Day 28

[cue "It's the Final Countdown" music]

Today is my last official day of the 28-day Break Free diet.  I thought it would never arrive!  Now that I'm here, it feels a little anti-climatic. I'm not desperately planning out the first "forbidden" food I will eat.  That was happening on day 14.

This morning, I am down by 8 pounds from my weight at the beginning of the journey.  Awesome.  My pants fit differently.  I've worn pants (comfortably, not squeezed in & with room to spare) that I haven't been able to fit into for a few years.  Awesome again.

I have learned that I can live without sweets.  Some days I didn't think I could.  But now I know I can.  I wasn't even really tempted to cheat at our Halloween party where there were lots of tasty looking things to eat.

I have learned I can live without coffee (gasp!).  But I've also learned that I can live with coffee spiked with only almond milk.  Yeah!

I have learned that I can survive without bread in my life, and pasta, and cereal.  Sometimes it's hard to, but those things are not necessary to my happiness.  I do have a gluten-free pasta waiting in the wings.  Might as well give it a try sometime.

I have only made it into the beginning of week 3 recipes (out of 4 weeks-worth), so I have decided to keep going with this and finish out the 4 weeks of recipes.  I'll still add the allergens back in to test my reaction, but overall, I'm going to try to stick to this new way of eating for the time being.  It's working for me, and since I'm not freaking out anymore, I figure I might as well keep up a good thing.

Tomorrow, I plan to introduce dairy products and watch and wait.  Perhaps gluten will be next.  I think I have determined that even if I don't react negatively to gluten it will no longer need to be a major part of my eating life.  I think it's bad news.  For me, and probably for everyone.  I'm way less puffy, have way more energy, and I've lost weight.  I think that may have a lot to do with the lack of dairy, gluten and sugar in my life this past month.

I'll keep you posted!