It Starts With Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways (34 page)

Medical professionals agree that our general recommendations and Whole30 program are safe, healthy, and effective for those with
IBS
(irritable bowel syndrome),
IBD
(inflammatory bowel disease) and similar digestive disorders. However, having a serious digestive disorder does require you to follow some protocols specific to your type of inflammation. These modifications should make your transition easier.

In addition, those with IBD (Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis) should also adopt our autoimmune protocol, especially with respect to eggs and nightshades. Only after you have seen symptomatic improvement and, ideally, improvement in inflammatory lab markers, would we recommend reintroducing these foods, starting with eggs first, and then nightshades.

• Vegetables:
  Eat plenty of fiber-rich vegetables, but make sure they are cooked thoroughly, as this makes their fiber content way less likely to cause problems. We also recommend that you prepare veggies by first chopping them into small pieces, which makes it easier to guarantee thorough cooking, or to add them to soups or stew.
  
• Fruit:
  Be cautious with fruit consumption, as there are strong links between fructose malabsorption and IBS. Make sure you peel all fruit, avoid what you can’t peel (like grapes and cherries), and eat your fruit as ripe as possible. You should also avoid fruits that have seeds and a rough exterior (like berries). Although no one knows why for sure, many IBS sufferers report increased symptoms after consuming citrus fruits, so we recommend avoiding those as well. Finally, dried fruits and fruit juices pack too much sugar into a small package for folks with serious GI disturbances.
  
• Nuts and Seeds:
  Avoid all nuts and seeds. They can be profoundly inflammatory in the intestinal tract, mostly because of their physical structure. (They can “scrape” the intestinal lining, causing discomfort when inflammation is already present.) This includes nut butters, even the “creamy” kind.
  
• Coffee:
  Avoid coffee—even decaffeinated. Coffee is a powerful GI-tract irritant, and even decaffeinated coffee can trigger abdominal spasms and diarrhea in IBS/IBD patients. In addition, caffeinated coffee is a double-whammy, as caffeine speeds up every system in the body (including the colon), which can lead to diarrhea, followed by constipation. Coffee can also increase stomach acid, which can contribute to inflammation in the GI tract.
  
• Water:
  Drink plenty of water throughout the day, but
  not
  with your meal, as it can inhibit proper digestion by diluting stomach acid and digestive enzymes.
  
• Fish Oil:
  Consider taking a high-quality fish oil. (See Chapter 22 for details.) Fish oil supplements containing omega-3 fatty acids have been proven a complementary or alternative treatment for IBD.
  

Finally, understand that your digestion may get
worse
before it gets
better
. As your GI tract starts to heal, your mucosal layer will adjust, unhealthy gut bacteria will start to die off, healthy bacteria will begin to repopulate, and the intestinal lining will start to rebuild itself, plugging gaps and filling in holes. This can lead to gas, bloating, diarrhea, or constipation. In conditions such as IBD and IBS, it’s not uncommon for digestive issues to continue for three to six months after making such radical dietary changes—but it is a
necessary
first step in restoring normal, healthy gut integrity.

This may seem like a no-brainer, but we get plenty of questions from people asking if they can follow our plan if they are allergic to eggs, seafood, nuts, or avocado.

The answer is, yes, of course! Just don’t eat the foods you are allergic to.

You want to
completely
eliminate
your exposure to any potentially inflammatory compound during your Whole30, so avoid that food or food group. None of the foods on our shopping list are mandatory—and there are plenty of healthy options in each category (protein, vegetable, good fat), so it should be easy for you to make appropriate choices.

In addition, your “allergy” to certain foods may not be a
true
allergy
—it may just be an intolerance or sensitivity, in which case, it
may
be reversible. Many have reported the reduction or elimination of food “allergies” after successful completion of their Whole30. Perhaps by eliminating intestinal permeability and restoring normal gut flora and fauna, your body’s immune system will relax enough to permit the reintroduction of certain foods.

However, this process requires at least six months of absolutely
no
exposure to the problematic food, and may not be safe or feasible for those with long-standing, life-threatening allergies. Work closely with your doctor and test this cautiously, please.

These particular lifestyle choices do present more of a challenge to our nutritional recommendations and Whole30 program. While our diet is not exclusively carnivorous, we do recommend the inclusion of animal protein for optimal health. However, it is still possible to reap many of the benefits of our healthy-eating plan while still honoring your ethical or religious obligations.

If you’ll eat some animal products (eggs, fish, etc.), then we recommend getting the bulk of your protein from these sources and supplementing with plant-based sources as little as possible. If your concerns are largely ethical—animal welfare, sustainability, your local economy, or global economic factors—know that there
are
ways to responsibly, ethically source meat, seafood, and eggs and supporting those efforts sends a strong message (financial and otherwise) to the large corporations invested in factory farming. We believe it is important to create an alternative food-supply system, but that cannot be done without the support of committed consumers.

If dairy is a viable source of protein, we recommend putting pastured, organic, fermented sources like yogurt or kefir at the top of your list. You could also use whey protein powder from grass-fed, organic sources, which would provide the protein you need with fewer downsides than other dairy products, including all forms of milk and cheese.

If you don’t eat any animal products, or if you find you still need to supplement your diet with plant-based protein sources, your best choices are minimally-processed, fermented soy products like tempeh or natto, or organic edamame (soybeans). You can also include nonfermented soy (like extra-firm tofu) and various legumes in rotation, making sure to soak them for twelve to twenty-four hours, rinse, and boil them for at least fifteen minutes to reduce the anti-nutrient and inflammatory compounds. A hemp- or pea-protein powder is also an option for you.

Avoid all grains and grain products, including seitan (which is made from wheat gluten) and pseudo-cereals like quinoa, as the downsides are too numerous. In addition, vegans will need to eat more carbohydrate and fat, to cover the missing calories from their relatively low protein diet.

If you exercise regularly or play a sport, you’ll need to support that activity with extra nutrition and calories. Remember, your energy stores function like gas in your car. The more you drive, the quicker you’ll use up the gas in your tank.

Lower-intensity activity, like casual cycling, walking, hiking, or golf, burns more fat than carbohydrate, so you may not need to load up on starch on a daily basis. However, if you participate in high-intensity activity (like CrossFit, P90X, sprinting, or basketball) or longer-duration activities, like running or biking, you will probably need to include more carbohydrate than the average (less-active) person in your daily meals to maintain adequate glycogen stores. Throw in some carb-dense veggies like sweet potato, butternut squash, acorn squash, beets, pumpkin, or parsnips, and perhaps bump up your protein and fat and/or add an extra meal.

In addition, for those participating in either high-intensity or longer-duration activity, you’ll need to support your training session or athletic event with proper nutrition to help you fuel and recover.

• Pre-Workout:
  Your pre-workout “snack” is
  not
  fuel for your workout! You’ve got tens of thousands of calories stored in your body—plenty to support your activity. Your pre-workout food simply sends a signal to your body to prepare it for the activity that is coming. Eat fifteen to seventy-five minutes before your workout, choosing foods that are easily digestible and palatable—the timing is highly variable and depends on what your gastrointestinal tract can tolerate before physical activity. Focus on protein and fat and avoid lots of fruit or carb-dense vegetables. Remember, elevated insulin levels undermine glucagon’s energy-access function—and you need your energy stores during a training session. A pre-workout snack might be: two hard-boiled eggs, some deli turkey and a small handful of macadamia nuts, or a few strips of beef jerky. If you exercise first thing in the morning, a little something is better than nothing, so do the best you can.
  
• Post-Workout:
  Your post-workout meal is a special “bonus meal” designed to help you start the recovery process faster and more effectively. After you train, your muscles and connective tissue need protein, and your glycogen stores
  may
  need replenishing. Eat your post-workout meal as soon as possible—ideally, within fifteen to thirty minutes of training. Bring it to the gym or competition site! Have a meal-size serving of an easily digestible protein and add carbohydrate in the form of starchy vegetables based on your activity level and health status. Fruit is not your best choice here. Fructose-rich fruit will preferentially replenish
  liver
  glycogen, but your
  muscles
  did all the hard work. A good post-workout meal might be: chicken breast and sweet potato, salmon and butternut squash, or egg whites mixed into mashed pumpkin. Eat a normal meal sixty to ninety minutes after your post-workout meal.
  

All high-intensity exercisers need protein post-workout, but whether to include carbohydrate depends on the type of activity and metabolic status. If you are lean, muscular, healthy (insulin sensitive), and performance-oriented, you have a totally different context than someone who is overweight, metabolically deranged, and trying to get back on track with his health. For that reason, we recommend following our “post-workout carb curve,” which accounts for both your particular health status and the type and duration of activity.

• Duration:
  On the left side of the chart, find the number that corresponds to the total duration of the high-intensity portion of your exercise session. If you were at the gym for an hour, but spent only twelve minutes actually working hard, then 12 is your number.
  
• Health Status:
  Identify where your current state of health lies along the spectrum at the bottom of the chart. It’s subjective, but it’s just a conceptual guideline.
  
• Post-Workout Carb Intake
  : Use those two coordinates to plot the point that determines the approximate amount of carbohydrate you should consume after each high-intensity training session.