The Whole30 reintroduction is the phase that allows you to reintroduce the eliminated food groups in a systematic way so that you can observe how each group affects your body. This understanding of food’s effect on your body is essential to reaching Food Freedom.
Why reintroduction?
The REINTRODUCTION is an essential part of Whole30. It gives you the information you need to know to develop your own nutritional plan for the future. It’s the final piece to your nutritional puzzle by helping to determine how the eliminated food groups affect your body. Once you have that understanding, you can make informed food choices without the guilt or shame many of us feel. You will be able to figure out if a certain food is worth it. You will also figure out what foods might trigger you to overeat and/or help you to see a pattern of emotional eating.
Reintroduction example…
For instance, you may find out during the reintroduction that legumes have absolutely no effect on your body so you may feel that adding them back into your diet is beneficial. However, you find out that dairy makes you feel badly so you decide to cut back on it. But then you go to your favorite gelato place and decide that “it’s worth it” to have some discomfort afterwards. You are then making an informed choice. Although, there may be times when you feel like eliminating certain foods from your diet will make you feel better, this process is not about eliminating these foods forever; it’s about giving you the control over these choices. That is FOOD FREEDOM.
What is Food Freedom?
Simply, food freedom is feeling in control of the food that you eat, instead of it controlling you. That’s it. That’s what we all want and part of that is knowing how food affects you. It is never again feeling guilt or shame about the food you consume. Now, that sounds amazing, right?!
How to do the reintroduction?
Start with what you have been missing the most, just as long as you are sure it’s not a “gateway” food (a “gateway” food is one that is a gateway to loss of control- for example, if you have a sweet tooth that causes you to over consume sugary drinks and food, sugar is a gateway food and should be introduced last). And, if you’re not missing an unhealthy food, don’t even re-introduce it.
The reintroduction can be as long as you want; you can do a fast reintroduction in 10 days or a slow and methodical one in 20. It is really up to you. It will depend on how you divide up the food groups (for instance you may want to combine all grains together or divide them into gluten and gluten-free) and how long you want the reintroduction to last.
It is important to give your body a break of 2 days in between each reintroduced food. Those are the days that you will stay compliant and adhere to a strict Whole30 diet. This is important because you are essentially running an experiment and you can only have 1 variable at a time. So reintroduce a food group, then go back to a strict Whole30 diet for 2 days, and reintroduce another food group, followed by another 2 days of strict Whole30, and on and on.
Reintroduction example…
Here is an example of a reintroduction plan that you can use as a guide for your own. I broke some of the food groups up a bit and saved sugar until the end because I have a sweet tooth that leads to overindulging. Feel free to modify this plan as you see fit.
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