Grain and Suffering: 2010-10-10

What Is This?

If you're reading this, you may have read Tim Ferriss's lifestyle post about completely cutting grains from your diet. I did. I found it on Hacker News, and I thought it sounded interesting.

I was intrigued about the diet, for no other reason than that it satisfies my "what would monkeys do" rule of thumb. That is, the lifestyle choices that were available to our primate ancestors are, by way of evolution, quite often the circumstances we're best evolved for.

The simple truth is that grains are probably not a food that you'd find paleolithic man eating. The advent of agriculture was actually quite recent on an evolutionary time scale. Before that, we were mostly toiling away in the wild eating whatever sustenance we could get our hands on - fruits, nuts, vegetables, leafs, bugs, tubers, meat, etc. That 6 billion of us have transitioned to a diet of mostly grains in a few thousand years is not only amazing, it seems to me there's a reasonable chance that it's less than ideal.

Anyway, enough background. I found this on Hacker News and, at heart, I am a hacker (as in one that tinkers and experiments). To that end, I am going to take Tim Ferriss's challenge.

For 30 days, I will completely remove all grains from my diet. No foods containing wheat, corn, oats, barley, etc.

Now the dietary elitists among you will probably exude various protestations: "no alcohol - that irritates your stomach lining" or "no dairy - that rankles your colon" or "no simple sugars - that messes with your blood sugar". Forget that noise, I'm not a monk. This is a test of one variable alone - what happens when you *completely* remove grains from your diet. We can do dairy or cheese or meat some other time...

I suppose a litlle detail about where I'm starting from is probably in order. I am a 33 year old male. I am 5'11" and weight 171 pounds. I exercise regularly, though not particularly intensely. I'm mostly in pretty good health, though I do get the occasional stomach ache, back pain, and am bothered by a bit of chronic environmental allergies. But nothing particularly serious.

Okay, enough talk. Let's see how this thing shakes out.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

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.

Friday, October 15, 2010

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

Thursday, October 14, 2010

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.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

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.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Day 23

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

Monday, October 11, 2010

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

Sunday, October 10, 2010

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.