28andChange

So in my last post, I broke the big news: I had gone grainless. What I didn’t share was what that experience was like. And so here I am, ready to tell all…

The first two weeks were ROUGH

Before this experiment, I had a fairly healthy diet that incorporated lots of fruits of veggies to compliment more standard fair (sandwiches, burritos, and the occasional bag of chips). What I did not realize was just how dependent on sugar this seemingly healthy diet was.

It should be noted that I did not completely cut carbohydrates and sugar from my diet. I simply required myself to get these carbs (and sugar) from fruit in the morning and then vegetables and legumes throughout the rest of the day.

I quickly found though that these carbohydrate sources are not nearly as potent as a sandwich with chips or the occasional slice of pizza and an IT’S-IT.

Therefore, withdrawal ensued as my body acclimated to a world in which it was not living from one insulin spike to the next.

My state during these two weeks could be best described in two words:

• Irritable and Hungry

Two words kept me going:

1. Sunday. I gave myself one day a week to eat whatever I wanted (normally Sunday).
2. February. I knew in advance that this experiment would be tough at first and I promised myself that for the 28 days of February I would follow this diet religiously. After that I could choose the best way forward.

What DID you eat?

My hand. Kidding.

Breakfast

2-3 Pieces of fruit (grapefruit, orange, apple) and a whey protein shake

Lunch

Salad with olive oil based dressing and some sort of protein on it (cob salad, chicken caesar salad, spinach salad with)

Dinner

Fish with veggies (a lot of Weird Fish) OR Eggs with veggies OR occasionally steak with veggies

Snacks

• Various Trail Mixes from Trader Joe’s
• Lots of cheese and salami (not a really healthy option but what’s a guy to do)
• Bean soup (made a crock pot full at the beginning of the week)
• Dark chocolate from trader joe’s (late night snack)

Beverages

• Water
• Unsweetened Tea (ok, I cheated on this one and did a lot of sweetening)
• Plenty of alcohol to drown my sorrows (kidding again, though I did let myself have drinks with Friends a night or two a week).

Results were impressive

Wow you look good. Have you lost weight?

At about week four I started getting this comment regularly. This alone made the experiment worth it.

I actually hadn’t lost a drastic amount of weight (about 5 lbs at that point), but I had lost it in the right place: my belly.

My carb cravings subsided after about three weeks.

I was satiated throughout the day on a diet that was primarily vegetables, fruit, and protein.

If I missed a meal I didn’t find myself ravenously hungry or irritable. In a weird way, I was just content.

I slept soundly and felt energized throughout the day.

I’ve always had difficulty sleeping soundly, but it became much easier to sleep without all the sugar.

As well, I’ve always found myself borderline exhausted in the early afternoon just after lunch. This post lunch stopper pretty much disappeared.

Getting stopped (up)

February came and went, and I felt so good that it was just natural to keep going with a grainless diet. It seemed that this may become a way of life.

Until I got stopped by some, uh… serious constipation. I won’t go into detail other than to say that it was a genuine pain in the ass.

I am by no means a specialist on gastrointestinal problems, but apparently this sudden shift in my diet caused my gears to grind to a halt.

To remedy the situation I added some grains back into my diet (mainly brown rice) and cut down on the protein shakes. I started taking digestive enzymes to ensure that I was fully digesting my food as well as probiotics to build up my supply of healthy intestinal flora.

This combination got things moving again.

Going forward

Now, three and a half months after I first experimented with going grainless, I can say that it’s a way of life I am strongly in favor of adopting. Going forward, I can see myself continuing with a diet that is:

• Heavily plant based
• Full of quality (clean) protein
• Plentiful in healthy fats (high Omega-3 content)
• Ok with some legumes and a little rice
• Not religious to the point that I am afraid to eat out or cheat once in a while

Lesson Learned

That said, the process was not frictionless. Lesson learned:

Change is stress. While healthy stress is a good thing, too much change too quickly can create too much stress (a bad thing) and have adverse consequences. Make changes a step at a time.

Open Items

As well, I still have some open items that I am sorting through. Namely:

• How much of my protein do I want/can my digestive system handle?
• What’s the best way for me to get protein from clean sources?
• How much raw food do I want/can my digestive system handle?

posted: 10 May 13
under: Health and Fitness