Day 30 - The Finish Line

Approximately one month ago I read a post by Robb Wolf (on Tim Ferriss's blog) about what is commonly referred to as the Paleo diet. While the full Paleo diet means cutting grains, legumes, dairy, and alcohol from one's diet, the article mostly centered on the assertion that grains (yes, all grains) are unfit for human digestion.

Though it seemed like a pretty revolutionary proposal, Robb was not unconvincing in his deployment of citations and references. Rather than stroke my chin and stare out the window as I normally do when pondering an interesting conjecture, something in me decided turn this article into an experiment.

And so Grain and Suffering was born. For 30 days I would completely give up grains. If grains are as harmful as Robb suggests, then by the end of this experiment I should notice some pretty stark changes. To be clear - this was not a test of the full-on Paleo diet. This was a test of changing one, single variable: grains.

It has been 30 days since I have eaten a meal containing any sort of grain. I would have never imagined how utterly unfulfilling dining could be. I have been hungry, tired, bored, frustrated, and disgusted; but I made it. And I have come to one inescapable conclusion:

GRAINS ARE FINE

I'll qualify that a bit: grains do not cause my digestive tract any noticeable harm. I feel exactly the same as I did one month ago. I do not have more energy. I do not have fewer aches and pains. I still get an upset stomach from time to time. I still have allergies. And so on...

In fact, after 30 days the only changes that I have noticed are negative. I am hungry far more often than before. I am completely unenthusiastic about dining. I crave bread, cookies, pasta, cakes, beer, etc.

Though I'm now convinced that grains are not inherently harmful, I will not go as far as to completely condemn the Paleo diet. As I already mentioned, doing Paleo involves dropping dairy, legumes, alcohol, and probably a few more things. It seems plausible to me that dropping all of those items could make you live longer. Or perhaps it would just feel that way. Regardless, with winter coming on, I've had enough self-deprivation for now. Some other intrepid blogger can take up that cross. As for me, I think I'm going to have pancakes tomorrow.

Day 29

Breakfast was a banana and a tub of fruit. The inability to eat a quick bowl of cereal is really annoying. Lunch was trail mix and dried fruit. And dinner was a potato wedges and broccoli.

Hmmm - it turns out paleo man loved grains. They couldn't have discovered this 29 days ago?!

Oh, and gym weight was 171.

Day 28

Two days left. Cannot wait.

Breakfast: Apples and bananas
Lunch: Fruit and Nut salad from McDonalds (which incidentally is about the most expensive way there is to buy apple slices and grapes)
Dinner: Roasted chicken and 3 helpings of asparagus. Ice cream dessert.

No evening glass of wine this time. I think I'm still a few days away from being even remotely interested in alcohol after Friday's camping trip.

Day 27

Due to the diet, breakfast was pretty limited. No toast or crackers and whatnot. Ended up having a double portion of bacon and eggs.

Lunch/dinner: Ham and beans soup and french fries. Ice cream.

Day 26

Breakfast: Eggs
Lunch: Trail mix, banana chips, V8
Dinner: Went on a hastily prepared camping trip. Dinner was beans, hot dogs, cheese, and red wine

Day 25

Ugh. I am ready for this to be over. Gym weight yesterday was 169. That's not remarkable in any way, I just forgot to report it. I'm actually surprised it's not lower, because I feel like I'm missing calories. Not by any particularly virtuous act, but simply because it's so damn inconvenient to not be able to snack on grains.

Every time I'm cruising through the kitchen looking for a snack, I see 15 grain based items I can't eat and I'm left standing in the middle of the room morosely palming a grapefruit and a jar of peanut butter trying to convince myself that it's a worthwhile snack.

Breakfast: An apple
Lunch: Grilled chicken and potatoes
Dinner: Fruit and nut salad and a bowl of chili from Wendy's. Actually pretty good.

Day 24

Breakfast: An orange
Lunch: About 6 tablespoons of all natural peanut butter. Yes - that was as tiresome as it sounds.
Dinner: Salad with pan seared chicken and sauteed potatoes.

Day 23

Breakfast: An apple and some cashews
Lunch: A can of peas
Dinner: Oil/vinegar salad with grilled chicken. Chocolate ice cream

Day 22

I'm starting to fantasize about the end of this diet. How should I celebrate? Pizza? Enormous hamburger? Chipotle? They all sound absolutely incredible to me right now. Beer will definitely be involved - I can assure you that much.

Of course having said that, I suppose there is the issue of reintroduction. Should I just hit them all at once or possibly reintroduce them one at a time. Maybe finishing up with the glutens. I suppose we'll see how things are looking in a week.

Breakfast: Two eggs, cashews, banana
Lunch: Banana chips, nuts, raisins, M&Ms
Dinner: Taco salad sans taco

Day 20/21

A double update tonight since we spent Saturday out of town enjoying the incredible weather this weekend.

Saturday was scrambled eggs for breakfast. Nuts, cheese, and fruit for lunch. And steak, salmon, broccoli, onions, and mushrooms for dinner.

Sunday was scrambled eggs and braunschweiger for breakfast. I'm really getting burnt out on the eggs, and scrambled is my least favorite preparation, but since I can't have toast, I'm not particularly interested in swabbing up egg yolk off my plate with my tongue.

No lunch.

Dinner was a half rack of ribs, some french fries, and broccoli and carrots.

Day 19

Breakfast: Banana, hard boiled eggs, cashews
Lunch: Pork roast and potatoes
Dinner: 5 eggs and some braunschweiger, and raisins

Weight: 171

Day 18

Rather light on the calories today. Need to make a trip to the grocery and stock on up protein and fat.

Breakfast: a couple hard boiled eggs and some fruit
Lunch a baked potato, another egg, and a banana
Dinner: pork roast, broccoli, and cauliflower

Day 17

Got together with some family and ordered pizza tonight. I was kind of burnt out on pizza before this experiment, but Lord knows I wanted a piece of that sweet, crusty pie. Ended up having to console myself with a giant caesar salad and a few handfuls of raisins. And of course I also had to explain this strange experiment.

Breakfast: Banana, apple, hard boiled egg
Lunch: Potatoes, celery, peanut butter
Dinner: Caesar salad, raisins, M&Ms (Yes. I had enough that I need to include them as part of my dinner record.)

Day 16

Breakfast: Banana 2 eggs
Lunch: Baked chicken, egg, apple, Coke
Dinner: Cod and whitefish, broccoli, carrots, sauteed potato wedges (olive oil)

Day 15 - Halfway Mark

So it's been two weeks since I started this thing. According to the original post by Robb Wolf on Tim Ferriss's blog, this is the point at which your gut has healed from the abuse of eating grains every day of your life for years. Supposedly now is when I will really start noticing the physiological benefits of the grain-less diet. I hope so, because so far I'm disappointed.

A Recap

The first few days of this diet are definitely the hardest. Within a few days of dropping grains, my body was insistent that I was starving. I could cram all the veggies, fat, and meat I wanted and nothing would assuage the hunger. It would actually have been funny if it weren't so expensive. Fortunately, that tapers off after the first week. Let me be clear: the hunger itself doesn't go away, you just sort of get used to a default state of "a little bit hungry".

After that, the main problem with the diet is that everything you're used to snacking on is now off limits. Granola bars, scones, cookies, cheese/crackers, handful of Captain Crunch, whatever - it's all off limits. The whole endeavor is incredibly irritating. Instead I find myself glumly sitting in the kitchen eating piles of cheese and braunschweiger or naked sardines. Trying to squelch the cognitive dissonance rolling through my head as the word "snack" comes to mean "a tiresome and failed effort to achieve satiety".

I haven't actually experienced any improvement in well being. I have the same level of energy. I have the same endurance on the treadmill . I'm still hitting my fall allergies right on schedule. And if you can objectively quantify "energy", it feels the same as ever.

I'm trying to keep an open mind about this and I'm hoping the next two weeks is going to bring my reward. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, and the daily stats:

Weight: 171
Breakfast: Apple
Lunch: Eggs, chili, another apple
Dinner: Salad, bun-less cheeseburger, cauliflower

Day 14

Made a trip to the grocery so breakfast wasn't nearly as spartan. Some scrambled eggs, cheese, and ground beef with loads of fresh fruit on the side.

Lunch was grilled chicken caesar salad (and the kids' french fries).

And dinner was a nice steak with fresh broccoli.

I'll do a write-up on the half-way mark tomorrow...

Day 13

Need to make a run to the grocery - running a little low on veggies. If you're going to do this diet, you really need a lot of legal snack foods laying around (carrot sticks, nuts, etc.). I'm normally a drive-by snacker and I don't often pass up the chance to snag a cookie or cracker on my way through the kitchen. Now that the hunger isn't really an issue, the worst part of the diet is that everything I want to reach for to snack on is off limits. Preparing a good, grain-less meal is pretty easy, but keeping good snacks laying around is a little more tricky.

Breakfast: An omelet-ish dish of scrambled eggs, cheese, and braunschweiger. Yeah - the braunschweiger was as strange as it sounds.

Lunch: A couple apples, sardines, and cheese.

Dinner: Roasted chicken, asparagus, and peas.

And a hard cider to take the edge off the evening.

Day 12

The daily updates are getting less exciting. There isn't much in the way of news, so they're becoming simply stat updates.

Weight: 172

Breakfast: Fruit and cashews

Lunch: Pork chops, potatoes, and roasted squash

Dinner: Grilled chicken salad and a Coke

Day 11

Tried to spice things up this morning. I was starting to get embarrassed by my meager fruit breakfasts, so I decided to scramble a couple eggs in the microwave. I'm not sure what I made, but if I get naming rights, I'm calling it scalding egg chunk soup. It was... edible.

Lunch was leftover pork chops and roasted squash. Better than breakfast. And of course the all day snack of cashews.

And dinner was a burrito without the tortilla. Basically a pile of meat, toppings, and refried beans.

So we're just over the one third mark and there really has been no noticeable improvement in anything. I'm quite certain I would be losing weight if I weren't compensating by doubling up on protein and fat. Of course losing weight is not one of the goals.

I think I'll write up a full evaluation at the halfway mark.

Day 10

Breakfast was a single apple. I usually try to do better, but I was short on time. This diet isn't conducive to preparing quick meals. Snacked on cashews all morning.

Lunch: Roasted squash, apple, potatoes, and hard-boiled eggs.

Dinner was at least a real meal. Two pork chops, some potatoes sauteed in olive oil, and broccoli.

Weighed myself at the gym: 171 lbs

Perceived change in well-being: NONE

10 days in and I feel the same as before. Except slightly hungry all the time. And slightly irritated that I can't pop a fistful of granola into my mouth whenever I want.

Day 9

Another fruit breakfast. I'm going to be completely over fruit by the end of this.

Cobb salad and french fries from Wendy's for lunch. Minus the salad dressing since they have to use "modified corn starch" in the ingredients. Come on, Wendy's - won't you think of the 0.0000013% of the population that are piloting exotic grainless diets?!?

First public dinner outing tonight. Of course it has to be at a pizza parlor. Not sure I'm particularly interested in explaining why I'm engaging in the dietary version of Jackass, so I'll probably just feign an upset stomach or something.

-----

Dinner was fine. Turns out every place has some sort of salad. So salad and a diet coke for the evening.

And braunschweiger, cheese, cashews, and wine for a late night snack. I don't think I'd normally eat a pile of braunschweiger, but that really hit the spot.

Day 8

One week down. Feeling pretty fine. Weighed myself at the gym and I'm down just a tad to 170 in spite of eating every non-grain food item in sight.

Meals are starting to become very boring. It's not that you can't make a decent grain-less meal - it's just that unless you're awash in free time, doing so isn't very practical.

Breakfast today was a banana, an apple, and half a coconut. It sounds pleasant, but it turns out that eating coconut by itself is a complete chore. It combines the work of eating crab with the taste sensation of Styrofoam.

Lunch was a slab of leftover chicken breast.

Dinner chili, cheese, and peanut butter. Yogurt for dessert.

Day 7

The hunger is definitely starting to become a non-issue. I'm still usually a little hungry a lot of the time, but it's nowhere near as oppressive as before.

In fact, now that I'm not constantly perturbed by hunger, I may have a new problem. While coaching a soccer game this morning I almost forgot about the diet. During half-time I caught myself instinctively reaching for one of the granola bars. Fortunately, I realized it before I opened it up. I'm not sure how the parents would have reacted to the coach gagging himself on the sidelines, mumbling hysterically about a "no grain" diet.

Otherwise, uneventful day. No noticeable change in well being.

Breakfast: Real omelet, grapes, and banana
Lunch: Caramel apple with nuts
Dinner: Chicken wings and enormous caesar salad

Day 6

Breakfast was more fulfilling than most. A hastily prepared jumbo omelet made from leftover ground beef and salsa. And fruit. Snacking on fruit throughout the day is now standard practice.

Large caesar salad for lunch.

T-bone, whitefish, and cauliflower for dinner.

Hunger is still pretty much the background state, but it's less annoying each day. Not sure if it's going away or if I'm just getting used to it.

Day 5, cont.

Posted a link to Hacker News today and deluged with fantastic advice. Thanks to all the commenters.

My takeaway is that I'm doing a number of things wrong. My biggest mistake is that I'm still hitting the simple sugars (soda, smoothies, ice cream, etc.)  So I'm still getting insulin spikes and this is hurting my body's ability to come to grips with the fact that the grains aren't coming. Hence the constant hunger.

Also, I need to up my consumption of fats. Nuts and eggs are easy sources.

There are other changes I need to make, but those are probably the biggest.

Oh, and tonight's dinner: Baked chicken and a ton of broccoli and cauliflower.

Day 5

Running out of decent breakfast fruits and veggies at home. Time to hit the grocery store. Breakfast was a couple handfuls of grapes and an orange.

Learned something at lunch today courtesy of McDonald's: Apparently when people in the southwest United States make a salad, they like to cover it with tired looking imitation Fritos. So my lunch activity consisted of me meticulously picking corn and corn chips off my lettuce, cheese, and chicken.

But those fries... My goodness those french fries were good. I'll be seeing more of you salty little bastards in the coming weeks. And the berry smoothie was a nice touch.

Day 4

I think I've finally settled into some sort of emotional Lagrange point between hunger, food lust, and disappointment. I'm less frustrated each day that I'm eating mostly fruits, veggies, and meat. I still fantasize about snagging a muffin out of someone's hands and sprinting down the street Seinfeld style. But I think I'll get past that shortly too.

Breakfast: orange, grapes, and a banana

Lunch: leftover meat and cheese "lasagna"

Dinner: an enormous salad (ranch dressing - blech)

Late night snack: Sardines. Which, without crackers, are a pretty disappointing snack.

Day 3

Okay. So I'm done explaining how frustrating it is not being able to eat all the foods you used to love. If somebody is going to tell me you get over it - I don't believe it.

The second worst part of this diet is that I'm *always* hungry. I'm pretty much snacking on fruit and nuts all day. With vegetables, protein, and fat for the meals. I'm probably doing this all wrong, but I am constantly starving.

Oh, and so far, no discernible health benefits...

--------

Evening: Starving as usual. Dinner was a noodleless lasagna - bless my wife's heart. I'm not eating grains, which is the goal; but I'm not sure what the double doses of meat and fat are going to do. I suspect the dietary priests are going to say I'm screwing it up, but the point of the diet was to find out if grains are harmful. Meat, fat, and sugar are a different matter.

Day 2

Okay, not eating grains is annoying. Really annoying. No bagels or tasty muffins for me. No, I have to eat fruit and drink coffee. A lunch of mashed potatoes and nuts. Blegh. This is going to be a long thirty days.

Dinner was nice enough - some apple glazed pork chops and asparagus. Of course since I'm starving by the time every meal comes I'm doubling up on portions every chance I get. I'm not trying to lose any weight.

Otherwise, all is well. No noticeable change in well being (beyond wanting to accost anyone I see eating a cookie).

Day 1

The first day. I'll admit this wasn't really thought out that well. I basically woke up, decided not to eat cereal and had a banana for breakfast. By the time I got to work it was feeling like a pretty good idea. Of course that was before some insensitive jerk brought in donuts.

Oh I wanted one of those donuts - but I held out. A can of mixed nuts and some mountain dew for lunch.

Dinner was pretty good though. Steaks and broccoli.

Put the kids to bed and then disaster. The horrifying realization that beer is pretty much liquid bread. Ack. What about my evening Sam Adams or Goose Island Ale. Oh, the humanity. Once the cold sweats subside I come to grips with the fact that my wine budget is going to be significantly expanded for the month. I'm nothing if not a problem solver.

Bring on day two...