Grown-Ass Woman

In order to heal my gut, or at least try to, I am in the middle of a food cleanse, of sort. A Whole30. Today is Day 10, to be precise, and I am OVER IT. The cravings are mostly gone. I no longer dream of Diet Coke or a slice of cheese or a corn tortilla. I don't dream of them, I don't need them, but I WANT them. I want to eat what I want to eat because I'm a grown-ass woman who gets to make her own decisions about what goes in her mouth, thankyouverymuch.I am ANGRY about the whole thing. Stabby. Annoyed. Not at all, not a little bit, euphoric.

The Whole30 web site put together a little "what to expect when you are giving up all the delicious food in the world" primer. I think it is a web of lies.

THE TIMELINE: A DAY-BY-DAY GUIDE TO YOUR WHOLE30

Day 1: So what’s the big deal? 

Yes, this is true. I have switched to very low-carb diets in the past and they were usually much worse than this. Maybe because I've been gluten free for a while, or perhaps because I did it cold turkey with everything all at once, but the first day wasn't so bad.

Days 2-3: The Hangover.

A little. I mostly escaped this part of the Whole30 with some minor headaches and longing for cheese.

Days 4-5: Kill ALL the things!

I didn't really feel this way during days four and five. A little, but really just about cheese. Perhaps "Kill All the Things!" is where I am now. Except it is bleeding DAY 10, liars! 

Days 6-7: I just want a nap…

I was a little sad on days 6 and 7. And I really only wanted that nap if it included cheese. (I was shocked at how much I longed for dairy products in the first week of the Whole30.)

Days 8-15: Boundless energy! Now give me a damn Twinkie.

Lies. All lies. No boundless energy...just the slightly better sleep and less caffeine-withdrawl lethargy. Still, kill all the things. Particularly husbands who do not understand why it is important to buy the things I ask for at Sam's Club and children who insist on whining and hanging on me.

Days 16-28: Tiger Blood

Yeah, right. We'll see...

Day 29-30: HolyOprahIt’sAlmostOverWhatAmIGoingToEatNow?!?!?!

Day 31: Deep breathing. And maybe some ice cream.

If I am, in fact, in the "Kill ALL the Things" phase, then my "progress" is really five or six days behind. Which is super fantastic because what I want more than anything is to do this stupid Whole30 for a whopping 36 days instead.

Or maybe I really am in the Days 8-15 stage, the "Boundless energy, now give me a damn Twinkie" stage, but since I have all these other stupid autoimmune/vitamin deficiency/whatever problems, I don't get the energy. Just the desire for that Twinkie. Because I am a grown-ass woman!

I sure am hoping Tiger Blood is around the corner; that is the only way this thing is going to keep going. I can not slump through another 20 days of feeling like a child being told "no" every time I look in the refrigerator or pantry. And, this all better damn well be healing my gut. If I come out of this and my B12 levels still won't improve, I'm probably looking at needing vitamin shots for the long-term, which is not something I'm interested in doing. 

I am trying to remember that I am doing all of this to avoid a lifetime of subcutaneous vitamin injections in the belly. I am trying to be healthy for my self, my family, my daughter. I am trying to heal myself from the inside so I don't need as many pharmaceutical interventions. SO WHY CAN'T I JUST EAT SOME DAMN CHEESE??

Kill all the things, indeed.

Tips and tricks welcome

Day four without grains or caffeine or sugar or ohmygod...zzzzzzzz. Sorry. Dozed off there.

I'm a little sleepy. Partially because I haven't consumed any sugar, caffeine, processed food, grains, dairy or legumes since Thursday. Partially because I have a sucktastic neighbor who doesn't get home from work until 3am and then proceeds to smoke and talk on her patio at all hours making my dogs INSANE. (She keeps her noise down as far as human ears are concerned, so I can't really ask her to be quieter simply to appease my dogs.) Last night they started barking wildly at least six times between 11pm and 3:30am. I don't know what was going on outside, but the dogs were NOT happy about it. And so, neither was I.

The dietary changes, though, are rough. Especially on days when hitting the caffeine hard would be advisable.  Of all the things I'm not eating now, I miss dairy the most. Cheese on a hamburger. Chevre in my scrambled eggs. Butter on that steamed broccoli. Milk in the cream-of-broccoli soup. I don't find it particularly difficult to give up grains or even sugar, really. But dairy? I can't wait to add that back in and hope (fingers crossed) that it does not cause me any problems. Especially cheese. Cheese is my friend.

However, aside from the dairy dreams and the energy drop, I already am feeling better. Truly. Certain gut-health markers already have improved. My elbow is a little less sore the past day or so. My sleep is more sound (in theory...dogs suck). I've de-bloated a bit in the midsection. And all this after just four days. I know cutting out the sugar and grains really works for me. Now I just have to find the right balance of "strict" and "comfortable" to make a life-long change. And I have to evaluate certain sugars and grains one-by-one; I'm really hoping white rice can be added back in at some point (hello, sushi).

All this "clean" eating highlights the stark contrast in my child's eating. Like a lot of children, Evelyn does not like vegetables. ANY vegetables. Or, rather, she won't even try a vegetable to find out if she likes it or not. Fruits are the same. Except for bananas, I can't get the kid to try any fruits. My big recent victory was getting her to lick a piece of watermelon before declaring it "gross." Watermelon!

Right now, her diet consists of milk, crackers, the occasional corn dog or fish stick, the occasional chicken nugget, white rice with salt, and other snacky-carby-cookie-type things that are laying around the house from time to time. It is an excellent day when we can get her to eat a scrambled egg. A bite of cheese here and there makes me hopeful. But generally, she eats horribly and has no taste to try new things.

I know my complaint is common. I know all the suggestions to get her to be more adventurous. She cooks with us, we always offer her something healthy, we offer the same things over and over, we don't force her to eat something she won't. But still, her dietary blandness worries me.

Tips and tricks are welcome.

Hippocratic oath

It was brought to my attention that this blog has languished since moving into my new house. I wish I had pictures to show, but since the house has been a mess since the day we moved in, I have nothing to share. It is nice, I like the 'hood, I like the house, but I hate cleaning, and so there we stand.

It isn't the home ownership that has kept me from updating here, but all the other stuff. It seems like a million things (all expensive, of course) have come up since we moved. It has been one thing after another, most annoyingly some nagging health issues that have laid me low.

Long story short (although short is relative), one day I suddenly began experiencing mild, constant vertigo. The vertigo was accompanied by extreme irritability and exhaustion. Many doctor's appointments, blood tests, an MRI and more later, I have a vitamin deficiency. Vitamin B12. I've been taking B12 injections since then and I haven't had any vertigo since. Yay. Except it leads to a larger question of WHY I became deficient enough in a vital vitamin, of which I was eating plenty in the form of animal products, to experience neurological problems.



"I've never seen neurological problems from B12 deficiency in someone your age. It normally affects people in their 70s."
  -- My primary care doctor



I can only assume that since I was eating plenty of B12, I simply am not absorbing it. But why? My doctor is now curious about some other seemingly benign blood markers from my physical in January that may be pointing to a larger problem. That barely low hematocrit level in January, while appearing to be no big deal then, now seems relevant. What about that slightly elevated other thing? What about all those autoimmune conditions (thyroid dysfunction, IBS, chronic tendonitis) I've developed in the past few years? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Words like Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis and Colonoscopy and Pernicious Anemia get thrown around. At least its better than Brain Tumor and Multiple Sclerosis and Spinal Fluid Shunt that was thrown around when I was trying to figure out the vertigo.


But, since no one has any answers, and the answers could very well end up being "nothing is wrong," I've decided to take matters into my own hands. Even if nothing is wrong, I've felt like a bag of butts for the past four years. All day, every day, feeling tired and irritable and generally crappy. I assumed it was just life. Having a "spirited" kid, working a demanding job, marrying a complicated man, buying a new house. But now I'm thinking it is different. Deeper. 




"All diseases begin in the gut."
   -- Hippocrates



At the recommendation of my doctor, I've consulted a nutritionist to fix my gut. Except, with all these recent medical bills I can't afford a real nutritionist, so I'm consulting the wide world of never-wrong-or-conflicting internet nutritionists. Specifically Chris Kresser and Dallas and Melissa Hartwig. I'm embarking on a gut-healing protocol that I hope will help me start absorbing vitamins better. I'm embarking on an autoimmune-trigger-reducing diet that I hope will help calm some of the IBS and thyroid problems I've been having. In essence, I'm cutting out all inflammation-promoting foods (cereal grains, legumes, industrial seed oils, sugar, alcohol, processed soy) and all autoimmune trigger foods (eggs, nightshade vegetables, dairy). I'm adding in gut healers like bone broth. I'm giving myself one month of nothing but clean eating to see if things get better. To see if I feel like a human again. After the one month mark, I'll assess adding foods back in to determine what is making me sick and what is perfectly fine. (I'm really hoping dairy and eggs end up perfectly fine.)

I know this is extreme. It is. It also will be totally sucky. But something has to give. Something has to be causing all this crap, and food is the number one thing I can experiment with.

"The food you eat either makes you more health or less healthy. Those are your options."
  -- Dallas and Melissa Hartwig


I'll choose the former, please.