Day 2

It's day 2 of my new Wheat Belly lifestyle.

Baby J is still sick - her cough and snot bubbles are breaking my heart - and up a lot at night. So there was no running or gym for me today because I just couldn't get my butt out of bed at 6am (I had been up from 3:20-4:00am).

My second wheat free day looked like this:

Breakfast: Leftover steel cut oats and raisins

Lunch: Cream of mushroom soup with a piece of herbed focaccia bread (wheat free)
             *This soup wasn't bad, but I just didn't love it so I'm not going to bother posting the
               recipe. If you really really want it, shoot me a message and I'll post it.

Dinner: Sweet potato kale pizza

Snacks: Orange

Drinks: morning cup of coffee, ice water

Exercise: None unless cleaning the house counts for something.

Overall: I'm really terrible when it comes to lunch. If I'm not going out to lunch or if there are no leftovers in the house, I usually won't sit down and have a healthy lunch. Today I popped over to the library and I swear I heard Chick-fil-a calling my name on the way home. It's just so easy! And as for leftovers, those are hard to come by during the week since the hubs always takes them to work.

So if I can make it a point to eat a healthy lunch every day, I will consider myself successful.

Day 1

Hi. I'm Chunky McChunkerson. And looking at these pictures up here, on the world-wide web, makes me give real props to my husband. I gather that I need not explain why. 

Day 1 of my Wheat Belly experience

This picture is easily the most personal thing I have ever put on this blog. And the fact that this is out there now scares the crap out of me. But it's the real deal. 

This is me. I am just under 5'8, and this is 8 months and 4 days after having a baby, and 4 days after the end of the holiday season. I'm not proud. 

Today I cleaned out the pantry, fridge and freezer. Among the refuse was: a dozen and a half New York bagels (ouch), a bag of pretzels, Doritos (NOT MINE!), Chex-Mix and Asiago Cheez-its (those were all mine). Looking at it reminded me of what I said to my mother a few days ago: "I don't eat junk food so I don't understand why I'm so fat". I actually believed that I didn't eat junk food, and yet there it was sitting in my pantry (none of it unopened). 

Then I set to work creating a cleaner kitchen. Last night I went through the Wheat Belly Cookbook and flagged all of the recipes that sound good (I am going to be sticking to the cookbook recipes until I get used to cooking wheat free meals), so this morning I started testing some of them out. 

*Actually, I'm lying - I made Pork Fried "Rice" last night and it was surprisingly delicious. 

Here's what my day looked like today:

Breakfast: Steel cut oats (not sure if these are on the "do not eat" list since I haven't gotten far enough into the book yet. But I've heard that steel cut oats are really good for you so I'm running with that for now) that I had cooking in the crock pot overnight. I added just under 1/4 cup of organic raisins. It was filling and satisfying.

Lunch: Leftover pork fried "rice". This recipe uses shredded cauliflower as a substitute for rice and honestly, even my husband was amazed at how much it worked. 

Dinner: Roasted, herbed pork tenderloin (leftover from last night as only half of it was used for the fried rice recipe) with sautéed green beans. 

Snacks: I grabbed two oranges earlier in the day and had a piece of chocolate after dinner...yes, chocolate. 

Drinks: I had my morning cup of coffee but drank strictly ice water throughout the rest of the day. 

Exercise: I took the dog on a two mile walk this morning. I went and actually joined the gym today with intentions of going to classes on days I don't run. However, Baby J is sick right now and therefore up every three hours. Mommy isn't getting any sleep let alone exercise. 

Overall:  At no point today did I feel hungry. I did feel tired, but I attribute that to lack of sleep due to J's cold. Do I think this is doable? Yes. Right now I am feeling optimistic. 

Wheat Belly

A few months ago, one of my best friends started raving about what I immediately thought was the newest fad diet. Isn't eliminating carbs the Atkins Diet? And I'm pretty sure that in the long term that didn't work out well for most people (I heard that as soon as carbs were reintroduced people ballooned).

Long story short, she told me that another friend of hers started following the plan to a "T" and swears that her life has been completely changed. My friend doesn't follow it as strictly - allowing herself little indulgences here and there - and she still looks fantastic and also swears that, overall, she feels amazing; that not only has the weight been melting off, but she has more energy and rarely feels lethargic.

Now, as for me, I've never been able to really follow diets very well. I briefly entertained starting the Dukan Diet (even bought the book) but only because I read somewhere that that's what keeps Kate Middleton so thin. I never read it.

The Wheat Belly Diet freaks me out. When I eat at restaurants, I love the bread. And while I rarely eat pasta, sandwiches or breakfast cereal, I adore waffles and french toast casserole. Eggs benedict, served on their toasty little English muffins, bagels and pizza are also some of my best frenemies.

The problem is that it shows. I am about 40 pounds heavier than I would like to be, and all I see when I look at pictures of myself is a bakery. Buns and rolls galore. Although I'd love nothing more than to fit back into my size 4s, I clearly haven't wanted it badly enough since I just bought a new pair of size 8 jeans. The holidays didn't help and I haven't gone for a run in over two weeks (there was no way I was running in 30 degree weather).

With that being said, I am giving Wheat Belly a try. I just borrowed the book and the cookbook from my library and will be cracking them open today.

Before I start, here are my chief concerns:

1. Wheat is in everything. This is going to be too hard for me to really follow.

2. Cooking is now going to require all sorts of funky ingredients that I'll be lucky if I am able to find in Whole Foods.

3. Food is going to taste like cardboard.

4. My husband is a picky eater. While he's the first to promote healthy eating, his reaction is usually less than pleased when I do make healthy meal ("meh, it's okay. It's healthy" which translates to "yuck").

Hopefully I can make this work. I'm not going to give myself a time frame, but I will document my experience here including when I cheat (because I am bound to cheat at some point). I am starting today - Sunday, January 4, 2015 - so Sundays will be my weigh-in days. Ultimately, I need a lifestyle change if I am going to be successful.

So I guess let's consider that one of my New Year's Resolutions: instead of the banal "lose weight" I will say "I am going to change my lifestyle". Here goes nothing!