February 2014 Monthly Update

I’m surprised at how fast the months of the experiment are flying by.  It seems like I just started the Virgin Diet a couple weeks ago, yet I’m now almost through with the testing phase and getting ready to move onto the first real diet phase, The Paleo Diet.  While life got in the way of some of the process, I mostly adhered to what I was trying to do with the testing and did get some interesting results.

If it wasn’t for the oral surgery I think I’d have some more definitive results from my sensitivity testing phases, which I know I didn’t execute exactly as the book says.  Even with the various recoveries, antibiotics and such, I have been able to make some progress in determining if I had any food sensitivities that I need to be on the lookout for with respect to the future diet experiments.  Despite testing dairy, wheat/gluten, eggs and soy pretty extensively it seems the only thing that I have any sort of adverse reaction to in any way is the wheat/gluten.  I was half expecting to have a nearly allergic reaction to something when they talked about “sensitivities.”  Listening to JJ on various shows many people who think they have nothing going on will experience some rather extreme symptoms like fatigue, or headaches, or massive digestion irritation.

I on the other hand had none of that.  In fact, where I used to think I had some minor dairy intolerance, I was able to drink a twenty ounce rich milkshake without any side effects.  The gluten, while causing me to experience a little bit of a sour stomach the next morning and to put on three pounds of weight which bled off shortly afterward.  I think the biggest surprise was how predictably the weight change was when I added in substantial wheat even for just one day.  Because the symptoms were relatively light I’m not sure if I will be abandoning or even limiting that in phases that call for grains.  It is good to be on the lookout for such symptoms however.

I have been cheating a bit, to be honest though.  I already blogged about my cheat day where I pretty much had everything I wasn’t supposed to eat.  Here and there I’ve slipped some stuff in too.  So, for example, I’ll have a sauce at a restaurant that has dairy in it.  At the same time if I’m eating sushi and there is only regular soy sauce, I’ll probably have that too.  Part of that is because I had no sensitivity to those things, but part of it is also from me being a little lazy.

Speaking of lazy, I’m still not getting my exercise routine started up.  Yeah, I’ve started some pushups and I’ve gone on some walks but I’m really at the point of dangerously procrastinating into a pure state of exercise apathy.  I know I can fix that by just sucking it up, going to it despite the cold, or the weather, or the work, or whatever excuse I can come up with not to actually go work out.  I guess I just haven’t gotten enough religion on it.  With marathon ramp up scheduled to begin in July however I’m quickly running out of runway to get trained up to begin that.

The next month will be to test out the final things that I’ve eliminated: corn and peanuts.  I’m going to retest the dairy and gluten just to be sure.  Then it’s off to the Paleo races!