Just knowing I can’t have gluten makes me want to eat bread. It’s not that I eat things that contain gluten on a regular basis, but I had a persistent craven for all things wheaty for the whole month.
But I made it. For the most part. In 28 days I had gluten just 4 times. Three of those were lack of willpower as I couldn’t resist the warmed apple fritters from Caribou/Dunn Bros. during my weekend stints in those coffee shops. I also disregarded this challenge to fully enjoy Valentine’s Day dinner at La Grolla in Saint Paul (Reservations for sure, parties of 4 or fewer). Well worth the fried angel hair wrapped scallops, olive oil bread and cheesecake. I do regret not having ever just eaten a healthy sandwich wrapped in unhealthy bread, just for experimentation purposes but I think my little cheats served this well. As far as I can tell having a random intake of gluten had no affect on my body. There was no noticeable change in mood, energy level, sleep quality or overall body feeling.
Since I was more focused on the gluten-free than trying to avoid fast burning carbs, which I usually try to avoid, I did find myself eating more carbs than usual. This I did notice. Eating large quantities or carbs lead to an overall drowsiness that would come on more quickly than I remember shortly after the meal. And any carbs, especially gluten-free beers and ciders, at night would be clearly noticeable in the morning. I call it the carb hangover. I wake up groggy regardless of how much sleep I got. I feel cloudy and like my skull is too big for my skin. Unpleasant to say the least.
Outside of some minor transgressions I’m proud of myself for the effort I did put in and glad that I was able to see this through the entire month but I’m not sure I see any value in continuing to be “100%” gluten-free.
At the end of the month I decided that I deserved a treat, or treats as it was. I planned on a whole day of just eating all of my favorite cereals and nothing else. Giving up cereal, for both slow carb and gluten free was one of the hardest things for me. Before I lost a decent chunk of weight I didn’t eat bowls of cereal, I ate boxes of cereal. And not the smallish sized boxed either.
Of course cereal day was preceded by pizza night. Papa Murphy’s. A cowboy pizza that was absolutely worth it. And although the cheesy bread and cinnamon wheel tasted awesome it was quickly regrettable. There was way too much food even after over eating which led to leftovers, which then invaded into my cereal day. The Original Pancake House also invaded. Three banana pancakes and half of a pumpkin pancake found their way to my plate along with my eggs and ham. In total my weekend included Papa Murphy’s, OPH, Golden Grahams, Frosted Flakes, donuts, a headache and a heaping pit of regret in the form of a stomach ache. Admittedly the pain could have been from the gluten, but more than likely it was from the carb overdose and just excessive amount of food in general.
All in all I would chalk it up as a success. It seems pretty unlikely that I have any sort of gluten intolerance and I learned that my body has really accepted a s/low carb diet. Going forward, at this point anyway, I will eat gluten when I want to eat gluten. Mostly I think this just means that I won’t purposely avoid it, but I won’t be looking for it. If there’s something I want that contains it, so be it. The same goes for carbs. I’m all for slow carbs, but fast burning carbs just need to eaten in more moderation. Everything in moderation. The biggest thing that I will take away from February is awareness. In many cases I found that I really just didn’t know what was in my food. I finally had a reason to look and I think that is the one habit that I will carry forward.
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