Skip to main content

Robb Wolf tells me where I erred on my cheat day

Amazing. As if he read my blog (which I know he hadn't, because his podcast came out Tuesday and yesterday (when I wrote my binge post) was Wednesday, Robb Wolf answered part of my question about cheat days and bingeing in his latest podcast (#67).  Starting at the 50:37 point in the podcast, Robb answers "Bennett's" question about cheat days.

Robb's answer was interesting and I think I see part of where I may have gone wrong.  While Rob does not care for planned cheat days unless you are hyper-focused, a la a Tim Ferriss type, because they tend to send your Primal/Paleo efforts soaring into the ether, he's not against treating yourself once in a while if you see a dessert or sugary food that you really want.  The key for Robb is to make sure you stay away from the Gluten.  The possible gut irritants in wheat's death-protein, especially if you're being good and haven't been taking any in at all, will do more harm than you may think by setting off immune issues.

So let's take a look at what I ate:
  • M&Ms: M&Ms are gluten-free.  They're high in sugar, but the sugar can be processed more safely than gluten.

  • Coca-Cola: Coca-Cola Classic is gluten-free. The caramel coloring was the question, but Coca-Cola tells us that their product is without gluten.

  • Pretzel Bites: Boy, it's tough to find info about the pretzel bites at an AMC theater.  Popcorn, no problem. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that these little bites have gluten in them.  They're wheat-based, and of course wheat is the primary culprit in gluten content.

  • Cheese sauce:  Again, very tough to find info about this stuff.  The consensus seems to be that many of these sauces contain flour as a thickener... flour = wheat and wheat = gluten.
So perhaps if I'd gone with something other than the pretzel bites I might not feel AS wretched.  But the sugars themselves coursing through my system probably caused some insulin jumps and resulted in inflammation.  So... all in all, it was not a smart move to go whole hog with the experience.  One of those items probably wouldn't have been bad.  ALL of them... a mistake.  Robb's example of a Creme Brulee dessert was probably the equivalent of one of my items.  I had four.  Sigh.  Lesson learned.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Beginning a Paleo Challenge! | PaleoMentalApril 27, 2011 at 8:38 AM

    [...] I did a Paleo Challenge for three weeks or so when I first started this way back when, and I still feel a change when I do eat sugars and grains now (my heart rate goes up and I get jumpy).  The last two colds I’ve gotten have followed a bit of a carb bender, too. And of course, you may already have read my post about doing a movie bender (popcorn, pop, candy) and the absolute .... [...]

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Caffeine and Cortisol - a 30-Day Experiment

No Caffeine for Me! Today, I began upon a 30-day experiment to reduce my cortisol levels by removing coffee from my diet. The goal is to see how it might be affecting my cognitive function and my belly fat. Cortisol is a hormone that is related to stress .  At a very basic level, cortisol is created as a response to stressors in our environment.  Back when we were still chucking spears at deer and chasing down antelope, cortisol was helping to preserve our lives by giving us quick energy by signalling to our livers that it was time to engage in a process known as gluconeogenesis. This process is basically the breakdown of amino acids, the building blocks of protein, into glucose - one of the two monosaccharides (the healthy one) that our bodies use for fuel. Picture this - you're walking across the street, enjoying the day, when suddenly some inattentive driver tries to turn and doesn't see you.  Your heart rate speeds up, and you get a little burst of speed to quickly sprint o
18 comments
Read more

More on Journaling: So many tools...

Journaling was long a habit that I wanted to pick up but just never did.  And it was never because I didn't believe in its worth, it was that I just never built the habit or found the proper method that worked best for me.  I'd start it for a while, be enthusiastic about it, and then lose the habit when something else came up and interrupted me.   That's all changed for me now, as I look forward each morning and night to journaling in my newest tool I've found.  But that search has clued me in to a ton of great journaling tools that might help you as you're looking for that great push to get you into the journaling habit!   The Five-Minute-Journal:    This is obviously   the one I've adopted .  It's simple, it's quick, and it does the trick.  I won't expand into stuff I've already talked about with this in the two posts I've done on this fantastic tool.  But let's talk about some of the other aspects of the Five-Minute Journal.
4 comments
Read more

Low-carb/Gluten-free helps with ADHD in study

The ADHD Research Centre in Eindhoven, the Netherlands has some interesting things to say about the treatment of children with ADHD: Diet can do it. Medscape, a website affiliated with WebMD , reports on a study by the Centre where groups of children with ADHD symptoms and behaviors were tested on their reaction to an elimination diet. The study included 100 children with ADHD, all of whom were checked for allergic reactions to foods before the study began.  Half were placed into a control group, half into a test group where their diet was limited to "mainly rice, meat vegetables, pears, and water, complemented with potatoes, fruits, and wheat."  And all the children were monitored by their parents for behavior changes. Now here's the interesting part:  after 2 weeks, 41 of the children in the test group were showing no changes, so the diet was limited even more to rice, meat, vegetables, pears, and water.  Notice what was left out:  gluten and fructose via the wheat and
5 comments
Read more