Waiting

I think the last post I wrote was about a book called "Wheat Belly". I have since finished the book and am currently on day 4 of my own wheat free experiment. Let me tell you, it isn't easy. And that is coming from someone who didn't eat tons of wheat before. Well, I did, just not all the time. I usually would go in cycles with my wheat consumption (things like bread and cereal). Not intentionally, more this way - if I had a box of cereal, I would eat it. If I had Ezekiel bread in the freezer, I would toast it. And, of course, sometimes I would consume wheat without even realizing it. A lot of products contain wheat.

Take out wheat from your diet and you become aware of how much food it is actually in. Then it leaves you wondering - what's left to eat? Then, take out all the other starches that the author of this book says would be beneficial to people looking to lose weight or are diabetic, and you are really limited. If you think it's hard to imagine a life without bread, think of a life without bread, potatoes, rice AND oats! For me, that just isn't going to happen. And it doesn't have to because I neither need to lose weight or am diabetic. So I will continue to enjoy my potatoes, rice and oats. But I am still trying wheat free.

Like I said, I am on day 4. I can't believe how much fat I am eating. And I'm wondering if my body doesn't like it so much. I mean, it's really not used to eating so much fat (even healthy fat). Since I've cut out all wheat, I am eating more way more fat in the form of cheese, nuts, seeds, oils, avocado, etc. And yesterday afternoon I got a horrendous headache and my whole body started to ache by the end of the night. I felt like I was eating way too many calories and despite not having any starches, my belly seems to be distended. Maybe all the cheese is bloating me. I don't understand why I put my body through such extremes sometimes, but after reading all the horrible things modern wheat does to you, it seems worth a try to eliminate it from my diet. I know that what I'm going through is probably withdrawal symptoms and will eventually fade. I didn't really think I would go through withdrawals because it didn't seem to me that I ate all that much wheat to begin with. But, probably more than I was aware.

It doesn't really help that I'm not quite feeling 100% better from my last cold. I still have a nasty, phlegm-y, rolling cough that makes me sound like a 50 year smoker. Sometimes I wonder if it will ever go away. I still can't bring myself to do sprints on the days that they are scheduled because by the end of my looooong weight training session, I am just too exhausted to think of 30 minutes of sprinting. And so, this final month of the fit trainer is not going how it is supposed to go. I am finishing out the weight training portion (sans sprints) so the fat torching isn't going to happen. But I need to do something to finish out the year. Then, depending on how this wheat free diet goes, in January I still plan on attempting the 25 day fat blasting. When I am finally rid of this cold/cough, I will re-do the last phase of the fit trainer. This is my tentative plan.

The only thing that I am unsure of right now is if I am over my wheat withdrawals by January, will I be able to do the 25 day diet, with all the cheat days? Do I really want to reintroduce all that crap to my body again and have to go through withdrawals...again? Plus, I will probably have awful gastrointestinal problems when I do. That's why I have to kind of wait it out and see how it goes. If I can truly say goodbye to food cravings once and for all after eliminating wheat from my diet, I don't know why I would want to go back. Cheat day or not. Because being free of food cravings would be so wonderful. I struggle with cravings, even after eating clean for weeks or months at a time.

It seems to be a waiting game at this point. Waiting for my body to heal. Waiting for Christmas to be over. Waiting for the end of the fit trainer. Waiting for wheat withdrawals to end. Waiting for my body to stop resisting change. Waiting. Waiting.....


"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Galatians 6:9