Magic does exist!

I did magic tonight. You are not going to believe this. Actual, tangible magic. But more on that later.

Why the long absence? you ask. Well, as honesty is the whole point of this blogging business, I'll tell you. I haven't written because I am facing some adversity within my diet. Christmas was extremely difficult for me and the only part of the diet that I didnt cheat on was the gluten free part. Then, after christmas, it was extremely hard to build up any kind of momentum. I finally did it though, and I'm back on track. So now lets talk about the cool, interesting new stuff involve in this damn endevor.

First, lets discuss freaky produce. I was going along, minding my own business, trying to find a jicama, (talk about freaky produce. Its like a combination between a potato and an apple...and your supposed to eat it. So weird), and I see this giant green thing. It was big and round and looked like a green orange except it was like the size of my toddlers head. Well, It was big and weird so I had to buy it. Its called a pummello, which to me sounds like some kind of candy, so I had pretty high hopes.

I lugged this monstrocity home from the grocery store and plopped it down on a plate. Not knowing what it was, I wasnt sure how to begin to dismantle it to ready it for consumption, so I turned to that great repository of human knowledge, wikipedia. I learned that a pummelo comes from south east asia and it known as the ancestor of grape fruit. It described the butchering method and tools so I set of to the kitchen for an experience.

Not being a fan of grape fruit, I first recruited several test subjects. These being my stepfather and my daughter. I used a large serrated knife to make the opening incision, but, being such a volumous fruit, my knife did not even reach the other side. It became necessary to upgrade to a pointy bread knife.

Pummelos are redder than grape fruit and have a much, much thicker rind. They are also only half as tart and like, twice as sweet. After my test subjects injested several pieces of the fruit it became clear that it couldn't be that bad, so I consented to taste it. And I immediately wondered why we decided to improve upon Pumellos by inventing grape fruit? If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Candy, it is not, but its pretty nice.

Let's talk about magic! I am not eating nightshade vegetables right now which means that when I make veggie lasagna, I have to do it without tomato sauce or peppers. This means that I cannot make lasagna. I did a little research, to see if the impossible could be done. As it turns out it can.

Ladies and gentlement, tonight, I used the combined powers of alchemy and root vegetables to make a tomato-free tomato sauce. And it was GOOD. I know! Impossible right? As it turns out, its all in the spice. I was able to make a delicious red sauce using only beets, carrots, an onion and the right spices. I could not believe it! Tomatoes are out, beets are in! Yum.

Beets are pretty weird. I had my reservations, I admit. Firstly, beets are a purple vegetable. I am here to announce that no self respecting vegetable is purple. Secondly, they are sweet and taste delicious just all by their selves. I actually ate quite a few before we got to the sauce stage. Fun fact about beets: They were once called "blood turnips". Which, I'm sorry, but lets examine the crazy appitizing appeal of that phrase.

My new goal is to find some of these:

They are the Tim Burton of beets and I want to use them in my next batch of sauce. I also have been watching food network and I've decided that I need to try a blood orange. Now I just gotta keep my eyes out for them!!!

On monday I am going to use my new sauce to create a veggie lasagna. I will post pictures of steps and the finished work. And then I will eat it.

It's just like magic!

Wow. Its only been 6 days. I'm not even completely finished with this weeks menu, (I have one day left) and already a profound change has occured. I have gone from tolerating/coping with my diet to liking it. Talk about unexpected.

A few days ago? When I had made that green shake that I said was so awful? I've had it twice more since then. The second time I had it, I was like, "What the crap was I so upset about? This isn't THAT bad." This morning? It was more like, "Hey! This is actually pretty good!" It's a pretty big change in a pretty short amount of time... it almost makes me wonder if they put something in that stuff to draw you too it. You know, like the first time you try a cigarette and your lungs feel like they are on fire and your tongue feels all fuzzy? And then by the 3rd cig, your like, "Where have you been all my life?" It's like that. (Yea, I used to smoke. Yes, I cold turkeyed myself and have never looked back. Not relevant to this blog.)

I'm still not big on celery. But, I managed to eat my whole serving today with no gag reflex, so that's totally progress. And yesterday, I made a veggie lasagna that was orgasmically good. Seriously. It was so good, it almost turned into a trigger food. I barely restrained myself from eating the entire pan. The one thing that I have yet to come to grips with is the granola. Now, it may just be the type that I bought, but when I opened the bag, I smelled nail polish remover and when I tasted it, it tasted like melted plastic and evil. I'm hoping that they are not all that bad, because I am supposed to be eating it and I had to throw it away this morning. If anybody knows of a yummy gluten-free, nut-free granola, please, pass it on!

Lets talk about weird food. I got this cheese called Daiya. Its a shredded cheese that's made from soy. (I think). It has a funny sweet taste to it and melts differently, (more creamy, less stringy) but its not bad. I think it might grow on me. Then, there is also the soy yogurt. Soy yogurt is really good. Like, really, really good. Vanilla with a pinch of cinnamon in it, Man oh man. Coconut milk doesnt taste like milk. It also doesnt taste like coconut. Its just kind of there. I'm learning. And today, for the first time, I started looking forward to seeing what the next set of menus would bring.

Benefits? It's only been six days, but I have noticed a marked increase in energy. Today I woke up, bounced out of bed, (yes, bounced. Something I havent done since I was six, so it's noteworthy.) I made the days meals in half the time and then started laundry and cleaning. I was not the only one who noticed the new energy level. My coworkers thought I had fallen off the bandwagon and abducted a barista. I told them, no, this is my brain on veggies. It felt pretty good.

Weight loss. My pants are looser and I moved down a notch on my belt. That was cool. I'm waiting for January 2nd for the big numerical reveal.

Quit reading now if you're squicky.

So, for the last 3 years (ever since I was pregnant with my daughter),  I have had serious problems with the potty. So much so that I have had 3 years of constant fluxuation between constipation and diarrhea. Now, I'm Sheldon Cooper. I have gone, normally, at 8:30 every day for the last three days. This alone, is worth the whole thing. This is something that I have been medicated for, to no avail, and now, magically, poof! (Or rather, poop! :-) )

Tomorrow is going to be a challenge. I'm driving far, far away to take my daughter to visit an old friend and go to the zoo, so I'm taking my food with me. Wish me luck!

Hi, My name is Laura and it has been 4 days since...

...I have eaten fast-food or had a Starbucks coffee. So far I haven't melted or turned into a pillar of salt or anything like that. I think its going well.

Today I had a real challenge because my bosses brought El Pollo Loco to work for our holiday meal. It smelled really nice and looked all yummy and chickenish, but, I stayed strong. At one point, I very nearly gave in, but I told myself that I would let myself have a piece of chicken if I ate my lunch first and then still wanted it. Guess what? After I ate my lunch, I didn't want it anymore! Amazing.

Let's start at the top. Breakfast was the next closest thing to revolting. I took a half cup of coconut milk, a half a banana, two figs, a half cup of water, a half tbspn of molasses and a half cup of ice and threw it into the blender along with 1/3 of a cup "Ultimate Meal Powder". It went from creamy and yellow to green in about 2 seconds. The powder that they gave me is supposed to be full of awesome nutrients. It has 23 ingredients. Things like: Flax seed, Quinoa, Amaranth, Millet, Yellow peas, Spirulina, Nettles and a bunch of stuff that sounds like its made from plants that you might find at Hogwarts. Here's a pic of the resulting concoction:

It was so bad, I don't think even chocolate could save it. If I was allowed to have chocolate anymore, I could test that theory. Luckily, my friends had suggestions for me. Everything from spike it with raspberries to chuck it and hit the vodka. Instead, I drank it through a straw. (Everybody knows that crap tastes better through a straw).

 

Breakfast did fill me up though, so that was a plus. After breakfast, it took me a good hour to prepare the rest of the day's meals. I won't bore you with the details, I'll just share pictures.

 

This was lunch. -Brown rice with lentils and vegetables.

 



And dinner- Salmon with baked yams and vegetables.

 

I enjoyed both of these meals immensely. Today was the first time that I have ever tried lentils. I highly reccomend them.

 

Still no headache. I'm fascinated by this part.  Each time I have quit caffeine previously, I have been absolutely debilitated. Maybe it just hasn't hit yet. Maybe I will wake up tomorrow in excruciating pain and beg my mr. coffee for a fix. I guess we'll see. It's still too soon to be seeing any kind of health benefits, I'll just trust that they're coming. The best thing that I can say so far is that I haven't felt hungry or deprived so far.

 

Yesterday I posted about the expense of my groceries. I was curious today about my past spending habits, so I checked my bank account statement for last month. Last month I spent $447 on food, both at the grocery store and at fast food/restaurants. I definitely plan to keep all of my receipts so that I can compare the costs of the two diets.

 

Shame time! I wanna be able to do a "before" and "after" picture, so I'm going to go ahead and post my current "before" pic.

 

At work.



After I left the hospital the last time, I had lost nearly 20 pounds in about 2 weeks. My butt looked completely different. I ate it back on, and I'm hoping I can get rid of it again.

 

Ok, the kidlet finally went to sleep, its time to shop for Christmas presents! Only 9 shopping days left!!!



So you wanna play mind games? Well that's fine, go ahead, lalala, I can't hear you.

I mean't to post yesterday, I really did, but a 20 page final paper for a sociology class reared its ugly, MLA formatted head and demanded my attention. I won't let it happen again, I promise.

As promised, I went to two different health food stores on Thursday. Wow. Have you ever been to a health food store? Its a new experience. Firstly, both stores that I went to had supplement sections that were equal in size to the grocery section. They sell every powder, pill, poultice or potion you ever need that will do everything from provide a multivitamin to make your toenails grow faster. Amazing. The employees were sweet and caring and wanted to help me find things in their store... it was weird. Secondly, everything costs about 3 times as much as the products that you buy at the regular grocery store. The consumer in me is dying to go and buy as many products I can at Ralphs and compare my receipts. That is the plan for next monday. I shall report my findings then.

So, I have been on this new diet for 2 days now, and I have learned several things.

1. Eating this way takes way more effort than the way I used to eat. Today I spent an hour and a half preparing my snacks and dinner for tonight. What took so long? Chopping vegetables! Man. Halfway through I felt like calling my nutritionist and telling her that I'm going to charge her by the hour for meal prep-time. 

2. I'm going to screw up a lot. Not intentionally. Not in the "screw it, I have to have a chocolate chip cookie, right now!" kinda way. In the oops, I didnt know that, kinda way. 1st screw up was yesterday, when I ate Salsa Verde on my blue corn tortilla chips. I thought since it had no tomatoes in it, I would be ok, but, alas, as I have learned, both tomatillos and jalapenos belong to the nightshade family. Additionally, I bought some "Veggie slices" on the doctor's recommendation, and I actually enjoyed them. My friend Lesley was nice enough to point out that the cheese might have yeast in it, and sure enough, they have something called "Yeast extract (inactive)" in them. I'm not positive this is a problem, but I plan to call the nutritionist to get yelled at on monday.

3. I hate raisins and jicama. Everything else has been ok so far, but these foods are intolerable. Also, gluten-free granola tastes like plastic and nail polish remover.

4. Celery tastes way better if you remove the strings. I'm not lying. You gotta try it.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the week, to see how it goes. I wish that I could report a miraculous cure for all my ailments already, but, its way to soon. If anything, my pain is worse today. Something interesting did happen though. The last time I tried to detox from caffeine, I went into withdrawals like a heroin addict. Excrutiating headache, shaking, chills, vomiting... it was so fun. I haven't given caffeine up all together, but today I only had 57mg, which is like, less than a quarter of what it usually is and yet, nothing!

Today's stat's:
5'10'' tall
Pain: 8
Weight: I haven't weighed myself. I'm playing a mind game. I'm not weighing in until my next appointment on January 2nd.
Caffeine: 57mg

 

In case you're curious, this was my dinner for tonight. Its rice noodles, green beans, carrots, bean sprouts, and onions with tofu. It was actually quite good!

 

Credit for my title goes to: The Barenaked Ladies

If You Give A Mouse A Gluten-Yeast-Dairy-Peanut-TreeNut Free Cookie...

I'm a foodie. I love food of all kinds. And I will try anything once. I will try anything bad for me as many times as I can get away with it. Ah, Animal Fries.

Alas, if that were only the end of my post. Unfortunately, as the title implies, this is just the beginning. I am not a healthy individual. I am not talking here about my eating or exercise habits. I'm not talking about the fact that I worship at the cardboard shrine of Starbucks at least 3 times a day. And I'm not talking about the fact that I exercise about as much as Homer Simpson. I'm talking about my genes.

Since I turned 18, I have been a medical carousel of symptoms and syndromes. I have had so many diagnoses, I don't even think that House could keep them straight. (Oh, how I wish House was my PCP) First it was asthma, then they found the allergies, then the cholecystitis, then the Celiac disease, followed by Chronic Epstein Barr Virus, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. I have been to the emergency room more times then I can count and have been hospitalized enough times that I am starting to forget about them. Forget about listing my medications. Its gotten to the point where I just tell the doctors that if they want to know what I'm taking, they can damn well look it up. Its faster than trying to remember, and I always forget at least two.

Because of the autoimmune nature of most of my problems. My doctor thought it would be helpful for me to see a nutritionist. Obviously with the Celiac disease, I have had to give up wheat and gluten already. Don't get me started on that. Apparently however, there have been major advances made in the management of autoimmune disorders through dietary control.

Enter the nutritionist. My nutritionist is a doctor. She has a fancy title and a bunch of degrees. (I saw them in her office.) At the very least, this means that she knows more about food than me. (Although this fell into question when she had no idea about In-and-Out's Secret menu...) She didn't lecture me, she didn't condemn me for my monstrous eating habits. What she did do was analyze me to pieces. After filling out countless forms about my health, my eating habits, my likes, my dislikes, my symptoms, my hopes, my dreams and my collection of Harry Potter memorabilia, she sent me home. A week later, my analysis was ready. Now, I wish I could give you the break down the way that she gave it to me, but alas, I have neither the doctorate nor the desire. Here is the short answer. Before: Ate like a pig with serious homicidal tendencies towards vegetables of any kind. After: Will eat like a bird with a leafy green fetish.

Luckily, she didn't just give me a list and say "Do it or Die." She sat me down and talked (And talked and talked and talked) about why they were making each change and what I could expect to gain from the changes. This part I remember a little better.

Firstly, Gluten and wheat were out. This is no surprise. I have celiac, I knew I had celiac. Been there, done that, choked on the bread products. What I did get from this was that all products that say "gluten-free" are wheat free, but not all wheat-free products are gluten-free. Got that? Good.

Next, I am going yeast-free. This is more difficult because yeast is in a LOT of foods. The reasoning behind this one is my digestive problems. This is one of those "eliminate it completely and then we can try adding it back in in small amounts and see how you do".

Casein-free and dairy-free. This change is new and is also geared towards building the immune system back up. I'm interested to see how this works, because I am a dairy junkie. Between my manic latte consumption and my cheese fetish, I probably consume more dairy than a herd of baby cow-lets. Its not going to be easy to change this, but I think that if I'm going to see big changes immediately, this might be where they come from.

Red meat free. I have been wanting to do this for some time anyway. I am a reformed vegetarian, meaning I used to be, but now I worship at the butcher counter just like all the other red blooded Americans. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that chickens and fishes aren't animals. I'm just saying that they aren't CUTE animals. And also, roosters are really irritating.

My cholesterol is not bad, per se, but the doctor said that that was only because I was young and that if I continued to eat eggs and burgers like they were the last foods on earth, I'd be a bypass candidate by 40. So bye-bye beef, hello halibut!

Nightshade-free. This is the heart breaker. Do you know what nightshade free means? It means NO POTATOES! Just say goodbye to happiness, here's your bridge, bend your knees. Nightshades are a group of foods that contains potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants and peppers. Basically, everything good in the kitchen (and in life). I saw the nutritionist at 10am this morning and it has taken until 11:44pm for the shock to wear off to the point where I can process the benefits. Nightshades cause inflammation. Which means all the joint and organ pain that I have been experiencing might be able to be directly traced to the greasy mecca of potatoey goodness that is In-and-Out. (And Jack in the Box, Wendy's, McDonalds, and Carls Jr.) Fine. I can do this.
Nut-free. This is not one of my nutritionists recommendations. This one is mandated by my toddler. My sweet, precious, jewel of a baby is the reason behind the great peanut butter embargo of 2010. Its weird, I loved peanut butter. I ate an apple with peanut butter like every single day of 2009. Then this noisy little miniature human comes along with her peanut allergy, and I don't even mind. I'm over it. Peanuts are out, soy is IN.

Wow, you say. That is a lot of restriction. What on God's green earth are you going to eat now? Well, green stuff. Dark leafy green veggies, other veggies, chicken and fish (the ugly ones, remember?), some figs and pomegranates, and a couple of other food items thrown in for color and variety. But apparently its not just about what I eat, its about when I eat too. I have to eat within an hour of waking up in the morning and then keep eating every 2-3 hours until I go to bed at night. It's gonna be interesting.

Tomorrow is Zero-hour. I'm gonna wake up and eat my healthy breakfast and then I'm headed to Sprouts to buy the rest of the crazy stuff on my list. I can honestly say that I don't think I have ever seen a fig for sale, anywhere, so this will be a real adventure. Tune in tomorrow for the next part of the Saga.

In the interest of full scientific disclosure, here are my stats:

Height: 5'10''
Weight: 230lbs
Body Fat %: 40%
Current level of caffeine intake: 400mg a day.
Current symptoms: Pain level- 7. Daily heartburn. Migraines. Joint pain, abdominal pain, irregularity, skin rash, frequent infections.

Oh yea, did I mention that I'm only 25?