86 wheat and sugar

So, since I mentioned dietary plans and willpower in my first post, I thought I'd write about Dana's and my new diet.  As you could guess from the title of this post, we are avoiding gluten and sugar.  I wrote a lot about my dietary history on the juice fast blog, but I'll summarize here.

I basically ate whatever I wanted to for the majority of my life.  I just about always had frozen pizzas and corn dogs in my freezer at my house.  I never read labels and, generally, didn't care about what was in my food.  I ate because I liked eating, and earned the belly that I have.  When I got married to Dana, all that changed.  She cared about nutrition, and cared about me.  So I started to eat better, and I started to cook more.  It was fun; I loved it.  Did I still eat the occasional corn dog?  Yes.

Well fast forward to 2015 - we find out from Dana's Naturopath that by eating gluten she is raising the amount of antibodies in her system and it's messing with her already messed up thyroid.  So Dana goes off of gluten, and I don't because my thyroid is just fine (I think, it feels fine I guess... What's a thyroid supposed to feel like?)

If any of you have had one member of your family (in my case half of our family) go gluten free, you know that it makes it a bit difficult to cook or go out to eat, especially if you love making waffles (or waffling other things... More on that in another post) and pies.  Oh how I miss pies. (see below) So here we are almost a year later, and I've decided to join Dana in the GF lifestyle.  Burgers with lettuce wraps, weird tasting baked goods, and quinoa for days!  I am going off of gluten out of curiosity and to make it easier for us at the grocery store.  Sugar is a different story.

pumpkin pie with cream cheese 

Pie Day 2016

 Peach Strawberry Pie  

Dana read a book on how sugar is basically the devil.  There's a lot of really interesting science that I don't remember but it's basically the cause of most headaches, most diabetes, a lot of skin irritations, global compression (which really messes with your blood vessels), inflammation and plaque build up in your arteries, and many many more crazy issues.  We're avoiding sugar in foods, candy, desserts; basically anything that is fun.  We agreed that the occasional adult beverage is ok, which is great news.

SIDENOTE: I do understand that eating gluten and sugar in a "normal" amount is not necessarily unhealthy, however I believe that the standard "normal" American diet probably involves more gluten and sugar than your body is supposed to get.  So I guess for me this is a lesson in being mindful of what I put in my body.

The little cynic in me says something along the lines of "Oh GREAT! No gluten, no sugar, what's next? No caffeine?  Bye bye coffee.  No red meat?  No meat of any color?  Fast forward 2 years and you'll be living in a forrest gnawing on sticks because that's the only thing you'll allow yourself to eat.."  However my inner cynic is a real buzz kill, and I know that ultimately I'll wind up healthier for cutting back on sugar and gluten.

 One of the reasons why it's hard to go off gluten is the convenience.  We are just having to find alternative "edible plates".  A lot of food with gluten in them are what I consider to be edible plates.

Zucca e Porcini from D'Attilio in Naples, 

Pizza:  Most of you are not really there for the crust!  You want to eat the toppings!  Here, we'll put yummy toppings on a plate you can eat!

Quiche: a giant omelette inside an edible plate

Burgers:  You really want all the yummy beef and whatever other awesome cheesy delicious toppings that are in middle.  We'll put it in-between 2 edible plates so that your fingers don't have to get dirty when you're shoving food into your mouth hole.

Burritos/tacos/quesadillas:  who wants to eat just a bowl of meat, cheese, rice, salsa, onions, avocado etc.  Let's throw all that into an edible plate, roll it up, throw it in some aluminum foil and hand it to you out of a truck!

So far it's been over a week and I'm not feeling super different, I have had the occasional gluten, but for the most part I've been good and we've cooked some really great meals!  We had breakfast tacos using portobello mushrooms as the taco shell, mini-meatloaves, and stuffed mini sweet peppers. That's just to name a few. When facing a change like this, I typically like to jump on tracking improvements weighing myself daily, before and after pictures and what not, however, this time, I'm just not super motivated to.  I am paying more attention to how my body feels, Do I have more energy?  Am I happier?  How's my skin look? I know that I'm going to shed a few pounds, but the real point is that Dana and I will be going through this together.  We're going to learn, cook, and dine together more intentionally, and get healthier while doing it.  Wish us luck.

If you have any recipes, ideas, questions, comments don't hesitate to leave them below, on facebook, or text me if you have my number.  Have a lovely week.

Stay Tuned:  Next up- Garry Potter: The Pup Who Lived