Food Challenge

The entire past six months have been a whirlwind. Between the emotional drain of selling and moving out of our first house, the anxiety associated with "home" hopping from apartments to family homes, and the stress of shifting work hours I've felt like I was a mess. I've professed it many times before on this blog, but I'll repeat it again - I am an emotional eater. The roller coaster of our life saw me eating all the time. Sometimes I felt like I was eating just because food was something familiar in the midst of so much upheaval. It is an absolute miracle that I did not really gain weight during all this craziness - I basically fluctuated up and down the same 5-10 pounds.

About a month ago (just as I was pushing through my final preparations for bug's 5th birthday celebration), I decided something had to change. I was drinking 4+ cups of coffee per day, struggling to prepare meals, forgetting to pack my lunch for work (and eating junk), getting cranky with my kids, not making any time to exercise, and feeling really down on myself.

Then, inspiration came in the form of a pack of vitamin supplements from Trader Joe's. The box advertised a two week "Total Body Cleanse", but I think that gives the wrong impression. Most cleanses you read about suggest you do strange things like drink massive quantities of water or only eat one specific food or take supplements that make you go to the bathroom a million times a day to "clean out" your colon. This wasn't at all like that. The suggestions on the box were to "drink plenty of water", "reduce your intake of processed foods, simple carbohydrates, beef, pork, dairy, wheat and soy products", and "avoid caffeine, alcohol, sugar, potatoes, saturated fats, trans fats, and artificial sweeteners."

I'm not a nutrition expert, but I'm a smart girl. And I know all those suggestions are pretty basic thoughts on eating a well rounded diet. I decided I was done pretending I was eating well by following these rules 75% of the day and then eating junk the other 25%. I was actually going to do it. I was in all the way. I was going to get it all out of my system (sugar, caffeine, gluten, alcohol, processed foods, etc!), keep it out of my system, and see how I felt about things when the two weeks were up.

For 14 days I took the supplements from Trader Joe's. I didn't feel any side effects or really any effects at all from these. Maybe they helped, maybe not. I completely eliminated caffeine, alcohol, refined sugar, processed foods, and gluten from my diet. I decreased my consumption of animal protein significantly. I stopped eating all dairy the first week and started having yogurt again the second week.

If you are interested in replicating my plan and want to know what I was eating, I'd advise you to refer back to the blog posts I made while I was doing the cleanse because I kept a complete food diary including meals, snacks, and drinks.
Days 1-4
Days 5-7
Days 8-10
Days 11-14

Today I'm going to share my general comments, conclusions, and results.

• The first few days of the cleanse SUCKED. After reading Wheat Belly (more on this book in another post) I am pretty certain everything I was going through was wheat withdrawal. I had headaches, body aches, extreme fatigue, and zero exercise tolerance. The best way I can describe it was a vague, generalized yuckiness like I was coming down with the flu (without any runny nose or cough). 
• After the third day, I started to feel normal again. Except it wasn't my usual "normal", it was BETTER. 
• I had energy and didn't need coffee to start my day. 
• I didn't wake up starving like usual - in fact, I often didn't even eat anything until a few hours after I was up because my stomach wasn't grumbling and empty. 
• I was nervous that eating vegetables, eggs, fruits, and nuts would leave me starving a few hours later. I soon found I was actually LESS hungry than if I ate toast, cereal, or another typical "breakfast" food.
• I found myself feeling more satisfied after eating smaller nutrient dense meals than I would after eating a huge portion of spaghetti and meatballs with Italian bread and butter - one of my favorite meals previously. 
• Obviously I was eating more vegetables, but I also started eating a lot more fresh herbs and using more spices to give flavor to my food naturally. 
• Everything tasted better because I was paying attention to my food, not shoveling it in my face because my blood sugars were crashing.
• The money I was "saving" by not hitting up fast food, coffee shops, or takeout I could funnel into higher quality meats and produce.
• After the initial decrease in exercise tolerance, I had a huge burst of motivation to start working out more often. I think a huge part of this was that I was no longer having crazy oscillations in my blood sugars from eating too much wheat and sugar which would leave me feeling too "sick" to exercise.
• Prior to this change I never was able to work out after eating because I was always too full and felt like I would throw up. This severely limited the times that I could exercise due to my busy schedule and kept me from getting the workouts I wanted and needed.
• I didn't get a single headache or stomachache after the first three days. I always considered it a "minor inconvenience", but prior to making these changes mild stomach aches and discomfort were a normal part of my day

All the things I described above are AWESOME and proof that making healthy changes can have a huge impact, but they were all internal mind shifts. I am sure everyone is wondering what the actual physical changes were, so here they are:

• Multiple people (aware or not of the diet changes I was making) commented that my skin looked great and asked if I was using new cosmetics.
• I always considered that I was an "unlucky person" with mild adult acne, but I haven't had a single pimple since changing my diet.
• I didn't take a waist or thigh measurement (I wish now that I did), but I dropped 1-2 pant sizes depending on the cut and store.
• My stomach feels and looks noticeably slimmer. Unfortunately,I have a lot more ab work to do now to tighten up post-baby belly because the fat "filling it out" is gone.
• The final verdict was a weight loss of 9 pounds over the two week period.

Since finishing the cleanse I have definitely liberalized some of the restrictions, but really have no desire to go back to the way I was before. I feel better about my relationship with food than I ever have in my whole life and it's pretty amazing. I'll be posting a full update soon, so please check back if you want to hear more!