Where the h-e-double-hockeysticks did summer go?? 😯 I can’t believe I am doing the monthly wrap up post already.
John asked me to get him up when I got up so we could get an early start on the day because we both have a lot to do today. I requested no whining when I did so.  It was a gorgeous morning, nice and cool. We headed out on the path, which was so quiet in the early morning. We actually saw 3 deer on the path! They bolted before I could get a picture, though. I said to John, “See how nice it is to get up this early?”. His answer, “No.” 😈
After 6 miles, we arrived at our destination.
Check out the temperature before 8 am:
I had a wheat bagel with cream cheese and a cuppa joe!
The weird thing? Chewing the bagel. I have not had any bread product in 3 weeks and there is no other food that has the chew of crusty bread or bagels.
I’m happy now. 😀
So let’s review goals, shall we? I had 2 goals for this month.
1. Begin C25K. In progress. This is a 9 week program, so obviously I am not finished. I am uncertain as to whether I will finish the program. The run intervals have been short and I notice little niggling things with my leg, but I have completed the first 4 weeks without incident.
2. Go grain-free for 21 days. I did it! I might have ingested some accidental grain products, like when I had a few marshmallows (corn syrup), but other than that I did stellar. And you know what? It was not that hard. The hardest thing was eating out. And let me tell you – going grain free is a lot harder than going gluten free! Corn is in everything. Everything!
I did find out some interesting things about me going grain free. It eliminated pretty much all my cravings for bread products and for sweets. Not that I didn’t eat sweets, but it really curbed my penchant for over snacking. Which is a good thing. When I did snack, it tended to be on nuts pretty much. I ate a *lot* of nuts. Sometimes fruit as well (especially dried pineapple ).
I also found I didn’t need grains to get in my fiber. I averaged 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day. Coconut flour, flax,nuts, and fruits and veggies gave me what I needed.
Was the food I ate boring for 3 weeks? You tell me.
And now, the part I know you all reaaalllly wanted to know. Did I lose any weight? Yes. I did. In those 3 weeks I lost 6.5 pounds. 😯 Now, I do take 2 pounds of that with a grain of salt because I weighed myself after a long bike ride, which always results in a couple of pounds of water retention. So even if it was 4.5 pounds, that is an enormous amount of weight for me to lose in 3 weeks!
I have decided I am going to keep grains lower in my diet for the time being because to not have the cravings for food is really so, so nice. It pretty much took care of PMS cravings as well. They were minimal at best. I am definitely using this strategy for the holidays and letting the grains I eat during that time be the treats and such.
I am so pleased that the no-grain challenge did exactly what it was supposed to do, which was to get me on a better choice path because I was veering off it a little bit. Weight loss was a bonus.
Now I have to come up with some new challenges for September!