Day Thirty: diet complete. The Whole Thirty has been vanquished. It’s been a rough thirty days, but this just goes to show you what grit, determination, and fighting spirit can do for you.
I imagine there may be certain pressing questions being asked by the faithful readership right about now, among them such gems as “How much weight did Matt lose in total?” and “What are you going to do now that you’re free?” and “Wasn’t yesterday Day Seventeen?” This last one I feel deserves some slight attention. You see, as I explained to you previously, time dilation effects are in play here. What we have is a serious gravitational field in the vicinity of the Whole Thirty diet, caused by the immense vacuum in my interior. When I realized that time was actually passing more swiftly for those outside the effects of the field than it was for me, I thought immediately of my blog and knew that in order for these posts to make any sense I would have to compensate for the time differential, as the day count would not correspond to that being kept by those following along at home. Doubtless the differential was already in play and you’ve been confused all along why I was calling day twenty a mere twelve and so forth. Thus, via the careful application of advanced mathematical calculation and a bottle of wine, I have determined that this instant in time is the correct one on which to post the Day Thirty summary.
My summary of the Whole Thirty diet is that it is a crock. It did not cure heartburn, it did not make me feel like a tiger, and I officially class the proponents of this madness alongside those runners who claim that running makes you feel good. I agree entirely with a good friend who expresses the candid opinion that most of the alleged health benefits gained by our paleo ancestors was not from their diet but from their habit of alternately chasing and fleeing from sabre-toothed tigers.
Unfortunately, it seems that I’m not yet entirely in the clear, because now my personal medical advisor has a new dietary plan for the treatment and cure of my pernicious heartburn. It has now become apparent, to those looking in the right places, that taking heartburn medication for the rest of my natural life will unduly shorten it via cancer, or ulcers, or salmonella, or some such disorder of the inner workings. Thus, it’s time for a new quacky diet to manage heartburn! This one is called FODMAP, or FODCIAKGB, or some such acronym which I have difficulty remembering. I couldn’t quite follow the details the first time through as they were explained verbally and rapidly by my medical advisor, but I believe the gist is it’s like Whole Thirty but you swap some fruits and vegetables for sugar and cheese. And on top of that, I’m taking some more pills filled with hydrogen chloride and pepsin (whatever that is) and I’m practically awash in apple-cider-flavored cleaning product and vitamin B solutions. The bottom line is that I’m still not allowed to eat any grain products, but I can (and did) consume two chocolate-dipped cocoa-nut patties this evening accompanied by a glass of wine. The ideology behind this diet also encourages fermented foods, though while hops are thoroughly approved of (as a bitter aiding digestion!), beer itself remains conspicuously absent from the recommended eating list. I feel like the omission of this most noble fermented beverage is a frequent and curious oversight amongst these fad diet practitioners.
I’m not actually sure what weight this Whole Thirty diet has cost me because my wife informs me I must weigh myself first thing in the morning and I keep forgetting to do so. I think it fluctuates greatly. Probably I didn’t lose anything important.