Been a while…

Look at that, it’s been almost a year since I’ve posted anything here!

Things definitely have been…interesting…to say the least in the past year.  My job got even more stressful than I thought possible – giving me high blood pressure, anxiety attacks, insomnia, high morning cortisol levels, and I could go on and on and on.  Basically, it was sucking the life out of me.

Luckily, my wonderful husband figured out how to manage our finances so I could quit my job once and for all.  He went back to school!  Through the VA, the GI Bill payments (tax free) ended up being almost as much as my paycheck.  So basically, he is working two jobs so that I can stay home and get healthy (the schoolwork is pretty time consuming).  Fortunately for him, he was able to leave his job just 2 months after I did (we worked together, in the same stressful environment) and his new job is much better for him.  Fewer hours, no commuting, more respect.

We’re still not pregnant, and that sucks.  But, I started acupuncture last fall and have been going regularly.  The biggest news though, is that I was diagnosed with celiac disease in June.  My doctor was running some other bloodwork and I asked her to include the celiac panel while we were at it.  I wasn’t expecting a positive, but I was getting a little frustrated with a gluten-free diet and all the limitations.  It had been 9 months, and I was angry that we still weren’t pregnant and was starting to feel like everything I was doing was for naught.  I wanted the okay that cheating occasionally (a cupcake here, a beer there) wouldn’t hurt me…much.  And then it came back positive.

It was quite a shock.  I can say that I am so very glad that I know, at least.  I haven’t been tempted to eat gluten once since I was diagnosed, and have been extremely careful of cross-contamination at home and at restaurants.  I don’t think I’ve been “glutened” yet, and have been pleasantly surprised at the ease of ordering.  We’ve had chefs come straight to our table to make sure they know exactly what I can eat and to reassure us of their care in the kitchen.  Very cool!

With this diagnosis though, came a little bit of “poor me” syndrome.  With everything I’ve been through lately (Oh yeah, and did I mention we put our house on the market and it hasn’t sold yet?  Yeah, lots of stress lately.), I was treating myself to lots and lots of ice cream.  And not the great raw milk vanilla maple ice cream from our local farmer, but B.en & Jer.ry’s.  Pint after pint after pint.  So, loads of sugar.  Not great, and I know it.  And then the stomach aches immediately afterward started.

And maybe that’s why I’m writing here again.  I know that I need some serious gut healing, and just eating a gluten-free diet isn’t going to cut it.  I can’t tolerate uncultured dairy (raw milk yogurt from our farmer is fine, though), raw vegetables, or potatoes, tomatoes and peppers (nightshades, apparently).  Obviously, I need to get back to what I know is right – the GAPS diet, or something as close to that as possible.  My main obstacle with the GAPS diet in the past was and always has been…dairy.  I think I’m finally convincing my brain to accept the possibility of living without most dairy (still going to do the yogurt, I think).

My first step back toward following a GAPS friendly diet, was to toss the B&J’s.  I made this fudge, for when the sweet tooth hits, but I’ve also started drinking my kombucha again to try and curb it for good.

I’ve got some serious healing to do, and I guess I have to start somewhere!

Wednesday

Wednesday:

I woke up late, so I was able to grab my stuff for lunch but not cook myself breakfast.  So I ate the same thing for lunch and breakfast and it worked out fine.  Let me just note that I’ve never eaten liverwurst before this week – I just saw it at Whole Foods and decided to try it.  It’s pretty tasty – liver packs a pretty good punch nutrient-wise, so it’s nice to get it into my diet a little bit more.

Breakfast:  liverwurst with tomato slices and lettuce, handful of grapes

Lunch:  liverwurst with tomato slices and lettuce, bunch of grapes, bell pepper slices

We did go out for lunch, but I ate ahead and then just ordered a ginger tea with honey!  It worked really well – I didn’t get any funny looks, although DH was worried that I was going to be hungry while everyone else was eating.

Snack:  1/2 cup of milk, 2-3 slices of raw colby & brie cheese

Dinner:  I ate breakfast for dinner, since I missed out on my eggs earlier.  1 egg over easy with a spoonful of fermented salsa, 4 pcs of bacon (about 1 oz – very thin bacon), 1 carrot sauteed in leftover bacon fat

Other:  a spoonful of coconut oil in hot tea with honey – I was worrying that I wasn’t getting enough fat in my diet, so added the oil in just in case.  I forgot to take my cod liver oil and iron…whoops!

Tuesday’s menu

What I ate Tuesday:
Breakfast:  2 eggs over easy, 3 strips uncured bacon, 1/2 sliced tomato
Lunch:  1 left-over lamb sausage, a couple slices liverwurst with lettuce and tomato, a couple slices raw colby cheese, bunch of grapes
Snack:  1/2 glass milk, raw colby cheese, a couple grapes
Dinner:  I had unagi (eel), yellowtail, red tuna, scallops, and salmon. What amounted to a couple tablespoons of rice. No soy sauce.
We went out for sushi (DH reeeaaaally wanted to go out last night, since he had been working on the basement for a few hours – mostly to get a really good martini, I think.)  I wanted sashimi (fish with no rice), but DH ended up ordering sushi thinking that’s really what I wanted.  Sigh.  Oh well.
Other:  kombucha, cod liver oil, 3 liver capsules, Floradix, and a spoonful of ginger carrots

Monday’s menu

So, here’s what I ate yesterday:

Brunch – 3 grain-free crepes with honey, 2 eggs over-easy in butter

Snack -  1/2 glass fresh milk.  I let it sit out for 1/2 hour – room temp. milk is supposed to be easier on the stomach and I haven’t had milk alone in a while.  No bad reactions, luckily.

Dinner – We did another of our lazy-weekend smorgasbords:  lamb sausages with garlic and rosemary, eggplant and red pepper dip (I dipped with red & green bell peppers instead of chips or crackers), cheeses – goat cheese, brie, sheep’s milk cheese, mozzarella & tomatoes with fresh basil & olive oil, 2 glasses red wine

Okay, I’m not really sure where alcohol fits on this diet, but I think I’ll stick with red wine when I feel like I HAVE to have some.

Additional – 1/2 cup kombucha*, cod liver oil taken in a shot of Floradix (iron supplement), liver capsules

*I am going to be making my own kombucha again – it’s just way too expensive to buy it every week at $3 (or more) for 16 fl. oz.

not bad…not great

So yesterday was okay food-wise, but not the best.

Breakfast was 2 boiled eggs.

Lunch – I had a cheesesteak sandwich, but ate it open-faced not touching the bread.  We were forced to eat at a mall food court on our lunch break, and that was the only thing I could think of.  Probably could have left off the provolone, but it was basically steak, provolone, peppers, mushrooms, lettuce and tomato.

Dinner – snow crab legs with drawn butter

I am feeling a LOT less bloated today, so maybe eliminating the starches is starting to help?

yesterday wrap-up

So, yesterday went pretty well.  I ate my boiled eggs and chicken stock with veggies during the day.  We went to Cost.co over lunch to get some dog and cat food and some other small items, and my husband and sister both had a hotdog.  I was strong!  I stuck with my soup – eating it before we got there so I would be full and not tempted…

Last night, Hubby cooked up some spaghetti sauce with chicken sausages – he and my sis ate it over pasta, I just ate it out of a bowl.

I had some grapes for dessert.

I am still pretty bloated, but am also having ovary pain and thinking I might be ovulating early.  It’s hard to separate digestion troubles from endo pain sometimes…

Day 1, sort of

Okay, I have been having a rough time getting started with the GAPS diet.  I know I’ll feel better (and get rid of the bloating and other digestive troubles I’ve been having lately), but I haven’t been able to bring myself to start.  Probably because my husband is not 100% supportive of this and it’ll be really hard to have two separate meals everyday.  But mostly it’s because I am resenting having to make so many changes to do what so many people do every day without a thought – conceive a child.  The end goal though IS to conceive, and if it takes a diet to get me there, then I’m going to do it.

Today for breakfast I had two softish boiled eggs (closer to hard-boiled since I was in a hurry and forgot the eggs on the stove this morning).  For lunch, I had about two cups of lamb broth with garlic, carrots and onions cooked down very soft.

When I get home, I’ll probably have a snack of one boiled egg.

For dinner, I am planning on chicken with more carrots and green beens and a cup of broth.

So, you can see I’m starting the diet, but not technically doing the intro – you’re supposed to wait to introduce eggs, and I think you’re supposed to introduce veggies one at a time.  I can’t wait right now though – I need immediate stomach relief and I don’t have enough broth made or meat defrosted to do this without the eggs at this point.  And carrots AND onions make for better soup anyway .

My goal for right now is to stay 100% GAPS legal – not the full diet, but as close to the intro as I can get for about a week.  If the bloating has subsided, then I will move on to add more foods in.  If the bloating hasn’t gotten better, then I will hopefully by that time have more broth made and have more meats defrosting.  And then I can do the intro properly if I need it.

If I wait until I have everything perfectly lined up to do the intro properly, I’ll NEVER do it.  I’ve realized that.  So…wish me luck.  Oh, and I really think I need to order the GAPS guide book.

P.S.  I’ve been thinking of getting allergy tested.  Not that my approach would change if I found out I had a bunch of allergies, but because maybe then my husband might be a little more supportive of this diet thing.  Anyone have any luck with an uncooperative husband?  It’s not like I’m trying to make him do it himself….although he could probably benefit from it as well…

a month or so later

Well, I didn’t start the diet yet.  I was all geared up to do it…then we had a death in the family.  My mother-in-law died (after a 12 year struggle with breast cancer, but still rather unexpectedly) and the very next morning we hopped in the car and drove the 30-something hours to the southwest to take care of things.

And then we decided that as soon as we got back, we were going to put our house on the market and move out there as soon as it sells (hopefully soon).  So, lots of changes for us!

So, it’s been difficult getting things started for this diet.  I’m still pulling together my spreadsheet for my menus.  I HAVE to do this.  Otherwise, as I learned last time, my stomach starts growling for something and my mind goes blank and I end up losing it after a couple of days because I just HAVE TO HAVE eggs and butter and it’s not time to intro them yet.  So, I really want to be prepared.  So I can do this right.

Especially after all the travel lately (you try finding something decent to eat at 3 am on a highway in Oklahoma), my digestion has just been so OFF.  Worse.  Some dairy has been killing me – but not all dairy, I can’t tell how I’m reacting to grains and starches, and I am so bloated.  I’ve gained 5 lbs in the last month.  Not good.

I have been trying to eat as GAPS-minded as possible in the last week since we’ve been home – we’ve had salmon with an herb crust, squash cooked down to mush in lard (yumm!) with raw butter melted in after the heat was turned off, chicken sausages with spinach and feta inside and fresh tomatoes on the side, and roast lamb with sauteed peppers and onions.  Just this morning, I had two boiled eggs for breakfast (no problems there), then some watermelon (ouch, that started some growling), and some kombucha (hopefully will help with the growling).

Okay, now I’m off to work on my menus a bit more .

Getting ready

Soon I’ll be uploading some info on the intro diet to GAPS.  It’s an important step to prepare the gut for healing, and to help discover any food sensitivies.  There are several stages of the full GAPS diet, and I’ll post an overview, as well as menu plans.  Coming soon!

Tasks for the weekend:

-Make a list of fresh veggies (we have lots from our weekly CSA)
-Take stock of homemade broth (I made a bunch over the winter, but haven’t kept track of what we’ve used)
-Come up with a basic menu plan for beyond the Intro Diet, and a shopping list
-Look into getting a probiotic (BioKult is recommended)