it's time to talk diet

I've been putting this post off for ages because every time I write in out inside of my head it just gets longer and longer.  But seriously, it's about time that I tell you what I've been up to with my diet.... because it has almost been two months now since I made the change!

Let me start by saying this: I'm not dieting. i am not on a diet.  I am changing what I eat and how I eat it. I am hopefully changing my life.

Most of these changes have been made within my own home, as I have been eating out less.  But every time I am dining out with friends, I am asked why I am eating like a freak. As a result of needing to explain myself over and over again, I've now got the reader's digest version down pat for you:

During the car accident in 2004, I had antibiotics pumped through me so hard while I was in the ICU that I broke out in a full body rash and I am now allergic to penicillin. Knowing what we all know about antibiotics and probiotics and what goes on in our intestinal tracts, I can only assume that my system was thrown out of whack.  Honestly, I swear I have never been the same since.  Since the accident I have had skin conditions, a sluggish digestive system, migraines, and fatigue. After years and years of researching and reading, visiting doctors, having allergy tests, tracking what I eat, etc...I have finally come to my own conclusion.  I believe that all of these symptoms are somehow linked to my digestive track being out of whack, and that my system needs me to hit a big fat re-set button.

So.

Since just before Christmas I have removed from my diet:
Sugar (including high glycemic natural sweeteners like honey or agave, and I have even removed fruit). I have removed Gluten. Dairy. Soy. Vinegars. Caffeine. Alcohol. Some of the starchier vegetables. Anything artificially processed.

I'll let you digest that for a minute (pardon the pun), because surely you are trying to figure out what the heck is left. What on earth am I eating?!! Right??

Well, there ends the short version of my story.  Here comes the long version.
Lemme tell ya' about eating.

Lots of rice and quinoa, lots and lots of roasted or steamed vegetables. Salads. Soups.  Eggs. Fish. Chicken, either sliced over the rice and veggies, or turned into a chicken salad by way of aoli with scallions and a few chopped nuts.  Rice cakes topped with guacamole. I've even learned how to make gluten free muffins.  I have been writing down the recipes and tricks I've come up with and have been taking pictures, so I'll be posting about what's worked for me and what has not.

You might find this hard to believe, but I have not suffered from intense cravings. I cannot tell you how this has happened, except just to say that I was so ready to embark on this way of eating (finally), and that my desire to feel well is greater than my desire to eat foods I know do not make me well.  But truthfully, I honestly have only had just a few intense cravings.  And they passed without my eating what I was craving.  I was clear enough to observe that the cravings were coming at times of emotional distress or habit.  I have a few tricks up my sleeve to help not feel so deprived and will post about those in the coming weeks as well.

I have indeed diverged from the eating plan on a few occasions.  When Christmas and New Year's Eve rolled around, I stuck to my eating plan like glue.  I was just in the first couple of weeks. Now that it's February, I've allowed myself a couple of special treats. At Birthday Dinner #1 I ate a few bites of a profiterole dessert.  It was delicious, and to quote Chef Bobby Flay, "The fifth and sixth bites don't taste any better than the first two or three, so why bother."  He is so right.  At the Birthday Crafternoon, I ate about a third of one of those cupcakes. I didn't even want more than that, because I didn't feel so great afterwards, and while it was tasty, it wasn't like it was so good that I had a spiritual experience or anything (unlike those profiteroles...yum!).  I also diverged at Birthday Dinner #2 when I had a cocktail. And then a couple more cocktails at home. Vodka with tonic, so not quite as bad a sugary rum fruit concoction, but that was probably the farthest I have diverged....and it was great fun, but I paid for it the next day, to be sure.  You wont see me doing that often.

There have been a few other times I have diverged.  Like I have thrown a couple of blueberries into the muffin mix, or like the orange juice in the dressing for those scallops and quinoa I made last weekend.  Extremely minimal amounts of the more tolerable substances, and we are talking like maybe once every week or two that I have done something like this. I am rarely eating out, so I can control what's going into my food.  And when I do eat out, I have figured out how to spot what will work and what wont, and how to ask for adjustments without being a pest (at least I don't think I am being a pest LOL).  I will be passing those tips along over the next few weeks, too.

I've made a few other changes, like starting to take some supplements, taking some probiotics, drinking more water and starting to exercise.

So how do I feel?  Well, I'd say the most obvious shift is that I have not had a single migraine in six weeks. That is a personal best.  It's almost unbelievable, really.  Weight loss was not my goal (health is my goal), but I have lost 17 pounds. Not hard at all to do, as before I started this, I was eating cookies for breakfast at times, and occasionally skipping dinner and eating candy. For real.)
Yes. I know.
I hid it well.
My joints don't ache, my stomach doesn't feel so "thick" (if that makes any sense) and my gut is less sluggish. I am sleeping better. I have more energy.  This skin condition is starting to clear.

Basically what I am doing here is following an anti-candida diet.  To give you an overview, you can click here...but let me tell ya', if you google candida diets, you are going to find a ton of conflicting information out there. Information varies widely from site to site and book to book, sometimes there is even conflicting information within a book or website. It's sort of crazy making really, and I'll be blogging about that as well, and about how I have figured out how to take what makes sense for me and make this work.

Will I stay on this restricted of a diet forever??  No.  I truly am a believer in the notion that everything is okay in moderation.  Except in cases like mine, when the system is damaged and needs repair, due to the fact that moderation was not happening in the first place. In cases like mine, I believe a hosing out is in order.  So I am giving my system a rest. I have committed myself to 3 months of eating this way before reassessing.  I've felt so sick for so long, that it is entirely possible that I may continue a bit longer.  Or I may start reintroducing some foods very slowly.  The healthier foods.  Like the occasional potato. Some fruit.  I'd like to get the vinegar back into my vinaigrette, so to speak...hahaha.  My goal is to not eat the same way as I did before. I'd like to be able enjoy a good piece of artisan bread from time to time, but not sit down to a pile of poor quality crackers.  I'd like to enjoy the occasional bakery made cookie as a treat, but not to make the box of store bought cookies a breakfast staple.  I'd like to eat fruit and use natural sweeteners like honey and dates from time to time, but not dip deep into the sugar bowl.  Make sense?


So there ya' have it.  A grand update really, as this has already been happening in my life for 7+ weeks now!   Hopefully this will help my future posts make sense as I start to share the occasional recipe or dining strategy.  I don't think doing a phase of restricted eating is something that will interest all of you, but even if you are just trying to get more veggies into your diet and more crap out of your diet, I think you'll find some of the tips and tricks I have tracked down interesting.

  

happy new year !

Wow, that title is creative, eh?? Hahaha. Sheesh. Let's start this year's entries off with a bang, shall we?!! ;-)

So, how was your new year's eve?

My new year's eve actually involved a party this year, which is not usually how it goes. How does it "go", you ask? Well, that is a good question! As TheMostImportantGuy and I backed down the driveway to head to the party, I asked him to help me put together a list of how we have spent all of our new year's eves past. We couldn't remember all of them. We knew that last year we went to a chanting thing at the zen center. And we also knew there was at least one year (perhaps two?) that included dinner out with my folks followed by coming home to turn on the tube and watch the west coast airing of the New York ball drop on the television. But there were several new year's eves unaccounted for (was there a concert or two in there? if so, who?!). I'm not sure if we are forgetting because we are developing the early stages of age-related brainfog, or if it's simply because we just don't usually do anything terribly exciting or memorable (I should just go back and see if I wrote about any of them on the blog...duh!).

What I do know for a fact though, is that even though I cannot remember what we have done, I can absolutely tell you what we have not done:
Every year since TheMIG and I have been together, I've refused an invitation for us to go to a party at the Warren's.

Who are the Warrens. Well. Back in the day, when I was still together with TheEx, he had met MisterWarren on a train platform and they quickly became fast friends. They had noticed that they were always getting on the same train car each morning to go to work, and one day they started chatting and found out they both had just become dads. When Warren and TheEx learned that their offices at the other end of the train ride were only minutes apart, they quit the train altogether, and carpooled together for years. During those years, TheEx and I were throwing lots of parties, and I would invite my friends, some of whom had partners and kids about the same age as ours, and the Warrens would come, too. Of course, TheEx and I never looked at our friends in the "your friends, my friends" sort of way. They all became "our friends", and in the long run, the families all got quite tight and everybody was inviting everybody to each others gatherings (mostly kids birthdays, barbeques, holiday parties, etc). A few of us ladies started a weekly craft night back then, and the guys in the bunch even created a separate poker playing faction.

When TheEx and I split up, we had our tough moments, but it really was quite the amiable break up. There was never the feeling that we needed to be "dividing up" our friends. Not one bit. But I always sorta felt like MisterWarren and the Warren family were more TheEx's friends (his best friends, actually), and at that time, and TheEx seemed like he could use a little support. I had a pretty solid group of women friends of my own as I transitioned out of the relationship. But Warren was TheEx's closest source of support, and so I kept my distance a little bit. We still stayed in touch, of course, but I always made it a point to avoid the annual new year's eve party the Warrens kept inviting me to. Every year TheEx would say that he had no problem whatsoever if I came to the party ...but every year I didn't go (and after awhile, I was dating TheMIG, so we didn't go....even though we were both invited).

Instead, TheEx and MyFavoriteKid would go to the party (and TheMIG and I would do....whatever), but also going to the party were most of my friends, the friends whose families had become mutual friends of the Warrens by that point, and were also invited.

Are you seeing how this all went?
It's part of how I ended up with the not-so-memorable-NewYearsEve-syndrome, I think.

Well, this year, as usual, I got an invitation to the party by email. And I don't know what came over me this year, but this time I accepted (after talking it over with TheMIG, of course...and MyFK...and TheEx....in that order).

Actually, I do know what came over me. What came over me is that early last year, a beacon of light shone down upon my sad little self, and I realized that I had been behaving like a hermit, and that I had been doing so for years. It just sort of crept up on me, so I didn't see it, if you know what I mean. After months of trying to figure out why I was a hermit-lady, I finally came to the conclusion that I had no friggin' idea! And that figuring out why might not help me solve the dilemma anyhow. I just needed to act. I needed to do something about it.

I spent a few more months trying to get up the nerve to try. And then around September or October I started really making a concerted effort to place myself in the path of people for a change.

It's been good (well, mostly good --- it's been sort of trial and error, and I've blown it several times, and in the process I have lost as many friends as I have tried to make, but that's another post), and last night, we went to the party. I got to ring in the new year with TheMIG, and with my friends, and with all of their kids (who, after a decade, aren't little kids anymore), and I also got to toot a new year's eve party horn with MyFavoriteKid.

Half the group.
Fuzzy. Because we were all laughing and carrying on ;-)

I am on the path out of hermit-town.
And I am hoping to keep traveling down it during 2012.