The GAIA Health Blog

…yep, that’s actually me below 🙂

One year later, I never would have guessed I would be Grain Free.

I didn’t wake up saying “I’m starting ‘Grain-Free’  or ‘Gluten Free’ today”, and at no point was I forcing myself, it just kinda “came about”, as a “by-product” of other things.

If I would have forced myself, for sure I would have fell flat on my face, cause I had a little
“pizza-crack” habit. I’m talking about Whole Foods Pizza.

I mean, pleeeeeze, when you see that guy at Whole Foods, pulling the piping hot pizza out of the brick oven (the Mozzerella, Basil, and Tomato is my fav’) with the wooden paddle, oil still “bubbling”, I first thought, “this ain’t a fair fight, feel free to ‘ABORT’, you’d still be the healthiest dude you know “.

The Beast Came after me…….

….on Thanksgiving of 2013. I call sickness and disease “The Beast”. Best I can diagnose what happened, it “seemed” to be an inflamed prostate where my urinary flow was almost cut off.

I wrote about my ailment and subsequent healing in my article called “Heal Thyself”.

But, as the title above implies, I was able to quickly heal myself with whole foods only, and part of my healing nutrition was to CUT OUT ALL GRAINS, it seemed like my body really celebrated my cutting out of grains.

Grain Free vs. Gluten Free? to be safe, I cut out everything…..

I’m assuming, by default, I cut out all gluten as well, it’s all a little confusing, cause I guess you can consume a grain like Millet, which has no gluten, assuming millet is a grain.

Oatmeal is a better example, because I was eating it several times a week, I think it is a grain, maybe a grain with no gluten? I figured it would be easier to cut the Oatmeal out than figure out all that stuff. Especially since one guy wrote that Oatmeal gave him and inflamed prostate.

Rice is in the same category, I don’t know how to classify it, but I don’t eat much rice anyway. Potatoes confuse me as well, I left them alone all year. I think I was “Paleo plus Grass Fed Cheese”, but I’m not a big fan of those “labels”, I wasn’t trying to be any label, except “healthy”.

Did going grain free heal me?

I can’t say, because I was wolfing down every healing superfood I knew about. But it seemed like the grain free played a big part. When you take in so many good nutrients, and take out other things, it’s hard to isolate just one.

However, since that mega-healthy healing diet was successful over that three week stent of illness round Thanksgiving, 2013, I said I better keep doing everything I was doing in that three week miracle of healing, INCLUDING NO MORE GRAINS!!!

I craved carbs…….

….especially after workouts and such. I thought that would be the biggest problem going grain free, but it turned out to be not such a big deal. I found myself replenishing myself after workouts with dates, banana, figs, and what ever else I had a taste for (that was “healthy”) long as it wasn’t bread or grains (and no potatoes or rice “just in case”, but they weren’t part of my daily diet).

Six months into “Grain Free Me”, my bread cravings kinda slipped away naturally. Now don’t get me wrong, my “love for bread”, that will always be there, just the cravings……big difference. Same as how I still love bacon, just haven’t had it in 7 years, and no burning desire to, though I could eat a strip tomorrow ….you feel me?

(that’s not me below, but it might as well be me, every Sunday night before a work week 🙂 )

You can have my Whole Foods Pizza when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers……

…used to be my motto, but by Christmas of 2013, I was feeling so great after going grain free in response to my Thanksgiving 2013 ailment, I wanted to make Grain Free a permanent part of my routine.

Many of my older blog articles contain bread, and I would say “bread’s okay”, because of weapons like
papaya enzymes to digest gluten, but now, a year after my ailment, I have totally switched “Gluten Political Parties”, over to Grain Free.

Below: the pizza station at Whole Foods. I called it “The Crack House” because it was the site of my grain addiction. Now, I walk past it without paying much attention. Though now, I kinda have a rotisserie chicken addiction 🙂

Walking past the “Crack-House”

…or shall I say “Walking past the Whole Foods Brick Pizza Oven Crack House”, since I spend so much time at Whole Foods. Difficult the first 3 or 4 times, when the just-cooked piping hot slices were calling my name, like I was the pizza version of a heroin addict, but like I said, that addiction drifted away quickly and smoothly.

(you ever see that old Flintstones episode when the food smoke-aroma turns into a finger and taps Fred on the shoulder and Fred floats to the food with no control? ….that was me, maybe 3 times, after that I was cool). Pizza is my “first love”. I’m not trying to divorce her, I still wanna marry her…………..

But, below is my outdoor “dream kitchen” with the pizza oven, and what’s the point if I can’t enjoy pizza? So, it’s my “Manifest-Destiny” to create the ultimate grain free (and/or) gluten free pizza!!!

Someone sent me some info on Pamela’s Bread Mix (sold on Amazon), and that looks VERY promising to me, I like the ingredient profile of the bread mix, which is basically, Sorghum Flour, Tapioca Flour, Sweet Rice Flour, Brown Rice Flour, Organic Natural Evaporated Cane Sugar, Chicory Root, White Rice Flour, Millet Flour, Honey and Molasses; Rice Bran, Sea Salt, Xanthan Gum, Yeast Packet.

(not so crazy about the cane sugar, but I take in almost zero sugar, so I can concede the point). But it might be something that could work as a pizza dough. I’ll be experimenting with it, though it’s technically Gluten Free and not Grain free because Millet is a grain right? But, I hate to split hairs on the terminology…………

The Ultimate Challenge, Grain Free Pizza

….or should I be saying Gluten Free? Those terms still confuse me.

Nonetheless, I wrote about that in an article a while back, in that I still love the taste and smell of fresh bread and pizza dough, but I’m on the other side now, and there ain’t no turning back, since I’m loving the way I feel as a “grain free guy”,  more than how I used to love my slice of Whole Foods Pizza with my cool drink in the summertime air.

As I wrote in my article I Accept the Challenge (of creating a Grain Free Pizza Dough that tastes like real pizza), if I can do that, whose know how many souls I can bring over to the GF side………

below: a grain free flour blend recipe I ran across, you can click on the photo to go to the recipe, but its basically a mix of coconut flour, Blanched Almond Four, and Arrowroot Starch.

Damn Doug, you’re “beefing up”…..

….is what I told myself when I looked into the mirror during about month 6 of “Grain Free Me”. Pretty exciting as a guy, as I’m in that camp of guys who lift weights like crazy, trying to become a “minor musclehead” (you ever have that moment in the mirror, when you see are “almost” at your ultimate body image?)

That phenomenon would have to be because of going grain free, in that my diet is relatively unchanged over the past 10 years. I’m quite sure it is the result of taking the grains out of my diet.

Morning erections had the final vote……

Sorry if this is TMI, but one important I noticed over the past year, since I went on that healing diet which included eliminating grains starting on Thanksgiving 2013, is that by Christmas 2013, my coveted, “youthful male”,  morning erections had come back in a big way!!!

I was waking up “up periscope” almost every morning…..and I still am a year later.
THE KIDD IS BACK!!! (Whatever works!!!)

Morning erections, I didn’t know this is also a “woman’s issue”

I actually thought that was a “male-only” issue, something us paranoid men think too much about, but when I mentioned rediscovering my morning erections in the “Heal Thyself” article, after going grain free, a woman pinned that article her Pinterest Page with part of her comment being…..

“This article on gaiahealthblog.com is really great for you men out there (one subject in particular that most men might want to take a mental note on, wink-wink)”

I may not know everything, but one thing I do know, I don’t ever wanna be that “wink-wink” guy she is writing about (or worse than that, the subject of discussion of some real life version of the “Sex in the City” girls at brunch).

I reserve the right to visit the “Crack House” whenever I want……

…once again, the Crack House being the Pizza Station at Whole Foods, but my sense of well being is so happily in the “grain free camp”, I estimate that I might have one or two slices of pizza, if any, in a given year. I’m assuming first year would have been hardest, and I had Zero slices the first year, with no real drama in letting it go.

Like I said, I’m not forcing myself to be grain free, and if I can perfect an incredible GF pizza and bread, there is no reason to ever go back.

….had to stick this photo of “my boys” below, because sometimes an experience will “Open Your Eyes”

No scientific “bla bla bla” about Grain Free…….

….cause I don’t wanna go there in this post, not sure if science in and of itself can convince anyone of anything, I kinda live by that creed that your awareness of your experience is worth more than the science of your experience..

All I can do is what my body has told me all year, is that Grain Free is a very good part of an integrated advanced level nutrition program. My instincts tell me to keep going, and I’m not worried too hard if a biscuit or a turkey burger bun slips through in 2015. I can smoke a cigar to celebrate a baby, but I’m still not a smoker.

I don’t think one biscuit matters….cause now, I’m re-wired to stay away from grains.

I’m not religious, but VERY spiritual…….

…if you get what I’m saying. Henceforth, I don’t like to play the “God-Card” unless I really mean it. But, I must say, one year later, on Thanksgiving 2014, I told my mother that I was giving thanks all day for making through that very scary ailment a year ago.

This “God-thing” never sends me messages as a flaming, burning bush, or in a deep Charlton Heston voice, but my “God Given” instincts tell me to stay away from the grains, and without that illness, I doubt if I’d be at this new level of wellness, we all know we don’t make certain moves ’til we have to…..so I listen to the “heavenly powers”, and to my body. After all, they are both two parts of the same unity.

(note to self: “that last sentence was ‘smooth’ ” )  🙂

~stay healthy~

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