Week 2 of the 30-Day Gluten Free Challenge.
That’s right, peeps – I have been eating gluten free for the last 14 days. If you want to see how the first 7 days went, click HERE. This is how Week 2 went.
At the end of the month I’ll do 1 long post documenting my entire gluten free experience, but right now, let me tell you about the Week 2.
Click here to read why I decided to do something so stupid.
Day 8 – Should I tell people I have a gluten sensitivity?
Something that made this gluten free month a little bit harder is the fact that I had a planned trip to Colorado for this week (as if this wasn’t hard enough!) My friends and I got into Colorado Springs, and aside from the a few cans of sardines I brought along (thanks Tim Ferriss for this tip), I went out to eat with my friends for lunch and dinner today.
THANKFULLY, I have cool friends who are considerate of this experiment (we’ll see if that changes by the end of the week). I told them I didn’t care where we ate, and that I didn’t want this GF diet to affect their time here. But being the badasses that they are, they worked with me.
Today’s can be summed up with the awkwardness of asked whether or not I had a severe gluten allergy every time I asked a waiter or waitress if they have gluten free items. First of all, I’m happy the restaurants were concerned about me and my health. But I felt like such a d-bag telling them, “No, I’m all good, I’m just a weirdo who decided to put himself through this….”
Yeah…you can can just read “oh, you’re one of THOSE people” written over all their faces…
Day 10 – Excuse Me, but Do You Have a Gluten Free Menu?
The biggest challenge of this week has to be traveling, and not being home where I can better control what I eat. When I’ve gone out to eat, I feel bad because I have to constantly ask if they have gluten free items. I feel like they’re going to do this to me when I do:
Day 11 – What’s a Birthday without a cake?!
Celebrated my 31st birthday today, but couldn’t have any of birthday cake. Thankfully I’m not a huge cake person (I know, weird).
Day 12 – Kinda forgot I was on the diet
It’s weird, but I haven’t even been thinking about the diet much. It’s nice that it’s kind of become a habit already. I’m still conscious of what I’m eating, but since I decided to fully commit to the diet, it hasn’t been much of a struggle as of late.
Day 13 – Wait…rice doesn’t have gluten in it?
Did I just go 2 weeks without eating rice for no reason? I found out today that plain rice (brown, white, etc.) is gluten free. I literally spent 30 minutes googling to verify this.
SWEET!
As I’ve gone through the month, I kept wondering if this were something I could do beyond just this month. The one thing that kept me from saying yes was knowing I wouldn’t be able to eat rice for the rest of my life. Well, turns out that isn’t true!
Time to celebrate with some sushi (gluten free sushi)
(The GF menu is way smaller than the regular one)
On a side note, I found out that most soy sauce has gluten in it <link>. If you want to eat sushi, make sure to ask for gluten free soy sauce aka tamari.
Day 14 – No more rice for the next 2 weeks…
Had sushi last night and feeling a little bloated this morning. Don’t want to jump to conclusions and assume it was the rice, but I’m going to avoid rice for a few days to see how I feel.
Week 2 Summary
After about Day 10, I stopped thinking about the diet. This is GOOD and BAD.
Good = my eating habits have changed enough, where this is less thought
Bad = gives me less to write about
From what I read in the Robb Wolf article on being gluten free, it seems like the real benefits start to happen after 14 days.
“You only need to be exposed to things like gluten once every ten to fifteen days to keep the gut damaged.”
So, hopefully, I’ll notice some changes next week. I’ll also try to pick up the intensity of workouts to see if I notice any difference.
Wanna follow along?
OF COURSE YOU DO!
Over the next month I’ll be writing about this dumbass experiment right here on Chillpill. I’ll write a post each week just like the one you read for Week 2 about my eating, my body, emotions, thoughts, and any other random stuff that comes to mind.
At the end of this, I’ll recap the whole thing and talk about tips and hacks I used to survive for anyone interested in trying this out of for themselves.
You have to be getting some joy reading about my pain and misery living this gluten free nightmare.
Better me than you, right?
Well, liking Chillpill on Facebook, following us on Twitter, as well as subscribing to our mailing list will get you immediate access to my weekly updates.
See you next week!
Hien
P.S.
The post may even include some shirtless pics of me…YOU.ARE.WELCOME.
