HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR EGGS? On someone else's plate, please.

Two weeks down. I miss cheese. So, so much.

The Whole Life Challenge has some fairly simple food rules:

• No Grains or Starchy Carbohydrates. No wheat, rice, corn, barley, quinoa, white potatoes, soy, bread, pasta, bagels, cereal, pastry, etc. (there are exceptions for vegetarians).
• No Sugar or Sweeteners. No white sugar, brown sugar, cane juice, agave syrup, honey, coconut nectar, or any caloric or non-caloric artificial sweetener. Stevia is allowed.
• No Dairy. No milk, cheese, yogurt, etc. The only exception to the dairy rule is butter.
• No Alcohol, Soda, or Fruit Juice. Wine, spirits and beer will all cost you a point, and so will Coke, Sprite, Mountain Dew (diet or not). No fruit juice, but vegetable juice and fruit puree are OK.
• No Artificial Ingredients or Processed Foods. 

For this challenge, the WLC folks added the option to modify the prescribed diet if you weren't playing for a prize. (You can win a prize for having the most points at the end of the challenge, a tally of your food points, exercise points, and amount of measurable change in your prelim/ending workout and prelim/ending measurements.)  I'm not in this to win any prizes other than improvement in my own overall health and lifestyle, so I decided to make three modifications:

I added Quinoa. It's a seed, not a grain. It's a complete protein, is gluten-free (the primary reason I'm going grain-free is to try a diet free of gluten for 8 weeks, to see what happens), and is versatile enough to add some good variety to what can become a monotonous weekly dinner menu.

I included yogurt. In part because I'm not Paula Deen and I don't think butter is the only acceptable dairy. The main reason, though, is the need for a quick breakfast. While Rick is happy to eat eggs for breakfast every morning, one of my recent discoveries is that I think I might hate eggs (more on that later). Plain greek yogurt is packed with protein, and paired with fresh fruit is a quick-and-easy, delicious and energy-boosting breakfast.

I vote for Mother in the Saloon.

Instead of zero booze, I opted for the one-drink-per-week option. Rick and I were puzzled/amused by the three WLC drink options: either no alcohol as prescribed, or one drink a week, or one drink a day (wine or spirits, not beer). I suppose there are wine-with-dinner-every-night people out there, but I like my liver to function (unless I'm on vacation... then my liver just needs to buck up a little) so that's not me. Where's the realistic option for a few drinks on a Saturday night? Anyway, as the Anti-Saloon League no longer exists (pity, it seemed like a cheerful group...) and we are not daily drinkers, we went with the one drink per week option. I have tall glasses to use on Saturday nights. 

Benefits and Challenges Observed These Two Weeks:

Benefits:

Allergies - I have noticed that the almost constantly present mild congestion I feel due to allergies (outdoor plants in outdoor months, dust during indoor months) has lessened significantly. I'm guessing this is mostly due to removal of gluten, but maybe it's dairy as well. We'll find out when the challenge is over and I consume an entire wheel of brie. The congestion is not entirely eliminated, but the severity has lessened. Any allergy sufferers will know that a drug-free way to alleviate sniffles is awesome. I can't tolerate any allergy meds, so this is a HUGE win.

Energy - while it has been the hardest dietary modification, elimination of sugar is the most important one and has definitely led to an increase in energy. 2:00pm doesn't feel as awful as it used to now that my lunch doesn't include any crash-inducing sugars. 

The kids are curious - our kids are not entirely "on board" for the challenge (I'm not brave enough to tell teenagers they can't have pizza for two months) but they are definitely interested in the reasoning behind it. They are asking questions about why certain food items are not allowed, and are genuinely helpful in trying to come up with alternative meal ideas. Anything that can get a couple of teenagers to look closely and carefully at diet choices is a good, good thing.

Challenges:

Snacking. I am a grazer. I used to snack on whatever was handy - popcorn, granola, pretzels, fruit. All are out except fruit, which doesn't satisfy that mid-afternoon "gimme something crunchy" craving. Rick makes a great trail mix of various nuts and raisins, and there are plenty of WLC-compliant fruit-and-raisin bars out there, but I can't bring those to the office as I work in a nut-free school. I feel mildly discriminated against as a nut-tolerant individual. Anyway, snacking so far has been limited to raisins and fresh fruit and kale chips. All good but I'm kinda bored. 

SECOND INGREDIENT!
SRIRACHA, WHY???

SUGAR. I know I feel better without it and I'm well aware of the evils of sugar. But I really want a box of Girl Scout Cookies. All to myself. The bigger challenge than the craving is the fact that sugar is hidden in more foods than most people know, even those labeled "organic" and "all natural" and even my beloved Sriracha! The logical solution to eliminating sugar is to not purchase anything boxed, canned, packaged in any way and make absolutely everything yourself from scratch. Easy peasy if I had the time, but I am a servantless parent of busy teenagers, with a full-time job, an endlessly messy house, and laundry that seems to breed and multiply. I'm not willing to give up the precious little free time I devote to running and yoga to turn into Ina Garten. So I'm now an obsessive label-reader. I have discovered a few organic brands of common items that have no sugar (new favorite sugar-free hot sauce: Scoville Food Institute Habanero!). I have also discovered that my eyesight is not exactly tiny-print-on-food-labels reading strength any more (aging is delightful. Will a bespectacled Nadia emerge from this challenge?)

A related challenge - Stevia. The only WLC-allowed sweetener turns out to be effing ragweed in disguise. It's from the same family of plants and when I tried it I felt like I had been for a run in the park in mid-May (watery eyes, runny nose, the whole bit). Looking forward to being able to use Agave nectar again. 

And finally...EGGS. I always thought I was a big fan of eggs. Omelettes, fried eggs, scrambled eggs - all awesome in my book. I ate eggs frequently, made dinners for my family featuring eggs as the star of the show, and thought "Eggs are compliant! This is going to be so easy!" Turns out, I am only a fan of eggs that are cheese-covered. But the cheese-free WLC has revealed that for this girl, eggs minus cheese = death on a plate. The miracle that is hot sauce helps a little... but for the most part, my friend Eggs and I are drifting apart.

So on we go. 6 more weeks. The fact that the WLC is designed as a game helps with the more challenging aspects of the challenge. Accountability through points and knowing that an online community is watching (as my cousin Eric said, "the observer effect") makes me stick to the food rules. And when I don't stick to the food rules, I feel the support of the full WLC community, chock full of people trying their best and falling down sometimes. Also, the Facebook group I'm a part of is awesomely supportive when it comes to recipe sharing. Rick calls it WLC food porn. Banana, peanut butter, strawberry and almond-milk shakes are actually pretty sexy. Just needs bourbon. (off to find the tall glasses...)