Food and Nutrition
I posted several days ago on a different thread about how I was doing an elimination diet. Cutting out all gluten, sugar, dairy.
The biggest thing for me was cutting out sugar - I was way too addicted (major brain fog, feeling like I needed to eat every 30 mins, severe crashes.. to name a few). Plus I knew cutting those things out would help with a faster weight loss because I tried this elimination for a couple weeks in the past.
I’m 25, 5”1, and my starting weight was 135.2.
I got to 127.9.
I lost that in about 11 days.

I know most of that is water weight and that having that type of weight loss in a week’s time is not sustainable.

4-5 days ago I started tracking my calories though and found out I was eating about 1100 calories.. which explained why I was still feeling horrible on this diet.

I realized that I couldn’t follow this plan for another two weeks (it’s a 30 day elimination plan).
So I’m trying to figure out where to go from here.

Do I continue this elimination diet at all? Just cut out sugar since that’s my issue? Continue to cut back on carbs (it’s a low carb plan too)?
Raise my calories? And by how much?
I just don’t want to go backwards and gain weight again or feel extremely bloated or become addicted to carbs/sugar again.

Please don’t judge me too harshly lol.but any tips would be appreciated.

Replies

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    If you want to eat more calories, but stay on the elimination diet, can you just increase the portion size of some of the things the diet allows you to eat? You'd still be eliminating the same foods, which seems like the core point of the elimination diet. If you're full on the 1100 so feel too full, consider increasing things that are relatively higher in fats, since those are more calorie-dense.
  • KLELifts
    KLELifts Posts: 16 Member
    edited October 31
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    If you want to eat more calories, but stay on the elimination diet, can you just increase the portion size of some of the things the diet allows you to eat? You'd still be eliminating the same foods, which seems like the core point of the elimination diet. If you're full on the 1100 so feel too full, consider increasing things that are relatively higher in fats, since those are more calorie-dense.

    So a typical day on the diet looks like this:

    Breakfast
    4-6 ounces protein
    1-2 servings of fat (so like 1/4 cup nuts or a tablespoon nut butter)
    1 cup optional veggies

    Lunch
    4-6 ounces protein
    1 serving fat
    2-3 cups veggies
    1 cup carbs (sweet potatoes, beans, quinoa)

    Dinner
    Repeat of lunch, just one more serving of fat

    Two optional snacks
    1-2 servings fat
    1 cup veggies or 1/2 cup berries

    All meats need to be lean.

    I was trying to eat on the higher end of those portions but got full very quickly.
    And even when I went to have a snack, I normally grabbed nuts and got full off that quickly as well.
    Most of the time I wasn’t even able to finish my meals.
    But after totaling it all, I was only eating the 1100 calories OR less if I didn’t get any snacks/finish all my meals.

    I was full but felt super lethargic because I obviously wasn’t getting enough calories.
  • Hobartlemagne
    Hobartlemagne Posts: 565 Member
    KLELifts wrote: »
    The biggest thing for me was cutting out sugar - I was way too addicted (major brain fog, feeling like I needed to eat every 30 mins, severe crashes.. to name a few).

    Those symptoms sound exactly like you're deprived of carbs.

  • claireychn074
    claireychn074 Posts: 1,605 Member
    If you feel dreadful, stop the elimination diet. Here’s the thing with carbs: some people have very quick and high blood sugar spikes and then drops - that’s why you feel awful after too much sugar and why you want more. Some people (me) can eat complex carbs without the spikes OR if I’m eating a lot of sugar (some really high sugar fruit) then I have protein or fat with it (like Greek yoghurt and nuts). That stops the crashes for me. Some people just feel better on v low carbs - I certainly don’t - and so they choose a keto style diet.

    Start reintroducing carbs, try to focus on things with fibre (helps to slow the absorption of the sugar) and / or have fat or protein with it. If you find simple sugar a bit addictive then just don’t reintroduce it until you know what effect other foodstuffs have on you. Don’t buy the sweets, cakes or biscuits.

    It took me years to figure out my sugar crashes so good luck!