{"id":1590,"date":"2011-11-06T00:43:37","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T00:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/?p=1590"},"modified":"2023-07-14T01:09:58","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T01:09:58","slug":"30-days-without-wheat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/personal\/30-days-without-wheat\/","title":{"rendered":"30 days without wheat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Could wheat really be bad for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While reading BoingBoing the other day, I happened <a href=\"http:\/\/boingboing.net\/2011\/10\/26\/triticum-fever-by-dr-william-davis-author-of-wheat-belly.html\">across a post<\/a> claiming wheat is addictive, responsible for many health problems, makes you fat, caused the Holocaust, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some of the claims are really out there. But let&#8217;s assume for a moment that there might be a grain of truth to his assertion that wheat is bad for us. Certainly at my last job I gained weight when I switched from yogurt for breakfast to the free bagels they were always giving us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That&#8217;s where I start thinking he&#8217;s on to something &#8212; those bagels never once made me feel full. But the yogurt? Always. The bagels contained more calories than the yogurt and less nutrition. So why did I keep eating them? I&#8217;m not really sure. I tried switching to healthier breakfasts, but the temptation of bagels was difficult to resist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The Experiment<\/strong><br>I decided to make a pact with myself: avoid wheat for 30 days and document the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Why 30 days? A short TED talk by Matt Cutts explores this simple concept: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days.html\">try something new for 30 days.<\/a> It can be anything, from training for an athletic event to writing a novel. It can also involve removing something from your life &#8212; like wheat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Additionally, the BoingBoing post specifically mentions that four weeks without wheat should be enough to convince yourself that wheat isn&#8217;t wonderful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There were two main factors I was looking for in this experiment: weight and the more difficult to quantify general &#8220;feeling.&#8221; Theoretically lowering your blood sugar should cause both weight loss and lethargy. Giving up something as addictive as morphine shouldn&#8217;t be pleasant either. But there was also the possibility that I&#8217;d &#8220;feel&#8221; healthier if wheat is linked to inflammation and joint pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here&#8217;s the ground I set for myself rules:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>No wheat. This means no wheat-based breads, tortillas, beer, etc. The food selection process would be based on a combination of common sense and reading labels.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Try to maintain my caloric intake. I didn&#8217;t want to skew the results by intentionally &#8220;dieting&#8221; here. I decided to throw away flour tortillas and buy corn tortillas, get sugary (but fresh and in season) fruit for snacks, drink wine instead of hefeweizen, etc.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Continue existing exercise routine. of light-moderate cardio for 30-45 min\/day.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Allow myself a one meal exception for the entire 30 days (a pizza event I already had planned.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Results: First 10 Days<\/strong><br>Yesterday marks 10 days since I started the wheat-free experiment. I didn&#8217;t eat any wheat during this time; I also ate a lot more corn-based products than usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here&#8217;s the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Weight: a bit tricky to judge. Even though my scale has wifi (what a strange world we live in!) I haven&#8217;t been as rigorous as I should have been at weighing myself at the same time every day. Still, I think there&#8217;s enough data to say with certainty that I haven&#8217;t <em>gained<\/em> any weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Feelings: just as predicted, I&#8217;ve been feeling really lethargic as one often would on a low-carb diet. Although unpleasant, it also gives me hope. After all, I&#8217;ve been going out of my way to NOT cut carbs; if my blood sugar is causing this reaction there must be another reason for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Addictiveness: every now and then I find myself craving a pizza or a sandwich, but once I remind myself that I can&#8217;t have it the feeling moves on to another food. So I&#8217;m having a little trouble buying into the idea that wheat is as addictive as morphine when I&#8217;m able to avoid it so easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So far, these results are marginally promising, but not very conclusive. I&#8217;m going to monitor my weight more thoroughly for the next 10 days and see if there&#8217;s any meaningful results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Could wheat really be bad for you? While reading BoingBoing the other day, I happened across a post claiming wheat is addictive, responsible for many [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","slim_seo":{"title":"30 days without wheat - MrEricSir.com","description":"Could wheat really be bad for you? While reading BoingBoing the other day, I happened across a post claiming wheat is addictive, responsible for many health pro"},"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","autoblue_publish_document":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[639,350,638],"class_list":["post-1590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-30days","tag-diet","tag-wheat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1590"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10248,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions\/10248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}