As a weight loss diet, Whole30 was a total bust for me. I did not lose or gain significantly all month long. Which caused me to lose this month's round here on DietBet. Since I was not allowed to keep track of calories, I'm pretty sure I overate by 200-500 calories per day on average. This would be fine for maintenance, but not for weight loss. But I'm honestly not surprised. I think as far as weight loss goes, the Whole30 would be most effective for someone eating the SAD, more or less. I've already been dieting for over 15 months, eating more Paleo meals, far less processed foods, and already cut my sugars way down, so it's not like this diet was a huge change. The main thing for me was going off grains and dairy. Overall, my diet was pretty much already how I wanted it to be.
I did not go on the Whole30 for weight loss, I went on it so I could have an easier elimination diet to try to treat my IBS. This is the problem with how I normally like to eat - I don't know what exactly is causing my IBS to continue. On this front, it is just too early to tell. I started herbal antibiotics two weeks ago (ish) and have another 2 weeks to go. This will kill off the majority of the bacteria in my gut. This super clean diet was a great time to work on killing bad guys in my gut (and not immediately re-feeding them with sugar). And then I will repopulate my gut microbiome. This is when I should start seeing progress, if there is going to be any. If I don't see any significant progress, then I guess I'll try the FODMAPs diet.
I'm also hoping that I will discover some major allergies during the reintroduction phase. One major challenge for me in treating my IBS is that I don't have major reactions to anything at all, never have, just the same daily problems that don't seem to vary much no matter how good, or how bad, I might eat.
I did not have any IBS improvement just being on this strict Paleo diet. I did do better for a few days after starting the antibiotics, and then relapsed, which kind of makes sense, since bacteria help with digestion and I'm killing them off.
I am not reintroducing grains. I am sufficiently convinced that even if I don't see any major reactions to them, that they have no real redeeming features and no one should eat them, period. I don't even miss them as much as I thought I would.
I suspect that dairy might be an issue for me, but I am going to test lactose, whey, and casein seperately and see what happens. I have been really missing cheese and not being able to use it at all (or cook with yogurt or cheese), and I'll be pretty heartbroken if I have to give it up entirely. I'm also going to test if I do better on raw, grassfed, non-cow milks and cheeses.
Later this month, I will trying supplementing my stomach acid with Betaine HCL and see if that helps with my digestion as well.
I also did not see any change in mood, cravings, energy, or anything else this month, just basically felt normal. No withdrawal. No carb flu. No "tiger blood".