Hey
everyone…remember me?! I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch – life has been
incredibly hectic and stressful lately and I haven’t had the extra time to keep
up on my posts. I started a new Master’s program in January, I moved a month
ago, I recently started a new job and have also doing some freelance work on
the side…oh, and I’ve been adjusting to dramatically changing my way of eating
– four major transitions happening simultaneously. Throw in an extra-large
portion of some other life stressors, and it’s been one doozy of a winter! But since
I made a promise to track my progress on here, I’m making it a priority to post
tonight…since it is WAY overdue. And since today marks exactly twelve weeks
since I started Fighting Mick. Wow…
I
suppose another reason I haven’t posted in awhile is because the effects and
progress of this eating plan is hard to keep up with – it’s been a mixed bag
that seems to be changing all the time. I’m not quite sure how to recap it all,
so I think I’ll separate things into the positives and negatives…and maybe wrap
it up with a list of things I’ve learned so far.
Positive Effects and Successes
Although
I’ve been feeling rather wretched at times as my body adjusts, I’m trying
really hard to focus on some of the positive things that have already resulted
from my new eating plan and celebrate my small achievements so far. First and
foremost, almost all of my reproductive symptoms have already improved! And
that actually happened within two weeks. The chronic pain in my
pelvis/ovaries/uterus area is almost completely gone and my last two periods were
shorter, lighter and far less painful. YAY! The chronic pain I was having in my
lower back, hip and knees is almost completely gone too. My guess is the
improvements are due to decreased inflammation from no longer eating foods I’m
reacting to. And my chronic, excruciating right shoulder pain? SO much better!
I can actually sleep on my right side again…for a little while anyway.
When
I last weighed myself (after two months), I had lost almost 20 pounds. I’ve
lost 4 ½” across my belly button and between ½” and 2 ½” everywhere else. Now
the big question is have I lost 4 ½” of fat…or have my uterine fibroids shrunk?
I feel a lot lighter – I’m not bloated anymore and no longer have that heavy
feeling after I eat every time. My clothes are starting to fit differently…and
by differently I mean looser! I’ve been told by several people that my skin
looks fabulous and I have a new glow. I don’t ever get heartburn or indigestion
anymore, and my chronic daily sneezing has definitely lessened. (Well, at least
it had lessened until stupid allergy
season arrived in Maine almost a month early!)
I
haven’t really had a problem with cravings, which has shocked me. I mean, there
are definitely foods I miss, but there haven’t been things that I feel like I’m
dying to have. I have almost no interest in sweets, which is amazing. I don’t
know if I’m exercising incredible willpower, or if I’m just afraid to eat foods
that are on the “no” list. I’m pretty sure it’s the latter. I’ve been to several
parties (um, most of them baby showers actually) and managed to make it through
without starving or being totally distracted by the foods I can’t eat. For the
most part, I haven’t skipped meals and have eaten three meals and two or three
snacks a day. (I say “for the most part” because when things got really
stressful recently, I lost my appetite and definitely wasn’t getting enough
food daily). But since January 9th, I haven’t had any soy, gluten,
dairy, caffeine or refined sugar. I did try to reintroduce eggs and corn and
have had red wine a few times. The results? Corn seems to be fine (as long as
it’s organic and GMO-free), eggs made my joints hurt and gave me slight stomach
pains, and alcohol isn’t as appealing to me as it once was…and makes me feel
terrible if I have too much of it.
I
took a raw food “cooking” class with two of my friends this winter, which was
amazing. It was so fun learning new and interesting ways to get veggies and
nuts into my diet. We learned how to make almond milk from scratch and it’s
DELICIOUS! I’ve been making it 3 – 4 times a week! And in the evenings I’ve
been heating and frothing it and enjoying a yummy, creamy warm caffeine-free
drink. Almost as good as my English Breakfast tea with milk and honey daily
ritual! We also learned how to make yummy desserts (including the most amazing
dairy-free, soy-free ice cream I’ve ever eaten), and the class really helped me
to get excited about the food I can eat.
Oh,
and I’m completely in love with green smoothies. I have a quart of it pretty
much everyday…and I can definitely feel a difference when I haven’t had one.
These
are all great things…but just so you don’t think it’s all been a walk in the
park, I’ll tell you the other side of the story. There have definitely been
some major challenges…
The Not-So-Great Parts and Challenges
Well,
first and foremost, the detoxing and adjustments my body went through (and probably
still is going through) have not been fun at all. My bowels are all over the
place (oh not literally! – meaning they’re…well, how shall I say... “irregular”
and “not always the most solid”), my brain and thinking have been really foggy,
sometimes I’m super tired, my blood sugar has been all over the place, I’ve
been having weird adrenaline rushes, my PMS has gotten worse in some ways, and
I seem to be WAY more sensitive to things than I was before (caffeine, sugar,
fumes, toxins, etc.). While on one hand, I didn’t expect to see such quick and
dramatic improvements with my reproductive system (which I’m VERY grateful
about and amazed by)…on the other hand, I didn’t expect other things to feel so
much worse. The brain fog and fatigue has been really tough to deal with…especially
since I can no longer reach for sugar or caffeine to give me “energy.” I guess I
had an expectation that if I started eating so well, I would feel AMAZING after
a little bit – tons of energy, sleeping great, positive mood from all the happy
healthy brain chemicals…but it just hasn’t happened yet. I’m still waiting to
really round that corner where I’m like “OHHHHHH, this is how good I can feel!”
Other people have told me that it can definitely take awhile – that my body
needs time to clean itself out, heal and just adjust to these major changes. So
that’s what I’m hoping for…
Learning
first-hand about the close-knit relationship between insulin and adrenaline
hasn’t been all that much fun either. If I go too long without eating, my blood
sugar drops…and then my adrenaline peaks, along with cortisol…then I get
anxious and panicky and foggy brained. It’s definitely taken me awhile to
figure out how much time is too much time between eating. Also, the food I’m
eating now doesn’t stick with me as long as bread and pizza and crap used to…so
I get hungry again pretty quickly. Since the one thing my doctor keeps telling
me is to not ever let myself get hungry, I basically try to eat all the time. In
fact, I look at the clock all day long and force myself to stop and eat every 2
½ - 3 hours. Some days I’m more successful with sticking to that plan than
others. And when I don’t eat enough? Well, then I wake up in the middle of the
night or early in the morning with adrenaline rushes. I keep a jar of almond
butter close by, and have definitely eaten some in the middle of the night on
more than one occasion. It’s just really been a huge learning curve.
I
miss cheese. A lot. That’s honestly the one food that I still think about all
the time. Well, that and pizza. But more than any specific food, I just miss
the freedom of eating whatever I want – going out to a restaurant (which I LOVE
to do) and ordering what I’m actually in the mood for…as opposed to scanning
the menu for the two or three things that would be easiest to modify, and being
forced to pick one of those. And of course, that’s after I have to be the
annoying customer who needs to ask what’s in everything and request a bunch of
different modifications. After years of being in food service, I never wanted
to be “that customer.”
I
also feel like I’ve been going through a bit of an identity crisis.
Overly-dramatic? Maybe. But I used to eat whatever I felt like, and going to
restaurants and drinking socially were two things I did all the time and really
enjoyed. And when you can’t do those things anymore (at least not as easily)
and I have to plan everything I eat all the time and you strip away all the
vices we comfort ourselves with and stuff our feelings into (sweets, carbs,
lattes, alcohol, etc), you do go through a little bit of an identity crisis. I
mean, I dramatically changed a huge component of my life…so I guess it makes
sense that I might not really recognize myself for a little while.
And
lastly, in the back of my head is always a little fear that this won’t work…that
my cysts and fibroids won’t shrink at all, that Mick will beat me, and I will
still have to have surgery. Or worse, that the excess estrogen in my body will
lead to one of the many estrogen-responsive reproductive cancers. But I try
really hard to keep all of those thoughts way, way in the back of my head. I’ll
drive myself crazy if I don’t…
So
yes, there definitely are some challenges and doing this can be really friggin’
hard at times. But then I think about how just over three months ago, I was
supposed to have a full hysterectomy (something I wouldn’t even consider right
now based on my level of reproductive symptoms), I was in chronic pain, and my
digestion was a total mess. And thinking about those things is what keeps me on
track and sticking to this food plan and treatment protocol...because somewhere
deep down inside of me, I know that I will
round that corner (hopefully sooner rather than later) and no matter what, I will
be healthier in so many ways than I would be had I never made these changes.
Top Ten Things I’ve Learned So Far:
- Homemade almond milk is absolutely delicious and SO much better than anything you can buy in the store.
- It is imperative to carry nuts with me at all times.
- Planning my menus out in advance really does make a huge difference (as I’ve learned during a few different weeks when I didn’t do that).
- Chefs at fancier restaurants tend to be way more accommodating of my dietary needs.
- It really is true that if you can make it through the first 7 – 10 days, cravings will subside and eventually disappear.
- No matter how stressed out I get, I CANNOT skip meals…because the spike in adrenaline I get will only make me feel worse and perpetuate the stress cycle in my body.
- People can be super annoying when they’re drunk and you’re not.
- If I get off track at all with eating, I can feel a huge overall difference within three days of getting back on track.
- Living without chronic pain is way better than getting used to feeling crappy all the time.
- The power that food has over our health is absolutely incredible.
NOTE:
To any of you out there with experience following a similar type of food plan, I’d
love to hear if anything I’ve been experiencing is similar to what you’ve gone
through. Any thoughts, feedback, insights, advice, etc. would be much appreciated!
