Experiments for the Week or Adventures in Self Control

For the past month and before I went on vacation, I've been attempting to eat wheat and dairy free. For the most part this isn't terribly difficult. I stopped drinking cow's milk, trading it for Silk Light Soy Milk almost a whole year ago. I can live without bread and pasta since it used to take me months to use one loaf of bread and I developed a low level of tolerance to pasta sometime in the 1990s due to a diet high in spaghetti (I understand it's a low cost meal when you're feeding a family of 6 and two of the 6 are rapidly growing adolescent boys who play sports that require a high caloric output). So my normal breakfast is fruit, a granola made of flax and pumpkins seeds with no wheat products in it and soy milk or soy yogurt. On occasion I have rice cakes with peanut butter. Lunch is usually a big salad. Creativity with the salad ingredients has lead to some pretty memorable treats that have no resemblance to the "rabbit food" you get in most restaurants. I love a combination of creamy and crunchy so I often add avocado or hard boiled eggs, celery or chopped carrots. I use an organic unrefined first press olive oil or a flax seed oil and some lemon juice as the dressing. I have come to really look forward to lunch lately! Snacks are lara bars, fruit, corn tortilla chips...and a few chocolates at work (breaking away from sugar is an experiment for another time)
Now here's where the adherence to the wheat/ dairy free diet gets me. Dinner! It's not so hard when I prepare food at home, though there is wheat hidden in all sorts of unsuspecting places (veggie burgers, that fake crab meat that I like every once in a while but it's highly processed so...). I could have another salad and often do, but on the occasions that a social life is on the agenda, I find that I often do not make the right choices! My first vice is beer. A great pleasure is sitting on the patio at Vine Street, hanging out with good friends and a tasty pint. When it comes to ordering food, I "forget" that burger buns are a no-no and the cheese on the nachos (?!) is in fact dairy (no I do not have both nachos and a burger at the same meal, separate visits only!!!). So what's more important, strict adherence to the diet or occasional splurges? I am more about pleasure and a little self indulgence. Those who know me would first be shocked that I can live without ice cream, which has been surprisingly easy. But cheese is a lot harder to break from. I do know I benefit overall from avoiding these products. I wake up more refreshed and supposedly I am experiencing adrenal fatigue from their consumption (took a course in kinesiology and muscle testing...the teacher got a little pissed at me because I couldn't or wouldn't go cold turkey) so apparently my insides are protesting!
As a future nutritionist I should be able to do this for at least a week, especially if I am going to advise other people to do it. But as someone who enjoys good food, and believes in taking pleasure in her food choices, I find it difficult to deny myself the occasional slice of cheesy pizza, a juicy burger on a fresh roll or a few well layered melty nachos. But for the purpose of this blog, I am going to attempt it. A whole hearted, 100% push free of wheat and dairy for a whole week, including the weekend. Wish me luck!