People have asked me how I’ve survived this long without feasting on my favorite foods, and I find that it’s really hard to describe to them where my mind’s at. The best way to explain it is that my favorite foods used to have a personal and emotional hold on me, much like a friend would. For me, food like pizza, hamburgers, ice cream, etc were similar to a friend that I wanted to keep in close contact with. I thought about them regularly and even found myself missing them if I went more than a week without them. In times of stress or boredom, I would want to reach out to them because I knew they would comfort me in my time of need. When I ate the food, it seemed to stimulate the same parts of the brain that a good conversation with a friend would and let me feel satisfied. This feeling would be short lived because I would immediately start missing it again. For some reason, if I tried to ignore a food, like when I would try to be “healthier”, then I would suffer a sense of longing for it, waiting for the day when we would be reunited.
Now before you reserve a room at the funny farm for the “crazy fat guy” who is emotionally attached to pizza, take a moment and ask yourself how many times you’ve said you can’t live without a particular food or drink. Now that I’ve been without sugar and flour for over a month, those emotional ties have been severed and everything looks different when I see food. I now have started to understand how some hardcore healthy eaters can eat the same salad, vegetable, or fruit for a prolonged period of time. Food has become more like a simple energy source rather than an object of desire to me, so I’m completely content without sweets. My body simply registers the fuel and then I can practically feel it burning away the fat reserves.
If you would have asked me two months ago what I thought I would feel like after a month of no sugar and no flour, I would have never thought that I’d be content and ready to keep going. That’s what’s happening though and I can hardly believe it myself.
On another interesting side note, our eight year old son has become less combative at dinner time since we eliminated sugar and flour from our diets. While he still eats food with flour and sugar for other meals, he has begun complaining less and is now more willing to try new foods for dinner. I can’t prove for sure that it’s due to our change in eating habits, but it’s a pretty interesting coincidence. He also realized that he loves natural unsweetened applesauce, so that has become his “treat” for dessert or as a snack.
So here’s my plan for April so you can get your scorecards out at home. The most important thing is to continue forward with my experiment of no flour, no sugar, no caffeine, and no milk. The second goal is to increase my exercise level to really maximize the eating component. I’m moving from 45 minutes of basic cardio and some ab work in March, to at least an hour a day for 5 days a week, with a healthy bonus on the weekend with the kids. I’m guessing that will involve a walk, a hike, some Frisbee, or some other fun activity. Maybe I’ll even try some strange Pio yoga stuff that my wife thinks is so cool.
My strategy is to lose an additional forty pounds on top of the twenty I lost in March. I’m not really putting a time limit on when I’ll reach my goal, but my hope is that it will take just a few months. I have recorded my weight from this past Monday and plan to weigh myself just once a week to see and share how I’m progressing with my goal. This means I will continue to blog at least twice a week, once with the weight update and another time with just my odds and ends reflections.
As a special bonus for those of you who actually read these blogs, I will be creating a workbook designed to help you conduct the experiment yourself. This should be completed very soon and I’d be more than happy to share it with you in the hopes that you keep me updated on your progress. I honestly believe that you have the willpower to do the same thing I’m doing and would encourage you to think about it. I’m adapting the workbook for a two week cycle instead of the full month, but it should work for both if you are especially brave. Send me a message at [email protected] if you are interested.
Onward to the finish of week 1!
All the best.
John Graham
Now before you reserve a room at the funny farm for the “crazy fat guy” who is emotionally attached to pizza, take a moment and ask yourself how many times you’ve said you can’t live without a particular food or drink. Now that I’ve been without sugar and flour for over a month, those emotional ties have been severed and everything looks different when I see food. I now have started to understand how some hardcore healthy eaters can eat the same salad, vegetable, or fruit for a prolonged period of time. Food has become more like a simple energy source rather than an object of desire to me, so I’m completely content without sweets. My body simply registers the fuel and then I can practically feel it burning away the fat reserves.
If you would have asked me two months ago what I thought I would feel like after a month of no sugar and no flour, I would have never thought that I’d be content and ready to keep going. That’s what’s happening though and I can hardly believe it myself.
On another interesting side note, our eight year old son has become less combative at dinner time since we eliminated sugar and flour from our diets. While he still eats food with flour and sugar for other meals, he has begun complaining less and is now more willing to try new foods for dinner. I can’t prove for sure that it’s due to our change in eating habits, but it’s a pretty interesting coincidence. He also realized that he loves natural unsweetened applesauce, so that has become his “treat” for dessert or as a snack.
So here’s my plan for April so you can get your scorecards out at home. The most important thing is to continue forward with my experiment of no flour, no sugar, no caffeine, and no milk. The second goal is to increase my exercise level to really maximize the eating component. I’m moving from 45 minutes of basic cardio and some ab work in March, to at least an hour a day for 5 days a week, with a healthy bonus on the weekend with the kids. I’m guessing that will involve a walk, a hike, some Frisbee, or some other fun activity. Maybe I’ll even try some strange Pio yoga stuff that my wife thinks is so cool.
My strategy is to lose an additional forty pounds on top of the twenty I lost in March. I’m not really putting a time limit on when I’ll reach my goal, but my hope is that it will take just a few months. I have recorded my weight from this past Monday and plan to weigh myself just once a week to see and share how I’m progressing with my goal. This means I will continue to blog at least twice a week, once with the weight update and another time with just my odds and ends reflections.
As a special bonus for those of you who actually read these blogs, I will be creating a workbook designed to help you conduct the experiment yourself. This should be completed very soon and I’d be more than happy to share it with you in the hopes that you keep me updated on your progress. I honestly believe that you have the willpower to do the same thing I’m doing and would encourage you to think about it. I’m adapting the workbook for a two week cycle instead of the full month, but it should work for both if you are especially brave. Send me a message at [email protected] if you are interested.
Onward to the finish of week 1!
All the best.
John Graham
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