Feeling Great

Around the first days of 2012, I made changes in the food I ate. What was wrong with the foods I ate at that time. Didn't think there was anything wrong with the common wisdom diet. That perfect diet was described by the government, the agriculture industry, and the medical schools. Why would they be wrong.

Impetus for change began with Gary Taubes book Why We Get Fat: And What to do About It. Taubes started me thinking about my diet. His book led me to Mark Sisson's The Primal Blueprint. After more searching I was reading Robb Wolf's The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet. All three books said to take grains out of the diet. One of those books said, "Try it for 30 days. It isn't the rest of your life."

Why not. Those first thirty days were tough. The daily diet no longer included anything that had flour or grains of any sort. No breads. No tortillas. No rice. No pretzels -- my snack of choice. Just a few weeks into the "no grains", I noted I was no longer hitting the Tums container after meals. Interesting.

The acid indigestion, heart burn and acid reflux had been part of my life for a long time. The doctors solution was drugs to reduce the acid the body produces. Eliminate the symptom. Since the doctor was knowledgeable, I took the prescription -- for about three days. The gut pains caused by the drug were worse than the indigestion. So I lived with Tums.

Two months on the no grains diet it was time to introduce specific grains into my diet. Assuming that my digestive problems were due to a gluten intolerance in wheat, I included some wild rice in a meal. Bad idea. Within an hour I was at the Tums container. Next I tried corn tortillas when at a Mexican restaurant. Same problem. Easy enough. I eliminated all grains of any type from the diet.

A year later there are no grains in the diet. Todays diet is a blueberry/yogurt shake for breakfast. Lunch is a huge salad with lots of different greens and fresh ingredients from the produce section. Somedays, that lunch might include a can of sardines. Dinner is meats (fish, pork, chicken, beef, liver, etc) with a side vegetable. Pistachios are occasional snacks. Desserts are dark chocolate or a pat of butter.

A year later, I sleep better. There is no acid indigestion or heartburn. There is no acid reflux. I take no medications. Not bad for a 72 year old guy. The blood work at the doctor's office this past summer revealed the impact of taking grains out of the diet. The LDL numbers dropped by 50 points from the previous blood work a year earlier.

Life is great.