Releif

It was a horrid day at work. And since I cannot have booze on the job, I jumped ship. I haven't tested Oats at all during the three days we had scheduled. Instead, today, I went and got myself a Cold Stone Creamery Cheesecake Ice Cream cup. And it was sinful and delicious and I don't care. The worst that it seems the ice cream has given me is gas. If that's the worst of it, then hell, as long as I keep the dairy in moderation, I'm pleased. I'll try oats and millet some other time. I'll keep to the schedule in the household, but I'm otherwise declaring myself done with the elimination diet.

Results: Need Preleif if I'm going to eat tomatoes (found that out with a tagine this weekend). Need to avoid the HFCS and the MSG. Caffeine in moderation and only early in the day. No artificial sweetners at all. My body definitely doesn't want any of those.

Probably should cut back on the wheat and not be so attached to the dairy. And more moderation in the alcohol than I had been as it makes me tired and sloth like. But otherwise, I can eat most things so long as they aren't prepackaged and pay attention.

The payment for such decadence though is I had to bike today. I wasn't really feeling it when I got home. But later, after I had eaten dinner and had a light cocktail (I did say it was a horrid day at work, right?) earlier and sobered up, I went out.

It was a route I've done once before, along Minnehaha Creek, and this time I went all the way up the hill at the end to Lyndale. That is a freakin' awesome hill. Very satisfying to turn around and ride at least half a mile on that speed without having to pedal. 3.6 miles today. All on my own. And I biked up both hills.

I'm thinking that if I get up early enough on Saturday, I should push myself and try to bike around Lake Nokomis. Even if I have to wait for 10 minutes to have my heart rate go down again, I want to go 5.5 miles. My legs were only a little wobbly at the end of this. :-D

It's either that or the Farmer's Market in St Paul. But that might not even be necessary as our CSA starts up this week. Woo!

Unexpected

So, went away for the weekend the same point we got gluten back. Gluten seems to have generally gone well, except for the part where wheat makes one crave more wheat. The big problem of this weekend happened when we went to a Chinese Buffet though, thinking we might be able to eat some of the stuff.

No, we were incredibly ill on Saturday night, and even by Monday I'm still not feeling right. It was pretty immediate and there was way more time than bad reactions had been taking, so I'm pretty sure that it's the Chinese food and not the wheat or the accidental dairy that I had. So I'm guessing that the problem with pizza really was the tomatoes, and not the dairy. Weird. Must be MSG. It's the only thing we can think of.

Much to our disappointment though, there was no biking still. The weather has been just crap. So we drove down there and the bikes stayed on the back of the car the whole flippin' weekend. Not the fab getaway I was hoping for, but it was still lovely to just have some relaxing time with him. I just wish it had been... well... healthier.

update

Still have not managed to get on my bike. The weather has been for crap, and on the nice days I've been incredibly busy as it is. May 1 is a busy busy time for me, with 5 different meanings for me, including PiC and my's anniversary.

Good news is that eggs are not a problem. Nor does yeast seem to be, other than the fact that yeast seems to make me HUNGRY. As in I've eaten more in the last couple of days than I had all up to now; I wonder if this is why I have historically overate.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe my problem is ultimately a candida issue, and this diet that we've been on really hasn't addressed anything like a systemic candida infestation. If I'm still concerned about something like that, then I might try personally removing some of the candida feeding things and see what happens with that in a couple of months. I'm not going to make my family do this again.

This weekend though, PiC and I are headed to New Ulm. There will be a winery, and a brewery, and biking. He's in charge of finding the bike trails we're going to go on. :) I seriously need a break from the cities, so this is going to be good.

On sugar and lack of desire for it.

One other curious thing that I have noticed since introducing sugar back. While it is useful for the properties in cooking etc, I find that I really crave it like I did previously. I don't find myself thinking about it. I don't really want it that strongly, other than in chocolate.

A part of me wonders if this will happen when I test wheat and gluten. I'd like for them to be not as big a deal.

But really if the only thing that happens from this is that I have broken my sugar addiction, I manage to avoid HFCS, and I eat tomatoes only on rare occasion, I think that this whole process has been a win, for as frustrated as it makes me.

Stand Still, Move Forward

My weight has been pretty stable for the last week or so, hovering at the same weight within a .5 pound each way. We also introduced sugar back in, though I'm keeping it limited, so that probably has something to do with it. The side effect of me staying stationary with the weight loss has been that I'm starting to feel kinda... blimpy. Even at 20 pounds lighter than I was 2 months ago. And still at least 3 pounds from my current goal/benchmark.

It's kind of ridiculous, I can see when I look at that objectively. Hell, I can even look at myself in a mirror and see the difference. It doesn't make a difference in my feeling about my body from within my skin. I need to be at least 20 more pounds lighter by the end of the summer, I think. That's with the recognition that it's going to be a hell of a lot more work from here on out. And meaning I'll need a whole new wardrobe for winter.

I didn't get out at all on my bike last week though. I'm not kidding myself that that is disconnected from my current standstill on weight. But today was a gorgeous day and I had time from all the other productive things I've been doing with my time, so I went out alone for a ride, just down to 28th Ave and back along the creek.

Gorgeous day. The trees are blooming though, and pretty though it may be with the orchard like lining of the bike path for stretches, I can feel it in my lungs. 3.6 miles. And when I got back I was wheezing a little bit. Depressed myself with the walk up the hill back to the house again and just feeling exhausted. But then I looked at a time stamp of a Facebook status I made, and it said it had been 26 minutes since that post.

Well, knowing at what stage that I was at in getting out of the house for my ride at that point, I have to say I was out there for at *most* 20 minutes on that bikeride. Which is 10 minutes faster than I had ridden it the last time I did that. Well hell, no WONDER I was out of breath and exhausted when I got back. I sprinted instead of doing endurance biking. But still a good workout at that, and more than I had done before.

So faster, if not longer. I think I can take that as progress. I need to pace myself better during this week, and see if I can make myself go longer then. I want to try a 5.3 mile ride next weekend around Lake Nokomis, even if I have to stop for a while. But I need to see if I can push myself a little further if slower this week. It is supposed to be nice all week, so I have to insist on getting out in the afternoon when I get home. Weekend might not be nice until Sunday. But hopefully there is at least one nice weekend day for my expedition.

And maybe this time next week I can be down 2 pounds again, and closer to goal weight. Well, my current goal weight at least.

As for the elimination diet, I accidentally had HFCS on Friday. You see, I was certain that I knew what went into sushi. What I didn't count on was that the vinegar in the sushi from Macy's downtown had freakin' HFCS in it. I kinda shrugged my shoulders, and moved on, but later that day I started noticing the heart racing/anxiety reaction. I'm fairly certain that the HFCS is the culprit, because regular sugar, and even regular fructose didn't cause that. There was nothing else in the sushi that I hadn't had before.

So I will have to wait until we get to corn at the end of May to find out if it's corn that is the problem or HFCS in particular. All I know is that shit is EVIL.

HOLY COW

Sugar is sweet.

That is all.

Definitely no tomatoes

We had pasta last night, with tomatoes cooked and tossed in with the rest of the food.

This morning, I not only have digestive unhappiness still, but I have a splitting headache and ache all over. It's kind of like a hangover, to be honest. And I'm pretty well miserable.

Yup. That would be the problem. *sigh* I'm going to have to figure out how to get over this. Even if I have to do the homeopathy thing to try to mitigate. I will desperately miss them. If it's the only thing, I might try to figure out who to live with it. But.... Great unhappiness.

More confused than ever

Had lamb kabobs on the weekend. And I did not have the same sort of GI distress that I had on my birthday. Not by a long shot. And so now I'm unclear as to whether I can be eating red meat or not. Unless the fish was bad. Or the tamari wasn't wheat free. Or there was hidden butter at lunch on my birthday. Or something else I missed. *sigh* Or maybe I was just sick.

Caffeine had the same effect that it always does. Which is to say Monday I'm tired and dehydrated. We're going to skip that whole tea thing except on weekends, I think. And I will not be going anywhere near Coke again. Ugh. Morning came too quick this morning.

I think caffeine has also contributed to my mood issue. That and my general back crappiness. I cleaned a bunch in the apartment this weekend, me and the housemates, and that was about all the activity I could handle. I missed a social engagement, I couldn't go biking, because I was on a painkiller that lasted way too long. And now I'm on the emotional downslide from that. Meh.

5 pounds away from my latest goal, and that's for the end of the month. We'll see. I really want to make the stretch goal, not just the official goal.

Too fast

So yesterday was my birthday. I tried to craft something that was both of the sort of food celebration that I associate with my birthday, but also within my diet.

Breakfast was waffles, with ground flaxseeds and water standing in for the eggs, and a gluten free mix we found that would fit the plan where we stand right now. They were... Okay.

I also ate at two restaurants.

The first was a greek restaurant that I am quite fond of, Gardens of Salonica. There I split a slab of lamb and half of one little potato (there were three of those on the plate) with PiC. And a little plate of olive oil soaked artichoke hearts. My mouth was singing. My head felt a little cotton stuffed, and that was consistent with the potato but I otherwise didn't feel all that off.

Went biking. 3.6 miles, down to Lake Nokomis and down a small bit before resting and then heading back. It was beautiful if just a little cold. If we keep having weather like this in March and April though, I'm going to stop complaining about Minnesota weather.

We came home and had ice cream that was dairy free and made with coconut milk. It was okay, but I'm sure I won't be having that again. And I had my banana and one dried papaya strip.

Then we went to Fuji-Ya, which I haven't been to for sushi in a very long time. We were very upfront with our waitron and she was as obliging as could be. We got 3 sashimi platters and a bowl of miso and requested tamari for our dipping sauce with the wasabi. I found out that I *love* red snapper, which I had never been aware of having before in sushi form.

We got home, and I was immediately sick. In a fashion that I have not been since we started this diet, it wasn't even this bad with the tomatoes. But with all that I had, I can't point to something and go "a ha, this is the problem".

I'm seriously heartbroken. I can't handle getting sick everytime I go out to eat again, but now I'm a little gunshy. I don't have a clue what it was that caused it.

It might have been the lamb, but I'm not certain. Red Meat is supposed to be hard on the system, especially if one has IBS. Or it could have been the volume of coconut milk. PiC thought it might have been the raw fish too, but that just doesn't seem right to me. Or maybe it was the potato, but I didn't have that reaction to potato before so it's even scarier because now my body doesn't seem a predictable place.

I'm going to suggest that we try lamb again on the weekend. Please don't be the problem so that I can never have the world's most perfect meat again. :(

Towards the New Normal

There were intentions on biking today, but I think I might have slightly over did it yesterday. I mostly was kinda tired today until I hit the point where I was flat out exhausted and had to sleep. I think that's because I failed to eat lunch. Shouldn't do that again. But even having had a positively fabulous dinner, I haven't quite perked up and still feel kinda sluggish.

Even my mom, who I Skyped with this morning for Easter mentioned that I look like I've lost quite a bit of weight. Hit 17 pounds lost this morning with yet another pound gone and I am in awe.

Dinner though was I think one of the best things we've done since we started on this diet. And I mentioned that with the dinner we made, I feel like we're finally heading back into the realm of Normal with our food choices. Just healthier.

We had grilled chicken that was brushed with an olive oil/agave nectar/fresh poultry seasonings blend. And he grilled them to perfection, even the little bit of charring was *tasty*. Grilled asparagus too.

And then because we're testing the tree nuts at this point, I made a pilaf for the side. A pilaf is sorta like a risotto and sorta not. Whereas with a risotto you *must* stir it and you add the liquid a little at a time, a pilaf you *must not* stir it. But otherwise it is the same. You take the things that will be in the pilaf, you saute them up, you saute the rice in the oil with them, and then you add the liquid all at once and ignore it until the liquid is absorbed like a regular rice.

Our pilaf had onions, the rest of the poultry seasonings, whole skinned toasted hazelnuts, and chicken broth for the liquid for our medium grained brown rice. OMG it had been a long time since I'd done a pilaf and this was incredible. Maybe it's not as classic as some, but it certainly worked for our tastes.

I think one of the best things about this elimination diet is that it's forcing us to think of new ways to use our food as they are available. The nuts is what made me think pilaf, especially when I decided I didn't want the hassle of doing hazelnut encrusted chicken as had been my original thought for tonight. This seemed easier.

But also, tonight was the first time that I felt like we were back to "normal" food. I don't really know what it is that switched in my head with the nuts. I think in part because with each thing we add so many OPTIONS are coming up as possibilities. While there are certainly things that I miss, tonight, I didn't want for any of it.

And that feels really cool.

Round and round we go

Survived Chicken just fine. And beans, they were never an issue. I did on the last day of Chicken try Potato and Pepper again, but in smaller doses than I typically have. I suspect that if I have my nightshades very limited, and time it with my cycle properly, that I can have them in small quantities. We'll still try tomatoes again later.

Tonight I'm baking a Turkey breast. So as to have that with lunch tomorrow too. Good, because I'm getting sick and tired of salad. This does not bode well over all.

Mostly, the big news is I'm back on the bike, twice this week. Yesterday I biked 1 mile as I tried to and failed to make it to the store that is 1 mile away. I only made it half way when I realized I had forgotten my lock and so therefore had to turn around. At which point I knew that while I could make it there, I was too tired to make it back easily from the store, and so just drove. There were hills too, so it wouldn't have been an easy mile. We'll try next time.

But today I had more energy. And I biked a little further than I did with PiC and OSO the last time I went out with them. 2.8 miles. I was aiming for 3, but I didn't check my route before hand and I think that worked. I bet if I actually went down to the lake and then back it would have been 3 miles. Ah well, next time. All in all that took me about 30 minutes on my own. And I feel AWESOME. And stinky.

I looked at the map though, and if I can handle biking to, around, and back from the lake, that is 5.5 miles. That's about how much it would take to get to work. And I'd be able to bike commute like PiC does. So now I have the training route I'm aiming for. :)

I did have a small bit of Not Good Enough while biking. I wasn't "dressed" right, I was going kinda slow, but I was out there. And it's going to take time. None of them gave me shit, just wanted me to get over when they were going by faster. And I don't blame them.

Also? It's a lovely 80 out there. Perfect perfect weather. Yeehaw.

Not much new today

I haven't started on the bean additions yet. The plan is for a salad at lunch with chickpeas! I forgot to do my hummus, but I will be making some to share with friends tomorrow. I love me some hummus.

I did also do the measurements of myself instead of weighing myself this morning. There's something satisfying about seeing that in the last month, your hips have reduced by 3 inches, your waist by 1, your thighs by 1 each...

I can even feel the difference in my skin. And that's a good thing.

Tomorrow morning, some of the frozen fruits for a happy smoothie. Complete with soy protein.

Bump in the road

Well, I think I ran across my first intolerance.

I had a small bag of potato chips at lunch yesterday. Everything seemed extra sharp and defined afterwards and I was more sensative to light. Also my joints that hadn't been aching started aching as well. Essentially it is looking like potato has a potential migraine trigger effect for me. We're going to try them again tonight, but I'm not optimistic.

Then for dinner we had rice pasta with red sauce. Mmmm tomatos. Except it felt like my entire GI tract was on fire as a result. Sore throat, upset stomach, unhappy lower GI, a mild *fever*, and I'm still feeling like crap this morning. Which makes me wonder if I just managed to catch something during this, with the whole fever thing, but I won't be able to try this again until after we finish testing everything.

Foo. Foo, I say. No paella for me. No Italian, no Mexican, no so many of my staples. It would explain why I felt like such crap all the time though.

Ugh. I wish I were back in bed.

Venturing into the land of Soy

Well, post lemons, we started with tamari. OMG that has completely opened up a whole realm of flavor. Like fried rice! I love tamari, more so than soy sauce. It is the liquid created from the fermentation that creates miso. So I get to enjoy the salty joy of it. No problems with that.

I sped ahead on half way through day 3 getting myself a soy protein shake thing to have at work when I need extra proteins. It's desperately gross. But helpful at least because it does fill me up. I don't think I'll be bothering much with it unless I'm making smoothies.

This morning I got to create a tofu scramble and "home fries" made out of sweet potato. Both tasty, though I think I need to practice the sweet potato one. The tofu scramble was yummy, but still kinda tofu-flavored. I think I need to be heavier on the spices for that one.

The weather had been great, but I had too much other stuff going on at home to be able to bike during the day after dinner. I can't wait for it to be light enough for that. And now it has gotten cold again. Tomorrow should be nice, so I should be able to bike tomorrow in the afternoon for a while. I miss the bike.

And in other fabulous news, I'm just about on goal for weight loss by my birthday. Well, I made my weight loss goal more in line with the rate that I'm actually losing now. And that's 5 pounds heavier than I wanted. But meh, 4 more pounds in 18 days, I think that's a reasonable goal to have by my birthday. And if I'm not quite there, well, I'm okay with that too. The point is that as the weight comes off, I feel better and more able to move, so it comes off more easily if I exercise. I haven't measured my body though. I should do that to check how that's changing. I bet it would be more satisfying than the typical ~2.0 pounds a week.

I do love how it is just melting off though. I really like that a lot. I have to remind myself, if I have a dramatic weight gain, it is likely due to something I added back. PiC has also dropped about 15 pounds himself, being a guy. OSO mentioned today what she was at too, and that was a good level though I'm not sure what volume of poundage that is. Though apparently her bras aren't fitting as well, poor thing. We're going to wait just a little bit and then go get her another one.

It is so much easier to lose weight when the whole house is eating healthier food.

I Less Than Three Lemons and Bikes

I believe that they are what has kept me from going insane now. My food had FLAVOR today. I went so far as last night I ate a whole cooked lemon slice I was so in love with the lemony goodness. No adverse reactions to them, though I'm have a weird fluttering on the right side of my waist. Not sure what that is all about.

I'm dropping about 2.5 pounds a week according to my FitDay tracker. A little higher than is healthy, but I also had the first jump start of water weight in that, so I think I'm still ok. I spent a good portion of today rearranging things in my room and the bathroom so that the apartment is a little cleaner. And we can get to the scale more reasonably.

It is the first gorgeous day out today. So it's the second day that we went out biking. The trails were dry, if gritty. But it was lovely out. And I was winded by the end of it.

Now this is where the critic in me starts going on about how I should have been able to go further. That I used to bike all the time as a kid and would go for miles, and this was a measly half hour of biking. Then PiC and OSO pointed out that we probably went a couple of miles. I was skeptical. But then I went and looked up how far it was that we biked. And yup, down to that intersection it's a mile, so we biked for two miles. It went so *quick*.

Ok, I'm not the most strenuous biker, and by the time we got back, PiC was asking if he could go out again, but it's time to start on dinner so we had to say no he couldn't go out for longer. But maybe we'll let him afterwards. :)

But 2 miles. 145 calories. That's as good as my time on the Wii some nights, so I'll take it. I may even try to go out on my own this week to try to build up my stamina so we can be out for longer as the season goes on. It would be super cool if we could bike to the falls, picnic, and come back.

But 2 miles. I biked 2 miles. And it was awesome.

Last day of nothingness

Tomorrow morning marks two weeks on this crazy elim diet thing. And the day that we start adding things back in. Starting with Lemons and Limes. I only failed twice. Once by accident when I put olives on my salad.

Once by completely just having a "fuckitall" moment when I put two splashes of vinegar on my salad because I just couldn't cope with the taste of dirt again. I tried to grab the thing that I thought would least mess with the detox and go for a minimal amount. But I would have completely broken down crying that day if I hadn't. No obvious adverse reactions to it though.

I feel like few people know what this has been like. I could be wrong, maybe far more people are used to diets like this and my priviledge is just showing through. I'm just excited that my food is going to have some Flavor again. Even on Weight Watchers I wasn't this obsessed with food.

The smell of pizza makes me want to weep.

That lemon and dill fish and lime vinegrette salad tomorrow is going to be the tastiest freakin' fish and salad I have ever eaten. Ever.

Weight loss has slowed significantly. I'm okay with that. It looks like it's about a pound a week now. It has rained pretty much every day since we biked last Sunday. I'm not as okay with that. I still feel like I kept to the spirit of things even if I failed at keeping to the exact letter. And I never ever ever have to be on this restrictive of a diet again.

weak

I wonder if I should be worried that my cravings are not getting better, they're getting worse.

Today's it's for Greek food. I want a gyro and spinach pie.

physical changes

One thing that I'm finding I really like about this is I'm finding I'm sleeping a hell of a lot better. As in my insomnia is just about gone. I'm not having problems falling asleep, I'm dreaming pretty regularly, and I would sleep longer if I had the time to in the morning. To almost 7 on weekends even.

I'm still a bit tired, but I feel otherwise rested. Sleep disturbances are going to be one thing that I very distinctly pay attention to as we start adding in food. I didn't think this would be quite so dramatic in this regard. Maybe others, but this is downright nice.

My general congestion does not seem to have gone down though. Which is making me think that it is likely the cats that I have a slight allergy to. I can't think of any other particular allergen that I am dealing with, so it would make for a good candidate. Which means needing to seriously clean the apartment and figure out how to keep it clean going forward. And unless things shift very dramatically with food, I'm not going to be able to use that as a gauge.

The last thing that is problematic, however, is that the muscle tension has significantly gone up as the joint pain has gone down. As in my right shoulder has been seized up for something going on 3 days now. I cannot get it to relax for anything, and I may have to resort to taking some herbal relaxants that I have so as to get some relief for it. It seriously hurts to distraction. There's a few more days on the detox section, just through Friday. I'm hoping I can also get a massage in there. That would help a bunch.

Shifting Sands

So, one week and one day down. It has been one hell of a week as well. A number of other things have come to a head in my personal life that in theory have absolutely nothing to do with the cleanse that I'm on.

What I'm finding fascinating is how one handles change and crisis and the like when many of the typical crutches are removed. I can see from here that I use some of my epicurean tendencies to avoid the things that I find unpleasant. Or recover from them.

I've gotten two pieces of news that I really didn't want this week that creates quite a bit of stress in two different environments I spend an awful lot of time in. In both instances, my typical response would have been a fabulous dinner, a bottle of wine or a equally fabulous cocktail, and completely tuning off and forgetting about whatever it is that is causing me stress until I have to go and deal with it in person. Often with whatever I have in my head at that point instead of thinking through a response.

I don't get that luxury now. Though I will admit I had an almost tantrum because I couldn't do whatever it is that I wanted. I didn't toss it all aside like I was tempted to do. But the more that I do that, the easier it is becoming to not rely on the coping mechanism, feel my emotions fully, and move through it. Well at least I think I'm moving through it. I might just be more upset than otherwise. I can't say at this point.

I was looking for a way to re-engineer my relationship with food. I think this is doing it. I just wish it didn't suck so much. And I still miss fabulous meals and bottles of wine.

No headache today. At least so far. It's the first day that has happened. Made teff muffins yesterday for breakfast today. They were fantastic yesterday. Today... they're a little more like sand. I can't say if that's just my attitude today though. Dinner last night before I went over tasted like dirt too.

Or maybe I just have a bad attitude over all with my lack of habitual coping mechanisms.

Today

I really miss eggs.

Day 6. Back up as many pounds. And I'm okay with that, if a little confused as to how.