I didn't eat wheat or sugar for two weeks and it wasn't as terrible as you'd think it'd be. This whole idea got started when a friend of mine told me she wasn't going to eat artificial sugar nor gluten for two weeks—so naturally, I wanted to join in and do the same.
Without much thinking, planning, or preparation, I dove right in But I quickly realized what I couldn't eat: pasta, ice cream, pizza, cake, bread, and basically all other foods I love. Frankly, I was dreading it.
Okay so you're probably thinking what the hell did you eat if you couldn't eat gluten or sugar?
Breakfast
Breakfast didn't change all that much for me since I'm not a huge breakfast person and don't eat very extravagant breakfasts. I usually had eggs either scrambled with cheese or an omelette with spinach and an apple. This was a great breakfast for me because it was quick and kept me full until lunch.
Lunch
Lunch was a lot harder to figure out than breakfast. Everyday I would want a sandwich—because that's what I usually have—and then realize that I couldn't have one and would have to opt for a salad instead.
Salads, as boring as they seem, are actually super versatile. Personally, my favorite salad has tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, crasins, corn, avocado, and almonds with oil and vinegar. I also love mozzarella and tomato salads, Caesar salads, and any salad with ginger dressing.
If you have a dressing that you love or a salad ingredient you love, base your meal on that and you will have a salad that you you not only love, but can easily make small changes to so that your salad isn't always the same.
I would also pair a salad with fruit for lunch. Surprisingly, I found myself feeling more energized after I ate lunch which never happened before.
Dinner
As a pasta addict, dinner was a challenge to say the least, but I made it work. I substituted rice and grains for pasta and ventured out into eating different kinds of vegetables as well as different proteins. My typical dinner was rice with vegetables and chicken.
Going to restaurants made it harder to find food that fit into the gluten- and sugar-free criteria so I went out to eat less than I ate at home. But on the occasional day I did go out to eat, I stuck to the same sorts of food: salad, chicken, sushi, steak, and lots of mozzarella. Weirdly enough, I never left dinner wishing I could've eaten differently, which is definitely something I was not expecting.
Dessert and Snacks
To me, desserts and snacks blended together as one. Fruit, fruit, fruit, and more fruit. Thinking about eating cake did cross my mind almost all the time, but I did find that once I would eat fruit I would feel the same satisfaction as if I had just eaten cake. Weird, I know.
Lucky for me, I developed an addiction to fruit, specifically watermelon and pineapple, so I didn't get bored of constantly snacking on them.
I also made smoothies with frozen strawberries, frozen pineapple, frozen raspberries, a banana, and peanut butter which I loved. It tastes like a tropical peanut butter and jelly smoothie—so good.
Final Thoughts
Overall this experience wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be and ended up changing the way I'll eat forever. It made me so much more aware of what I was eating and now I always notice when I want to eat or do eat something that has either gluten, sugar, or both.
I also noticed that I wasn't nearly as hungry as I normally was and tended to be a lot more energized. Even my cravings for junk food went away! If you're even somewhat intrigued by this, 10/10– would recommend doing it.