What’s up guys?
I’m coming at you from St. Petersburg, Florida where I’ve spent the last few days.
Yesterday I had an awesome workout with Adam Bornstein and my long time good buddy, Craig Ballantyne at the Powerhouse Gym in downtown Tampa. It’s a pretty impressive facility and worth training at if you’re ever in town.
Before we trained Craig and I were having coffee (well, I was as Craig doesn’t drink coffee) and discussing a nutritional change that we both made that has us feeling significantly better. We’ve both cut out gluten completely.
I haven’t touched it since the week of Christmas. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this and had the same experience. But, like everyone, I have moments of weakness and cave.
Then, once it’s in your system you know you’ll be battling the effects for the next three weeks so you say, “screw it, may as well have some more.”
As I’ve mentioned countless times before, I LOVE to eat. If I threw caution to the wind I could eat myself into obesity in six months. I’m a big time foodie and am always frequenting as many top rated restaurants as I can. Sometimes I can’t resist the pasta or dessert so I cave on my no gluten rule.
The problem is I end up feeling worse for the next several weeks. And I’m much more susceptible to catching a cold.
That’s because 70% of your immune system is in your gut. And when you eat anti-nutrients like gluten your immune system has to fight the effects of the anti nutrients.
That leaves less of your immune system strength to fight the regular every day cold you may catch when traveling or being around sick people.
If you don’t have anti-nutrients in your gut you might be able to dedicate 100% of your immune system strength to battling the cold or flu. But with the gluten in your gut your army of infection fighters might be cut in half. So you end up getting sick.
Anyway, Craig and I were commenting on how we were around numerous people two weeks ago in San Francisco who all came home with the flu and a 103 degree fever. If we were both eating gluten that would have been us.
But we were able to battle through because our immune system wasn’t busy fighting the anti-nutrients.
My point is that if you’re someone who gets sick frequently or has any type of autoimmune disorder you should seriously consider giving up gluten for 60-90 days and seeing how you feel. I can almost guarantee you that you’ll notice a big difference and will feel significantly better.
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Based on how I feel right now I’m vowing to myself never to slip up again and go back to eating gluten, no matter how tempting a dessert or dish of pasta looks at any five star restaurant I visit.
Craig’s even going with zero dairy as well based on some feedback he got from a very smart doctor. It’s funny because I’ve been doing close to the same thing, without either of us even discussing it with each other. I’m not quite at zero as I still have some protein powder and grass fed ghee but for the most part I haven’t had any dairy for about six weeks.
And until Super Bowl Sunday I hadn’t had a gram of sugar since Christmas either. Funny thing is I woke up the next morning feeling noticeably worse. The cleaner and healthier your diet is the more you notice small changes from foods you shouldn’t be eating.
I’m sure I will have some dairy and sugar again but I’d like to swear off gluten permanently this time.
It’s just not worth it. I’d rather feel better all the time and not have to miss any workouts due to sickness. I love training and being active too much to sacrifice it.
Give it a shot for at least 30 days and let me know how you feel. For some people, depending on how far gone you are, it could take 60-90 days to notice a significant difference. But stick with it and you’ll be pleased, I’m sure.
And if you need any ideas for what to make check out The Paleo Recipe Book for over 370 gluten, sugar and dairy free recipes.
