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...