Wheat-Free Experiment

Day 101, Fast Day #43

After two full days of being off of Cipro, I lost 3 lbs and am at at 23 pounds lost (10.4 kg) in  the last 14.5 weeks. Woo hoo! All of that bachelorette party and birthday party weight is gone finally and I am losing weight again. 

In the last three days, I have also avoided consuming wheat products. Wheat is proving much easier for me to kick than Zach. I caught him eating some snack mix with pretzels and dried bread chips in it that was next to the trash can so it would be thrown out. So far no progress on the elbow rash. So my paranoia about my body getting rashes from wheat might just be plain paranoia. Either way, Wheat Belly has me all freaked out about wheat at the moment for many other health reasons.

In my wheat-free adventure, I made little pizzas with wheat-free crusts to break the fast today:

I went a little crust crazy! WARNING: This is not low-calorie fast day food.

So this is an example of what I might eat on a feast day. The crust is just 1 cup arrowroot starch, 1 cup almond meal, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 2 beaten eggs, 1 tsp olive oil, and a bit of kosher salt. I mushed it all up and then flattened the dough out on a thin layer of arrowroot starch so it wouldn't stick. This yield 2-3 servings and is ~1,261 kcal for the whole batch. It's some dense crunchy crust. It is not like normal wheat pizza crust, but it is better than not eating pizza at all.

Week 14 Summary

Day 100, Feast Day #56

After doing further research on antibiotics and weight gain, it appears one of the less common side effects of taking the specific antibiotic I was prescribed, ciprofloxacin (aka Cipro), is unusual weight gain. I also searched and found several health and weight loss forum threads where other people wrote about their similar experience with crazy weight gain on Cipro, even as much as a pound per day. I don't want to think about how much weight I could have gained if I hadn't done any fast days.

Here's the recap of last week:

Calories
Week 1: 1,437 kcal or 76% of baseline calories (-3,213 kcal/week)
Week 2: 1,938 kcal or 102% of baseline calories (+294 kcal/week)
Week 3: 1,680 kcal or 89% of baseline calories (-1,512 kcal/week)
Week 4: 2,196 kcal or 116% of baseline calories (+2,100 kcal/week)
Week 5: 1,829 kcal or 96% of baseline calories (-469 kcal/week)
Week 6: 1,531 kcal or 81% of baseline calories (-2,555 kcal/week)
Week 7: 1,954 kcal or 103% of baseline calories (+406 kcal/week)
Week 8: 1,196 kcal or 63% of baseline calories (-4,900 kcal/week)
Week 9: 1,638 kcal or 86% of baseline calories (-1,806 kcal/week)
Week 10: 1,637 kcal or 86% of baseline calories (-1,813 kcal/week)
Week 11: 1,681 kcal or 89% of baseline calories (-1,505 kcal/week)
Week 12*: 2,108 kcal or 111% of baseline calories (+1,484 kcal/week)
Week 13*: 2,649 kcal or 140% of baseline calories (+5,271 kcal/week)
Week 14: 1,882 kcal or 99% of baseline calories (-98 kcal/week)

While ADFing: 1,811 kcal or 96% of baseline calories
Baseline Days: 1,896 kcal 

All Feast Days: 2,856 kcal or 151% of baseline calories
All Fast Days: 448 kcal or 24% of baseline calories

For reference
Week 1: 3 feast days, 4 fast days
Week 2: 4 feast days, 3 fast days
Week 3: 4 feast days, 1 medium day, 1 fast day
Week 4: 4 feast days, 3 fast days
Week 5: 4 feast days, 3 fast days
Week 6: 3 feast days, 4 fast days
Week 7: 4 feast days, 3 fast days, 
Week 8: 3 feast days, 4 fast days
Week 9: 4 feast days, 3 fast days
Week 10: 4 feast days, 3 fast days
Week 11: 4 feast days, 3 fast days
Week 12: 5 feast days, 2 fast days*
Week 13: 5 feast days, 2 fast days*
Week 14: 4 feast days, 1 medium day, 2 fast days
*Includes days during my bachelorette party weekend.

This week wasn't a total failure considering I ended up only pulling a 953 calorie "medium day" at the start of the week instead of a fast day, ate out on what should have been a fast day because of a company lunch, and indulged myself at a friend's birthday party. On top of that I had heartburn and volatile weight gains and losses that suspiciously occurred while taking antibiotics. I did end up losing one of the pounds I had gained, so I am back down to where I was at two weeks ago. So I just need to drop a pound to get back to where I was before my bachelorette party.

I am about halfway through reading Wheat Belly right now, and I got to the part about wheat gluten being a cause of rashes, especially on the elbows, knees, and back. I have had rashes on my elbows, knees, wrists, and back almost constantly since I was a teenager and had just accepted the fact that I will be itchy and bumpy for my entire life. My mother diagnosed my rashes as eczema, which is theorized to be caused by genetics. Now I am worried that I am sensitive to gluten, as I noticed my latest elbow rash occurred shortly after a very wheat-filled meal with pasta and bread. So Zach and I got more serious about cutting out wheat this weekend and tossed out wheat-filled snacks we found in our apartment and didn't buy any new wheat products while going grocery shopping this weekend. I guess we will see if my rashes get better at all or if I am just paranoid after reading about rashes in the same spots I get them.