Against the Grain

WE MADE IT THROUGH THE 1ST QUARTER OF THE YEAR, Y’ALL! A lot of people will say “man, 2019 is just flying by” but those people aren’t giving something up every month like I am. When you abstain from the things you love for 30 days at a time, you feel every single day of the year. As tempting as it is to look at the month from the perspective of “only 10 more days till I can get back online”, I remember a powerful phrase: “don’t wish your life away one day at a time.” That was difficult to do in March as visions of grilled cheese sandwiches and donuts flew through my head…

Challenge: No Grains!

Rules: This one was a little tricky. Basically, I couldn’t eat anything made from grains. This cut out all forms of bread or dough. It also cut out rice, quinoa and couscous and even soy-based products, but mainly bc I don’t really care for tofu anyway.  I gave myself a pass on corn as long as it was JUST corn and not a corn tortilla or cornbread or any other random corn product. I also didn’t get crazy into the details with things like Rye (though everyone seemed to be an expert on grains once I had whiskey or drank a beer).

Why I cut it out: If you didn’t read the launch blog about this year-long set of Challenges (#onelessthing), the point of it is to identify things that have become detrimental to my mental health and wellness and challenge myself to abstain from them one at a time. With this in mind, grains definitely is the #onelessthing that has people scratching their heads. How are grains detrimental to my mental health? To answer that, we probably need to talk about my relationship with food in general.

I love eating. Truly love it. I think about food all the time. I need to know what I am eating for my next 2.5 meals. Just winging it makes me very anxious. I examine the menu hours before I got to a restaurant. This past Sunday, I put together our meal plan for the week (like I do every week) and it took me about an hour. I live for that hour. I love seeing the possibilities come to life and walking away knowing exactly what I’m going to eat that week.

To say that I have a relationship with food is an understatement. We’re so beyond titles. We are one connected entity. The problem, as you can guess, is that being so infatuated with something can be unhealthy, especially when I wasn’t necessarily obsessed with healthy food. ]I have a real problem with snacking and mindless eating. If food is in front of me, I’ll eat it. Don’t put your food in front of me if you don’t want me to ask if I can have a bite. If your plate comes with fries, just be prepared for me to finish up what you haven’t. I can’t be trusted around endless breadsticks or chips. If I’m at a party where there is an appetizer table, that’s exactly where you’ll find me. Just hanging out by the tiny plates, puttin’ out the vibe.

I’m also an emotional eater. I stress eat a lot and I wish I could tell you it was just on fruits and vegetables. When people say “I’m too stressed out to eat” I actually have no idea what they are talking about. Just… eat something and feel better, dummy! That’s where my mind goes. In fact, as I see specialists and doctors about this high functioning depression and they ask me “have you experienced a loss of appetite” I usually laugh and say “no, and once that happens, you’ll really know that I’m in trouble.” It’s definitely a coping mechanism that needs to be put in check.

Also, there are many health reasons to cut back or eliminate grains in your diet, but I’m no expert, so do your own research, consult your physician and don’t blame me if I’m wrong.

“What, what did you eat then”: Let’s break this down by meal. Breakfast actually wasn’t that challenging to make grain-free food  because I don’t normally eat grains in the morning. I did the Whole 30 a few years ago (no grains, sugar, dairy, legumes, or alcohol for 30 days) and it really curbed my breakfast habits. I normally make veggie omelets, sweet potato hash browns, or chia bowls (Chia is a SEED, people). Here is an awesome grain-free Blueberry Omelet (I know, I know, you’re like WHAT? But trust me, it’s SO GOOD)
https://www.stephgaudreau.com/sweet-and-savory-blueberry-tortilla/

The difficult part about breakfast is that I don’t usually have a lot of time in the morning and throwing something on some toast or grabbing a bagel from the coffee shop is just way easier, so planning was key. I also started bringing fresh eggs to work, scrambling them in a coffee mug and putting it in the microwave. Does it make the breakroom smell real bad and alienate you from your coworkers? YUP! But are they suspiciously fluffy and delicious? YUP!

Lunch presented its own set of challenges, especially if I was going out to eat. Most lunch options are wrapped in some kind of bread or over some type of grain like rice. I did manage to go to a Mexican restaurant and eat the queso and guac with some sliced cucumbers and radishes. Can’t pass up on queso! I also had to be that person that ordered a burger without the bun. This is actually a great way to find out of a restaurant has good burgers or not. The flavor can’t hide between a delicious buttery bun. (Also, I am aware that most hamburgers are made with breadcrumbs but I’m not perfect and neither are you!) Again, this really came down to planning and eating leftovers. Most of my lunches were just dinner from the night before or salads. It definitely made lunchtime more exciting when I was heating up a full-blown entrée instead of unwrapping a sandwich. Speaking of sandwiches, here is a super easy pesto chicken wrap that I would make and I would substitute the bread for a collard green wrap. Delicious and nutritious: https://damndelicious.net/2012/10/22/chicken-pesto-sandwich/

Now dinner is where things get hard. As a working parent, I get roughly 2.5 hours a night with my kids before we start bedtime. In that time, I need also need to do dishes, finish laundry, tend to animals, and cook dinner. I’m pretty good about meal prepping and planning something that I can cook in 30 minutes or less, but there are a lot of nights that I eat what they eat. What they eat is usually mac and cheese, or chicken tenders because I am obviously killing the Mom game. Not this month! I always had to make my own meals and doing that at the end of a long day was really challenging. There were definitely nights when I ate cheese and deli meat slices or just a lot of carrots and hummus. There were also a few occasions when someone would order pizza and I would just scrape off the cheese and toppings and eat that. Super attractive.

The Results: The BIGGEST revelation was during in-between meal times. Snacking is a bad habit of mine, especially at work where we often have a fully-stocked kitchen. No more peanut butter filled pretzels. No more bag of tortilla chips. So long, Girl Scout cookies. It was challenging but also an eye-opening exercise in mindfulness. I would feel hungry, realize that there were few things I could actually eat, get pissed for a second, and then move on. Did I really need a snack or was I just bored? Usually the latter.

Second, it would be impossible to do this if I was a vegetarian or vegan. I would shrivel up and die. I would have to live off potatoes and avocado just to get enough calories to get through the day. If you are a vegetarian or vegan and are thinking about cutting grains, you’d probably have to go the substitute grain route and buy things like chickpea pasta or some other replacement, but I personally don’t believe that it would be healthier to introduce all that other processed crap to your diet.

Third, and yes this is entirely TMI but my bowel movements were ON POINT, YOU GUYS! UP TOP! Turns out eating more vegetables will clear ya right out. So instead of investing in Flat Tummy Tea, just eat fewer grains and more veggies. Bloatin’ be gone!

Finally, I didn’t actually do this to lose weight but I did shed a couple of pounds and my skin did seem to clear up a bit. I would probably credit that to eating healthy and natural foods, though. My main rule of thumb was just to shop the perimeter of a grocery store. Most of the items down the aisles are just processed foods or grains.

In conclusion, it was a great exercise in mindful eating and being more aware of what I am putting into my body. I found myself getting pretty bored with food and less of an emotional attachment to it, which is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, with any of these challenges, when I get rid of one habit, another one creeps in, and to satiate my snacking needs, I ended up eating a lot more sweets. Any leftover chocolate or hard candy was not safe around me. Ice cream became a mainstay in our freezer. Dark chocolate had my heart. And that makes April’s #onelessthing challenge real tough because the next thing I’m giving up is…

SUGAR! Stay tuned…