Now What?

I have another confession. I've not returned to Paleo perfect since this happened. I've been making better choices (like you know, not eating skittles every day or an entire box of peppermint patties-ugh!) for sure, but I could improve on those choices. And I need to.

As you know, my health is, um, wacky... we'll go with wacky. Sometimes I feel amazing, and sometimes a random symptom will reappear. Now I'll say this, even on my worst day since changing my diet, I feel better than my best day before this transition. That's a fact. But I don't want to just feel better than before, I want to feel my best. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting that, and I don't think wanting to feel my best and accepting that I may never be able to repair all the damage I've done are mutually exclusive.

There have been some new happenings. I'll go with newest first. I have some sort of weird rash. It's not a rash per se, but I can't come up with a better description for it. It's not psoriasis or DH, it's not eczema nor dry skin. I guess it's hives? I went to my doctor to get my back adjusted and asked him about it, but I would have had to take my pants off to show him what was going on (because it's on my legs people... I know what you were thinking!), and really, the adjustment room is not equipped to allow half naked ladies to retain any dignity. He thinks it's my detergent. I hope he's on to something. But not my detergent. The detergent my neighbors use in our very crappy washers is more likely. I really cannot wait to get out of this place, but that's another posting entirely.

There's also a terrible possibility that because my gut is still leaky - skittles aren't known for their gut healing properties you know - that I'm reacting to something I'm eating. Have I been taking in too much almond flour? I have been indulging a bit in paleofied baked goods recently. Or, heaven forbid, bacon? WHAT IF IT'S BACON?! Bacon is my main source of fat. Truth be told, I tend towards under eating, so eating something so high in fat every day is pretty important for me. But what if it's not bacon? What if it's my tea? I would rather it be bacon over tea. Yes, I love my Earl Grey more than bacon. That's saying a lot. What if it's not tea? What if it's the worst of all? What if it's chocolate?! I mean, I know there's a meaning to life outside chocolate, but I really don't know what that meaning is. Nor do I really care to be forced to find out. Or maybe it's garlic. I really don't know why a person would bother continuing to eat for the rest of their life if they can't have garlic.

Ok, so maybe I'm being a bit dramatic. But I do love all these things. I eat bacon and drink tea every day. Chocolate... not every day. Sometimes weeks will go by and I won't have it. But then there are times when you just don't get between a girl and her chocolate. Same with garlic.

Next problem. Men, you may skip over this paragraph ok? No really, don't read it. You'll be sad if you do. Ok ladies. I'm fluffy. You know what I mean. The bloat. I has it. I'm a small person. Any change in weight more than a pound or two shows. I just can't get away with it the way non-petite women can. I've been carrying around an extra 4-5 lbs for the last month or so. It sucks and messes with my body image (because you know, that's not a problem for women as it is), my clothes don't fit right and blah! That's how I feel about it. I'm wondering if the bloat and the hives(?) are related.

So here's my action plan. I'm currently doing a cleanse of sorts. Nothing major (I don't actually believe in "cleanses" for the most part - they're generally a bunch of expensive and potentially damaging hooey), but I want to work on my gut dysbiosis. So I've been taking a lot of probiotics, as well as an enzyme that is supposed to kill candida. By eating up it's cell walls. I almost feel bad for the little guys, but they've gotten out of control and I must bring order back. It's working. I've been doing this since the weekend, and have started experiencing a healing crisis. Those suck, but they're short lived and life goes on. First thing on the food chopping block is garlic. It's the thing I reintroduced most recently, so I think it's my most likely culprit. Then chocolate if that doesn't seem to work. Then I cry myself to sleep for a week and ponder the meaning of life because I'll have to give up either bacon or tea next. Oh first world problems, how you torment me so.

I'm also thinking about doing a fairly strict 30 day Paleo (almost) perfect plan. Sugar in my tea loves. It's my one real vice in terms of Paleo perfection, and I am still at a point where I can live with that. By thinking, I mean I've already decided I'm going to do that starting Monday.

Why not today? Well, this weekend is Christmas. My dad was sick on Christmas day, and my stepmother was out of town, so we decided last minute on Christmas day that Christmas would be this weekend. That means a movie, and a movie means popcorn. So Paleo almost perfect starts Monday and that's that.

And I guess next time I need to do laundry, I'll have to ask my dad and stepmother very very nicely would they mind me in their house for a couple hours while I run up their water and electricity bills...

Bacon

...it's what's for dinner.

I thought I made that up. Then I googled it just to check. I didn't make it up at all. Now I want this shirt.

And tonight, it really is what's for dinner. No meat is thawed. Leafy greens don't work to fill me up, and that's all the veggies in the house. So yes, bacon is what's for dinner. You may commence being jealous now.

Lightbulb?

Today I developed two "itchy bumps". If you didn't know, that's my shorthand for dermatitis herpetiformis. This is a skin condition that technically only Celiac patients develop. So since I'm "non-celiac gluten intolerant" thanks to my blood test, I guess the itchy bumps don't exist and aren't what they are? Anyway. Whatevers. That part is not really relevant anyway.

Those darn things can turn into a nice little psoriasis spot for me. I try to avoid them, and to heal them as fast as possible when they crop up for this reason.

I got to thinking today when the second itchy bump made me aware of its presence. What has been different over the last few days? One thing, and one thing only. Onion.

I freakin love onions! Raw, cooked, sauteed, gimme! They add great depth of flavor to anything you toss them in. (And people like to have lengthy conversations with you if you've eaten a whole bunch of onion. Promise! Go try it! I'll wait here.) But I don't have them very often. I've had a couple rings of raw onion on my Larkburger (of which I've had 2 in the last month) but no reaction. But yesterday, I tossed a bunch of dried minced onion in with my ground beef. Voila! Itchy bumps.

I have no idea why dried then sauteed minced onion would cause a reaction when raw onion has not. Usually it's the opposite situation when it comes to food reactions. But I've often been accused of being unusual, so I guess it follows. I have to look in to this one. Maybe I just didn't have all that much raw onion in the first place so my reaction wasn't noticeable? I don't know.

In the grand scheme of things, I would feel slightly sad (but I won't cry) to give up the onion. But I'd be much more sad to have to give up eggs for always. Today is day, um, hang on. Day 22 of no eggs. I CAN'T WAIT to eat eggs for breakfast on my first reintroduction day. Seriously, I just really like bacon and eggs for breakfast, so I truly hope I don't have to give that up. Begin your finger crossing now ok?

So that was a random bundle of words up there. I'm going to finish my bone broth - and think of how much you're missing out on with that C ;) - and unload the dishwasher. I know, my life is crazy exciting. Bet you want to be me huh?

Egg Free-Day 5

I forgot to tell you! I'm doing a Paleo Autoimmune Protocol. I eat this way most of the time since going Paleo as it is, but the big thing was eggs. You may remember, I wasn't a fan of cutting them out the first time round. But that was in my first 30 days and I was trying to find my way through.

I've never been a big fan of nuts, so that's not been hard. Though I do still have almond milk in my morning tea. However, what people tend to react to in almonds is the outer skin, which is removed in the process of making almond milk. Plus, it's like a whole 1/4 cup of almond milk a day. Big friggin woop. It's not going anywhere yet is what I'm getting at.

I gave up tomatoes a while back. I have never liked raw tomatoes, so really my only source was in chili as tomato paste, or pizza sauce. Since I've not been eating pizza since going Paleo, and since I just don't eat chili all that much (I made the conscious decision to have Melissa's Chocolate Chili last week. Seriously so worth it. Buy the damn cookbook! You can thank me later.) it wasn't hard on me either.

Peppers...that was kinda hard and I only officially cut them out as well on Monday along with eggs. Not long after (maybe a week or two?) starting Paleo, I made fajitas with red and green bell peppers. My stomach protested. I was sad. So I gave those up - with the hope of reintroducing them after a long period of healing. But I have Chalula hot sauce on my scrambled eggs every morning. Didn't seem to be having a reaction, but that's the only time I eat any form of nightshade now, so it was automatically cut when eggs went out the window.

This week has been hard for breakfast. I've basically been having the same salad I have for lunch at breakfast. But it's a lot of food, and my tummy is not ready for that volume first thing in the morning. I eat as much as I can, but end up having a good portion of my breakfast at lunch too. Problem? I'm starting to get hungry again by 10:30. My egg and bacon breakfasts had been keeping me comfortably full until around 11:30 and lunch is noon, so that wasn't a problem. First world problems I know, but getting back to good health (though I question when I was ever actually truly healthy...) is my number one goal. I'm also not much of a snacker. Thankfully Dallas and Melissa think that's good :) Maybe I'll add another strip or two of bacon! :) For the fat you know... Keeps your stomach satisfied longer. I love bacon.

This is going to be a sad thing to admit. I'll start with the good. My psoriasis seems to be clearing more. I should be jumping for joy over that. And don't get me wrong, it does make me happy. But I love eggs! I obviously can't conclusively link the healing directly to cutting them out. I just finished paying up my girl club dues, and my psoriasis always seems a bit better after that for some reason (something else to research) so it could just be that. Or it could be that even though I didn't think I was reacting to the seriously miniscule amount of nightshades in Chalula, maybe I was. Doubtful, but a girl can dream can't she? I'd much rather give up peppers than eggs.

I'm doing this for at least 30 days before I do any reintroduction. Then I'll know. Cross your fingers I only have to give up hot sauce!