An adult family member lives with him and works at the Kroger bakery, bringing home piles of free things each day, so he’s struggling a bit right now. People who can’t control their pantries, or who have poor family support, will have a challenge in our grain-based culture.

I have a better example with my friend Linda, a diabetic who quit wheat on November 14th, and brought her a1c (average blood sugar) down from 7.6 in September to 6.3 the first week of January. Her endocrinologist was amazed and told her to stay on this path. She lost a good deal of weight, lost some strange subcutaneous nodules on her hands that she’d had for years, and experienced much-improved energy and mental clarity.

For myself, the contemplation of quitting wheat seemed MUCH more dire than the actual practice. This is a common phenomenon–people dread it, and discover they don’t miss grains. The thing I did right was to cast myself into the mind frame of “What CAN I and my daughter eat?”

In a well-stocked Paleo home, it is very easy to come up with wonderful dishes on the fly. Keep on hand onions, garlic, great meats, spices, plentiful produce, nuts, and you’re on your way. I eat out a LOT less now, because dinner at home is finally supplying the things I used to sneak out to eat to get:: flavor, fat, color, presentation, satisfaction.

The payoff can be BIG by eliminating processed food — and it’s usually not as hard as people think.

Thank you for sharing that. I’d like to know how hard he thought it was giving up wheat…how hard was it for you?

Like Lori of the MovNat meetup said, “I love being able to look in my pantry and be able to eat ANYTHING!” I have a colleague at work who removed wheat (with fear and trembling) from his diet a week ago due to my evangelizing, and cornered me this morning to tell me how much BETTER he already feels, how he resisted lots of temptations all weekend from family and friends, and is 7 pounds lighter already. And he tells me he ate like a king then entire time: omelette, meat, fish, big salad.

In college, I saw women working out and getting quite muscular as I ran around the track inside the field house. I felt like I could get like that, too, and asked for weights for Christmas. I spent the following months learning weightlifting on my own from magazines and watching people. I bought Rachel McLish’s book and followed that.

I was first in line to see “Pumping Iron II: The Women” and my hero Rachel McLish came off as pretty unpleasant in it. I drifted away from lifting as I was on my own with it, and lacked further inspiration. (Back then, there weren’t the nicer spray on tans, and I am so pale you can see through me. I sensed I had no future in body building and focused on running.)

I prepared for the Army at age 26, and I went into basic training more fit than when I came out of it 8 weeks later. The young women training with me were in generally poor condition, and you must train with the group.

I have not done anything other than pushups and assisted pullups in the intervening 20 years. At Fit2Play, I will FINALLY enjoy learning how to set some smart goals with ST, do it right, and realize some pretty cool fitness dreams.

Joy, we’ll focus on taking away the negatives (pain / exhaustion) and then we’ll get ya back to your powerful and playful self…and beyond.

See ya soon -

JT

Thanks for your comment. Rock climbing is new for me…I’ll let you know how it goes. You should check out the Highland Games…it takes skill, strength, and a kilt.

JT

Power and Playfulness. Primate hooting and shouting from the branches, basically.

When I pictured doing what I really wished to do, it meant jumping higher, being able to swing, being able to break out into play at a moment’s notice because I wasn’t fighting exhaustion and worry and pain in my arms and shoulders and hips from being trapped in my cubicle (a cage! But… it pays the bills.).