This is Aaron Swaney’s third post about his adventure on a strict Elimination Diet. Find his first post here and his second here.
I have to admit, the cravings are starting to drive me batty.
It’s been three weeks since I started an elimination diet with my wife and I’m starting to really miss some of the foods I’ve lived on for the past 31 years of my life. They come to me in my dreams and haunt me during the day.
The funny thing is it’s not the cravings I thought I’d have. Initially I believed I’d be going nuts without beer — kind of like Homer Simpson did — and I’d see visions of burger buns dancing in my head. Don’t be mistaken: I’ve missed beer, burgers and donuts, but it’s not what’s driving me up a wall.
Instead, it’s something I haven’t eaten since I was probably 12: Frosted animal cookies.
What? Frosted animal cookies? That’s right. The other night, while I was working an evening shift putting the paper out, I started thinking about the little pink and white cookies with sprinkles. Don’t ask me what put it in my head, but having lived with him for a while, I know that it’s never good to question my stomach and its leanings. Valiantly, I fought my craving, but I can’t deny later that night seeing pink elephant on techno parade in my nightmares.
Overall the diet has gone well. I’ve learned quite a bit about food I’ll never eat again and some that might actually stay in the rotation. And the effects of the diet are starting to show. The other day my wife gave me a hug and said, “Wow, you’ve lost weight. You don’t have as much padding as usual.” I’ll take that as a compliment. According to the scale, I’ve lost about 12 pounds since I started. I’m heading to the doc later next week to find out about the blood pressure issue, though.
We started adding back food last week and the first was lemon and limes.
Because there’s nothing better for a starving man than sucking on a lemon. Yum.
But my wife encouraged me by saying that we’d be adding tamari in a few days. “Oh, awesome,” I exclaimed. “is that tandoori mixed with calamari.”
“No,” she said. “It’s a lot like soy sauce.”
Oh, great. So now I can douse my quinoa in a soy sauce-like mixture.
This week we’ve added eggs and I’m even eating gluten-free bread. In fact, as I’m writing this, I’m eating a Reuben sandwich made with something called tempeh, which seems pretty good. But what is tempeh? Well, let’s look … hmmmm … after a quick search on Google it seems tempeh it is “soybeans in a cake form.”
Whatever. I’m finishing this thing. After three weeks on this diet that doesn’t even faze me.
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