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.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

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).
Posted by Ryan VanMiddlesworth at 9:25 PM

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