Fat Loss Jump Start Day 30

This will be our last check-in for the 30-Day Fat Loss Jump-Start because YOU DID IT!! You finished!! Congratulations to you on your success, however small or large it has been.

I really hope these post and the pdfs helped you find a rhythm with your diet and lifestyle this month! I’d love to hear about your success in an email to neely@neelyquinn.com. And I love photos!!

Now What?

Well, my hope is that you’ll have fallen in love with whole, real foods – the kind we were born to eat – and that you feel so good that you’re going to continue on this path.

If you truly are feeling better and looking better, I see no reason why you shouldn’t keep going, you know?

What to Eat Now

If you truly feel great and you’re losing weight, and you want to continue doing so, keep eating exactly what you’ve been eating.

Testing Foods

If you’re DYING to know how certain foods affect you, like gluten, grains, dairy, or whatever it is that you’re super craving, then here’s what you do: Pick the food you want to test out. Eat a lot of it during an entire day. Notice how you feel for the next 1-5 days.

If you only eat a little bit of it, your body won’t tell you loudly and clearly how it feels about that food. So for instance, if it’s gluten you’re curious about, don’t just eat a bite of pasta or bread: eat a few slices of bread or a bowl of pasta.

Scan Your Body

When I say notice how you feel for the next 1-5 days, I mean scan your entire body and mind for weirdness. It can look like anything from water retention (which you may see in your legs, under your eyes, or on the scale) to itchy skin.

Examples of Symptoms

I’ll give you a few examples from my own repertoire of food sensitivities. When I eat dairy, I get a yeast infection the next day and zits (we call them “allergic” zits in my household because they’re like little watery pustules with a red ring around them that come hours or a day after we’ve eaten something weird).

When I eat beef, my breasts get super tender and enlarged the next day. When I eat chicken I get a headache. When I eat rice I feel tired and I get hot flashes. When I eat gluten, I get diarrhea or constipation (whichever feels like showing up), and when I eat nuts, I get this terrible pain in my gut and joint pain.

And no, I’m not just making this stuff up 😉 I’ve tried and tested these foods so many times with the same results that it’s as good as a scientific experiment. I tell you all this so that you can see that symptoms can affect any part of your body.

But It’s Hard to Eat This Way

Yes, yes it is. In the beginning.

Honestly, I don’t even think about it anymore unless I’m eating with friends or family, at which point I feel like a special needs person (no offense to people with special needs). But even then, people always love what you eat together with your “special needs” (our go-to meal with friends and family is burgers, sweet potato fries, and salad with coconut milk ice cream for dessert).

In fact, on a recent family vacation, my aunt started eating like we do and lost 5 pounds in our week together. She LOST Weight. On vacation.

So whether or not you continue to eat this way is completely up to you, obviously. You have to decide if feeling good is worth any extra effort you’ve felt this month. You have to ask yourself, are you worth it? I think so.

80/20 Rule?

Some people swear by the 80/20 rule with Paleo or Primal, and some people can do that. You have to figure out if you’re one of those people.

To break it down, 80% Paleo in a week would look like this: if you eat 4 times a day (breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner) and you eat 7 days a week, that’s 28 meals. 20% of 28 is about 6 meals. That means you’d be eating grains, vegetable oils, refined sugar, legumes, or dairy 6 meals of the week.

I think you should move slowly into trying those old foods out and see how they affect you. Then decide how often, if ever, you want to eat them. THEN decide if the 80/20 rule is good for you. It is DEFINITELY not good for me, so I just don’t do it. But everyone’s level of sensitivity is different.

Be Honest With Yourself

Whatever you do, I urge you to be blatantly honest with yourself. I saw this sign up in Whole Foods the other day that really affected me for some reason. It said, “Treat your body like it belongs to someone you love.” Isn’t that perfect?

So try to do that. If you find that dairy makes you gassy, or grains make you gain weight, or chocolate gives you acne, what would you tell your boyfriend/girlfriend/best friend to do? Stop eating it, right? At least most of the time?

Know that you’re not abnormal or weird for having food restrictions. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just one of the few people nowadays who’s actually listening to what their body is saying.

Good for you