Feeling Good – No Sugar, No Caffeine, No Alcohol, No Bread, No Dairy

Today is day two of our 30 day long diet.

I neglected to write up before what this is all about – but first, what is not allowed:

• No dairy, so no milk or cheese but butter is ok
• No caffeine, so no coffee or tea etc
• No sugar, so lots of crying, and sadly fruit is out, as are juices
• No yeasts, so no bread, no wheat, etc
• And lots of other things, too boring to mention; salt, alcohol, oats (my staple!), root veg. all sorts.

This is actually quite easy for me to do because I have done various fasts and such like many times – for the experience, and it is always good. For years I have not had any coffee, sugar or alcohol (excepting natural sugars in fruit). So I am already a freak!

Malcolm smiling

How do we feel? Me: Slightly hungry but energised and in good spirits. Rachel: You will have to ask her, but she is the one going through withdrawl and wanting bread. It for her mostly that we are doing this – I am supporting and in the process eating less, exercising more and having fun, learning etc. No breakfast cereal, no pizza, no cheese, no cookies. That is a lot of powerful chemicals now being denied. Good for her!

Day One: Morning began with a glass of water followed by an hour of yoga. Then a walk for an hour.

• Then some pineapple.
• Lunch was a prawn, onion and broccoli stir fry, with lots of garlic
• Dinner was chicken with leeks and cabbage.
• Snacks in between were a few raw hazel nuts. I had a cup of Rooibos tea (healthy and no caffeine) and a glass of water with lemon. I also had chives, basel and rocket out of the garden.

(All fresh ingredients)

Day Two:

Starting to ‘detox’? (I just made a dash to the toilet at 3pm). The day being sunny began bright (at 4.30am), with a good walk (9am), which was supposed to be an hour but lasted three, due in part to calling in on a neighbour and friend, for an hour.

• Drinking water, with lemon but avoiding drinking during or an hour after eating.
• Breakfast was thus delayed until we returned from our walk. Eggs (three) cooked in olive oil. Ohhhh so tasty – like I’d just raided the nest (in hunter gatherer mode!). We eat organic, free range chicken eggs and should have our own hens laying but there is a problem to be explained another time.
• Lunch was millet, toasted then boiled, with courgette, chives, garlic and basel – oh and a bit of oliveoil and butter. It was an hour after teating this that I began to write this up and suddenly became aware of slight discomfort on my abdomen. Ahh, as I say, all good learning experiences!

These notes will continue (for my benefit but anyone can read, if interested) as the days progress. I’m not very preacticed in writing a diary – or log – so my apologies.

Rachel discovering Orkney

Why are we doing this?

Rachel is trying to see if going without yeast and sugars / wheat etc (that feed yeasts in the gut) and dairy etc etc improves our health. We have read a lot and wanted to give this a try, and figure it will be a period of discovery and learning, no matter what.

To voluntarily go without is an interesting discipline in our western, affluent society – yet it feels so good, when you do it!!! ‘Less is more‘, so to speak. Or ‘you can have too much of a good thing‘, is another way of saying it. ‘We’ have it all in bucket loads, so society is full of bloated people, diseases of excess with our bodies from heart to pancreas to liver all suffering. Fatty deposits piling up around our waists and thighs. Poor skin, lethargy, depression, etc etc. From our heads to our feet we are struggling due to abuse and overconsumption. So, we are going without. It is easy to say it – a lot harder to do it! Especially if society is full of adverts for foods, if the shops only sell foods packed with sugar, salt, wheat and dairy, if all the people you know are drinking coffee, alcohol, tea. When chocolate is ‘your friend’. It is lonely to go your own way, to be different – so psychologically this is a big task, made harder because the chemicals that become addictive, such as sugar and caffeine are so influential on our moods and emotions.

So, this is day two part way through. More later.

🙂

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More about Malcolm and Rachel on the Five Senses website