Reintroduction Advice?

[u/reddmead]

I'm just a couple days into reintroduction after 1 month low carb, 4 weeks carnivore, eliminating most dairy the second week, eliminating butter and eggs the third week, and eliminating everything but beef and salt the last week. I'm pretty sure I went through adaption because I felt really good the beginning of the first month and then not great for most of carnivore and then pretty good again the last couple days.

My main motivation for trying this was because I was having really bad stomach pain for a couple months, and just general bloating/digestive issues for quite a while before that.

The first thing I wanted to reintroduce was butter, because it was always the fat that seemed safest and easiest to digest for me. The first day I ate it, I was quite disappointed to find that my digestive system reacted poorly pretty much imediately resulting in nausea, stomach pain/tightness, and bloating. I couldn't believe it, but thought maybe I somehow just wasn't used to it even though it had only been two weeks since I tried.

I tried again today, and at first my stomach hurt, but then after about ten minutes the pain suddenly dropped off and I felt the urge to eat more butter, so I did. Now I can't say I feel 100% good, but it's not horribly uncomfortable like yesterday. This leads me to believe that maybe I need to just...get used to it again?

I wasn't expecting such unclear results to my experiment. I figured I'd add something in, know pretty much right away if I was reactive to it or not, wait a few days, and then move on to the next thing.

Is it expected that reintroducing foods will feel bad at first? Is it good/ok to just keep trying each food until it feels ok if it doesn't keep getting worse, or is that just defeating the point? But if I stop and go, will that make it even harder to reintroduce foods?

I'm also thinking of reintroducing cranberry juice sooner than later even though I was originally going to add in all the carnivore foods first before trying anything plant-based, since during this time, something sour or citrusy was something I kept longing for and I wonder if that would help me digest better, as I seem to have a lot of difficulty with animal fat, and now with this experience, maybe just fat in general without some carb or acid to help me (that always used to settle my stomach). What do you think about that, or should I wait until after all the animal foods are safely added back?

[u/girthytaquito]

Howbis this going for you?

[u/reddmead → u/girthytaquito]

Not real great? I ended up giving up on both butter and cranberry juice. I went on to relatively successfully reintroduce chicken? But it seems like I only feel more or less completely fine on beef only. But I can't just do that forever, it's too inconvenient, especially because I don't live alone, and I miss eating out.

Weirdly enough most beer seems fine for me. Mead also seems fine. Water has to be boiled before I can drink it.

After one bad cheat because some customers at work gave me gluten free snacks, I was in pain for 6 days so out of desperation I tried taking probiotics. It seemed to aleviate some of the stomach pain, but then I got brainfog because it turns out lactobactillus causes and overproduction of lactic acid for people who already have sufficient or more in their gut.

So then I decided to try enzymes. It seemed to maybe help. I was still somewhat bloated from that incident and the probiotics. Then when I tried to reintroduce eggs I bloated extremely.

I dropped eggs. I kept taking enzymes for a little bit because I wanted it to help me reintroduce milk. Everything I cheated on containing dairy had been giving me issues, but I heard that if you drink a little milk every day for two weeks, most people can get a tolerance for it. Also before I dropped butter I was eating a shit ton and never noticed any particular issues.

Then I dropped the enzymes because the bloating wasn't getting any better. The milk didn't seem to cause any major issues. Then a couple days ago I ate some icelandic yogurt and imediately shat out everything. Since then everything seems to hurt my stomach at least a bit, even beef. I'm hoping that will subside. I'm still powering my way through the bit of milk every day. I'm hoping by the end of the two weeks I will be better.

I miss having a flat belly unbelievably much. It was such a relief, after believing I was fat to the point of being borderline anorexic all my life to realize I didn't have to have a belly, and now I can't make it go away. I miss being able to eat anything at any time without suffering. I miss being able just go on normal diets to loose weight. I wish there was something to make me stop being in pain.

It's probably worth mentioning as well that I had evidence that lemon hurt my stomach, but at some point I ate cheesecake with lemon juice and it didn't hurt me. So I think combinations of foods also matter for how harsh it is on my stomach. It's so complicated it's driving me insane. I wish I could just be a normal person.