My Gluten-Free Challenge Experience
It is crazy how listening to a person talk for an hour about something can inspire you to read a book within days and decide to change your diet. It is amazing the different responses you get from people when you tell them you are trying gluten-free for a week. You have the awesome cheerleaders who say: awesome, good for you, and let me know how it goes. Then you have the other people who think you are crazy. I feel like a lot of times I get classified as crazy for trying something new with diets or workouts, but honestly I think people are crazy for not investing more in their health. You have one body people so you better treat it well.
Growing up I used to be such a picky, close minded person especially when it came to food. Now you will often here me say I will try anything once. It wasn't until I went to Palmer that I realized how poor my diet was. Most of the people I got to know were very healthy eaters and it made me fell like a fatty. When you surround yourself with healthy people you want to be healthy too! A good friend of mine Becky and I would hangout and she would make salads loaded with vegetables. Most of which I did not enjoy. Naturally I would cover them in ranch dressing and try to eat as much as I could to start adapting a taste for the different foods. This is where I learned you constantly need to keep trying foods and preparing them differently. Enough of me rambling about the past, but I do think it shows you a little bit of a map of where I have come from and where I am today.
Here is what I noticed in my week of going gluten-free:
Water intake increased. I noticed that I would take a bottle of water with me in the car on the way to work. Then, while I was at work I was drinking more water while sitting at my desk and I was also drinking more water at home in the evenings.
Great workouts the entire week. After my first workout, which was bench press, I did feel a sense of fatigue in my muscles, but it definitely didn't impact my other workout days. My weights went up on all lifts and I felt great. Recovery was good and my motivation was high.
Didn't get the afternoon crash. Often after my lunch hour workouts and then grabbing a quick lunch I find that about an hour or two later I would start to crash. This week I didn't have that once.
Getting up in the middle of the night to go number one. This side effect I was not a big fan of. Normally I sleep straight through the night, but found that every night I was waking up to go potty.
Preparing more for the week. Going on a gluten-free diet you do need to have food around you that you can eat. If not, you will find yourself having a very difficult time sticking to the diet. So, I found myself making grocery lists and always thinking about foods I could prepare.
Eating my green veggies. I knew I needed to find ways to start eating more veggies because I am not veggie eater. So, I would sit around and think of ways I could prepare foods that I normally was not a big fan of and make them tasty. I had green beans I think 4 times this last week and they were delicious and tonight I made broccoli for the first time and really enjoyed it. So it is getting me to try foods again that I had basically written off from my diet.
I truly am a determined and some stay stubborn person. It is always a good feeling to succeed at something you put your mind to. There were multiple times this past week I could have caved into temptation and did what was easy, but I didn't! Especially when everyone was eating my mom's chocolate chip cookies and telling me to just have one.
My body noticeably changed! I wondered if I would see a physical change because honestly I don't have a ton of weight to lose like many people who go on this type of diet. On Thursday a woman noticed a sense of leanness in my face and neck and then on Friday a friend noticed my abdomen was tighter. It is a great feeling when someone else can see you change in such a short time. Personally I felt leaner throughout my body especially in my abdomen and hips. Then, when I stepped on the scale Saturday morning at my dad's right after waking up I noticed I was down 6 pounds from when I weighed myself 2 and a half weeks before at Gold's Gym for my body fat analysis. I am not saying I lost 6 pounds because it was 2 different scales, but I would believe that I lost around 3-4 in that weeks time. It is always rewarding to see the number change on the scale. I honestly can't tell you the last time I weighed in at that weight. If I had to guess I would say it was sometime when I was at Palmer going to chiropractic school early on.
Staying up later than usual. Normally I try to go to bed around 10:00 during the week like clock work, but I found that my body was wide awake all but 1 night. Guess my body wasn't needing as much sleep.
More sensitive to sweet. The most difficult challenge of going gluten-free was my cravings for sweets. As the week progressed I found chocolate milk and watermelon worked just fine as a substitute for all the other sugar snacks I had before. It wasn't until Thursday that I had frozen yogurt with strawberries on it and found out how amazing it was. Before when getting frozen yogurt I would pile on candy bar toppings with chocolate to get my chocolate sweet tooth fix in. Now, I find that I really enjoy the cake batter flavored frozen ice cream with strawberries. Tasty and doesn't make me feel like crap afterwards.
Now that I have finished my challenge I have decided to focus on keeping wheat, gluten and high carb meals from my diet on a regular basis. During the week I would really like to stay gluten-free and then maybe splurge a little every once in awhile. After my little splurge on Sunday and seeing how my stomach almost started to hurt instantly and I got that tired feeling I don't see me going crazy on my splurges. But, going gluten-free all of the time just isn't realistic for me. For example, today I was at my aunt's and she ordered pizza for us. I wasn't about to be that girl and say no it has gluten in it so I can't. Instead I opted for one piece of pizza and then remained gluten-free the rest of the day.
Like I say a lot, life is about balance. If I had celiac disease then going gluten-free 100% of the time would probably be my reality, but it isn't so I am going to enjoy food. Winter time is almost here and my mom will be making her amazing homemade breads and pastas and I sure as hell won't be saying no to them. I may reserve them for special times and in small quantities, but I will never give them up!
For any of you considering going gluten-free I would highly recommend reading the Wheat Belly book. The author does a great job of showing you all of the different effects wheat has on your body as well as all other foods that spike your blood sugar. It gives more meaning as to why you may want to consider going gluten-free. I know it did for me!
