I Cut Grains for Three Weeks and This is What Happened

I mentioned at the beginning of the month that Ryan and I are setting out on an endeavor to make this our healthiest year yet. For us, an easy way to make that happen in our diet was to cut grains. We ate pretty stinkin' healthy already, but grains seemed like something that might be hindering us from getting the most noticeable results out of our two-a-day workouts (and when you're working that hard in the gym you want to make sure not to sabotage it at dinnertime)... so we cut them out. And something I never expected happened.

We felt a bit tired after the second week. That could have been the lower intake of carbs or the higher expenditure of energy (or our 18 month old who still refuses to sleep through the night). But we did feel more whooped at the end of the day, for sure. That struck us as pretty typical of a lower-carb diet, and we were cool with it because we knew we would end up feeling better in the long run. That wasn't the surprising part.

We felt lighter, obviously. Any diet that incorporates veggies in place of rice, pasta, bread, or even whole grains, will leave you walking away from the dinner table with a little more pep in your step -- at least it does for us! But that was an obvious benefit to cutting grains and didn't seem odd at all.

But, on week four, when we introduced grains back into our diet, something crazy happened. Something crazy and slightly devastating and definitely eye-opening.

On Monday night, I had a glass of my favorite rye whiskey and noticed afterward that it just wasn't sitting right in my stomach. I almost felt like I had come down with the type of cold that makes you really sleepy and spent. Not a typical reaction for me (I used to just want another glass of whiskey! Ha!)

Wednesday, I started to have some serious intestinal issues. At first, I thought maybe the turkey I cooked for lunch the day before wasn't the best or that the cucumber I sliced up in our barley and nori chicken wraps wasn't good. I felt so bad that I didn't even want dinner on Wednesday.

Then on Thursday, I made Annie's Organic mac n' cheese for the girls for lunch and, well, I have no self control around mac n' cheese, so I ate a bowl, myself. I put the kids down for their naps and I felt like I really needed a nap, myself. I chalked that lethargy up to having a head cold.

But then something donned on me.

Could all these bad feelings in my body be linked? And I thought back to my diet and how it had changed this week and it hit me. I wonder if I have some kind of grain sensitivity! I immediately hopped on Google and found that rye, barley and wheat are all sources of gluten. All the things I had eliminated from my diet for the previous three weeks, and had just re-introduced must be the things that made me feel so crappy!

I still have some discovering to do regarding how sensitive my body is to gluten, but through the reading I've done, I have learned that you don't have to be diagnosed with Celiac Disease to be gluten intolerant. I also learned that different people have different degrees of gluten sensitivity. So maybe all hope is not lost, but it definitely means no more rye whiskey for me. Sad face.

What was the most eye-opening for me was that I would have never known about this issue if I hadn't cut grains out of my diet for that period of time. This is why elimination diets are so great! I had been living my life feeling one way, which wasn't necessarily terrible, but once I cut out the thing my body needed to get rid of and then re-introduced it, I realized how much damage it was causing. Like, I had been conditioned to think that my unbearable whiskey hangovers or bloated tummy or acne (I've heard gluten even affects acne!) were just normal parts of me. Not so!

So, where do I plan to go from here?

1. Try sprouted and fermented grains (like homemade sourdough and Ezekiel bread) to see if my body can handle those forms of grain that aren't as guten-laden. I'll still try to save these for rare occasions, though.

2. Continue to avoid packaged, processed foods and pay even MORE attention to labeling if I ever do buy those things. Gluten free versions of these foods are off the table for me, too, because typically they're no more nutritious than their wheat byproduct cousins.

3. Find a cocktail I can enjoy without whiskey! Any suggestions are welcome!

Have you ever wondered if you might be sensitive to gluten or grain? I recommend trying an elimination diet and cutting out all forms of grain for a few weeks, then introducing it back in to see how you feel! I never expected to find out what I did about myself, and my goal was never to discover a potential gluten sensitivity but it's always a great feeling to learn something new about your body!