We eat free diaries

We eat free diaries

I can’t believe that I am voluntarily restricting the food that I can eat. Believe me cutting food groups out of your diet is a complete pain in the ass! I’m so fed up of analysing labels in supermarkets – food shopping is boring enough! But after nearly two months of sickness, cramps, bloating, and little useful advice from my clueless and apparently useless doctor; I have decided to test to see if I have food intolerance.

Hours of my time have been spent, and probably wasted, reading about this relatively new scare that has recently hit our diet obsessed nation. I am slightly cynical about the ‘craze’ and am usually very against self diagnosis from internet reading. But after months of uncomfortable symptoms, anything is worth a shot!

I began the test by eliminating dairy from my diet. This meant that consuming milk, cheese, yoghurts, cream and butter was strictly prohibited. I thought it would be quite easy, although I have little confidence in my own willpower! I found breakfast a problem; I love cereal in the morning, I obviously couldn’t have milk so I thought this was out of the question, toast isn’t worth eating without butter and green tea will never replace a Tetley teabag with a splash of cold milk. I tried eating plenty of fruit in the morning but ended up feeling hungry by 12, and am usually far too busy to eat lunch this early. I then discovered soya milk; it goes perfectly with cereal! It has a creamy nutty taste and compliments crunchy cereal beautifully in the mornings. But it really doesn’t taste so good in tea! Green tea is actually growing on me though, and it’s a lot healthier as it doesn’t contain caffeine and I don’t drink it with milk or sugar.

My commitment to this diet was lost at the first sight of a roast dinner and more importantly a Yorkshire pudding, which is easily my favourite part of the traditional dish. Sorry, but the diet just didn’t seem worth it! If you are now thinking how weak I am you haven’t tasted my housemate’s Yorkshire pudding!

I have just begun week two and after failing the dairy free diet I have moved on to a diet that doesn’t contain wheat. This means no bread, no pasta, no cakes, pastries or biscuits. I was surprised to find that most sauces were out of bounds as well, including soy sauce and mayonnaise. This is definitely proving to be a challenge. Many people find that they lose weight on this diet, probably because you have to cut out processed food, and stodgy carbohydrates from your diet. For breakfast, I am eating porridge, a healthy breakfast that keeps me full till lunch and warms me up in the mornings! I usually have a salad for lunch as I can’t have a sandwich and for dinner I usually have chicken, fish, vegetables or a jacket potato. I think I have found this diet hard to maintain as there are many things that I didn’t realise contained wheat. Soup, burgers and sausages are good examples of this.

I have a friend that has been on the wheat free diet for 3 months. He started the diet as he wanted to lose weight and he has lost loads. He hasn’t been weighing himself for fear of becoming obsessive but the weight loss has been dramatic and therefore obvious. He looks amazing and says that he feels that he has a lot more energy. I am not entirely convinced that this is only because he has cut out wheat. The fact that he has had to eat more healthily has a lot to do with it.

For example, recently at a party, all the party food that was laid out such as crisps and cakes was untouchable. Instead he made a jacket potato. Wheat is not essential in your diet and I would consider it to be a safe method of losing weight.

And the conclusion of my test results? These are still unknown. I still haven’t completed the wheat free week and will update my blog as soon as I do.