It has now been nearly 4 days since I've ingested the beloved gluten and I'm really only writing this to take notes for myself. I feel like an addict off my drug of choice, having this little voice in the back of my mind: "It's been this long, don't break now, you'll just have to start over and these 4 days will have been for no benefit." This week has not been without it's challenges. I've successfully restrained myself from 4 gleaming desserts: 2 donuts, a slice of whiskey soaked chocolate cake, and a fruit crumble. I've enjoyed exactly 5 Milky Way Midnight candies (the all too tiny ones), which are the only Milky Way varieties that are gluten free. I'm finding that it's most difficult to pass by glutenous foods in front of other people, which is exactly opposite of what I predicted. I was sure it would be most straining when I were alone, there was no public shame for breaking. This is not the case. Kym made a delicious dinner last night, with a thankful variety of dishes. I could eat about half of them, which was great, but seeing other people eat the cake at the end of the meal was hard. I cut them slices and simply passed myself by. I felt the knife grace the cake crust with a slight crisp sound. I watched their forks pick apart the pieces, watched the crumbs fall delicately on the plate. I have eaten this cake before, a lot of it, so I knew what I was missing. I had to leave the room, and ultimately, knowing what it tasted like was helpful in realizing I didn't NEED to try it.

So far, the challenges are outweighed by the benefits I'm feeling already, although Jeff says it's the placebo effect. I'll give that hypothesis a 20% chance of being right, only because I know it takes awhile for my intestines to get all the gluten out. However, one of my most influential symptoms has improved drastically: the lethargic and ill-filled feeling shortly after I eat. I used to eat my glutenous dinner and then want to sleep all night. I'd feel so icky that I couldn't move well. I felt like I had eaten at least 3 times the volume I actually had. I'm not sure if this was caused by gluten, but it's significantly improved already. Also, I'm not hungry a mere hour after I eat. If I eat a whole, gluten free meal, I feel full for awhile. For now these benefits alone are enough to make me continue this journey. I know I'll break some day, as there is no way I'll accept never eating a croissant again, but I'd like to complete this experiment for now, even if gluten isn't my issue and I'm just bad at digesting, as Carly has been saying for awhile now. I think that's an actual physical disorder: bad at digesting things.