November Reflections: Grain-Free and almost Stress-Free

I had so many blog posts I wanted to do, explicitly focused on my birthday, my talk with Cheryl, my grain-free week, and a few recipes as well. But life had different plans for me, and for the first time I am totally okay with it.

Ostkaka: my birthday "cake"

My birthday week was quiet. So quiet, in fact, that it went by in a blur of rain, school, and work. Both my Anthropology teachers canceled their classes on my birthday (divine intervention, perhaps) to attend conferences in Montreal and New Orleans, so I spent my day doing absolutely nothing. And as I mentioned before, I’ve been trying out the grain-free, one fruit a day (not including the lemon water I use for drinking down FiveLac), and no additional sweeteners, I didn’t have a cake specially made for the occasion. I did, however, have a piece of ostkaka I made on the 14th to celebrate Sweden’s “Day of Ostkaka,” a food holiday established in 2004. Oddly enough, it was the same “cake” I had in Sweden for my birthday last year.

I miss those times. I really, really do. My last semester of school had left me a stressed, anti-social mess, with a sore throat and a dry cough that finally went away after two (plus) weeks. I would have loved to go out on my birthday with the people I’ve been neglecting, but I was just so tired that all I wanted to do is sleep. I thought it was the whole grain-free thing, but really I was underestimating just how compromised my immune system was with the getting glutened-flu double whammy hullabaloo.

For a while I was still getting headaches, though the FiveLac keeps me from being hungry an hour after eating a full meal. I can wait until after six to eat dinner instead of having to eat right at five. My digestion is doing awesomely, and I think my hormone imbalance is leveling itself. I thought I had to increase my Armour Thyroid to 90-30-90 due to the emergence of previous symptoms (i.e., lower body temperature, cold hands and feet, yellowish palms and fingertips), but after acknowledging the headaches being stress related (and also for thinking too much) they’ve miraculously gone away.

Grain-Free "Granola" Bowl

As far as drastically changing my diet for the long term, Cheryl recommends I get tested for Candida until I officially go down the ACD or SCD route. For now I like being grain-free, white carb-free, and eating one fruit serving a day (most days). I’m noticing that I’m not as hungry, I’m fuller longer, and for the first time this Sunday I was actually hungry.

Interesting, isn’t it? Instead of eating when I was hungry I was eating because I was programmed to eat at a specific time. There is a difference to a hungry stomach and a stomach experiencing discomfort. For as long as I’ve been blogging, I ate to feed the headaches and I ate after eating to feed the “hunger” pains. After this weekend, filled with a family meditation seminar, the headaches went away and I slept. I mean, I actually slept in a way I thought was lost to me. Before the meditation I thought I had been too grounded to let go of all the stress. I am feeling more in my body than I have for two years. My hands are finally warm, and school (and graduation) isn’t so scary anymore.

With two weeks of school left after Thanksgiving weekend, I am definitely looking into doing Kundalini yoga again. Being grounded is at the heart of being healthy. And if I’m going to change the world and nourish the people in it, I have to live by example and nourish myself. Since I've returned to running and working with the munchkins at the community center, I need to be eating more than I have been if I don't want any more zombie nightmares. It's day four of warm hands, so I must be doing something right.

Health Update: What Getting Glutened, Candida, and a Grain-Free Bento Box Snapshot Have in Common

I can happily announce that I am once again among the living! Last week was the week of being voiceless, glutened*, in pain, hungry, and sleeping throughout the day. Maybe it was getting glutened that completely destroyed what was left of my stomach flora, all of that wonderful natural bacteria and enzymes that broke down nutrients and gave my body what it wanted, but I felt something was amiss.

Grain-Free Red Quinoa & Carrot "Pancake"

I’m used to getting sick around and on my birthday, but it had never been this bad. (Except the year around my seventh birthday when I had lice and I couldn’t play with any of my toys because they were in plastic trash bags for over a month). Just getting out of bed to feed myself was a chore, and don’t get me started going up and down the stairs or using the bathroom. What was even more interesting was the craving for fruits, lots of rice, and additional honey in my tea. I didn’t want to take medicine and it hurt to be touched, and after a week and a half of this my family started to get worried. Would I have to go to the doctor’s? Was it serious? Was my sore throat somehow affecting my lungs? 

On Sunday I was doubled over in pain and in tears, right around the top of the small intestines. I was immediately given two packets of FiveLac Probiotic and after twenty minutes it was as if I hadn’t been sick at all. I’m not a big fan of the taste, but if it works and makes me feel better I can’t complain (It tastes a lot better going down with lemon water).

I had many of the symptoms of flora imbalance, but especially:

•     Abdominal gas and bloating
•     Headaches
•     Migraines
•     Excessive fatigue
•     Anxiety
•     Cravings for sweets
•     Inability to think clearly or concentrate
•     Mood swings
•     Constipation
•     Itching
•     Eczema (particularly on my hands and elbows)
•     Depression
•     Sinus inflammation
•     Pre-menstrual symptoms
•     Dizziness
•     Poor memory
•     Persistent cough
•     Muscle weakness
•     Irritability
•     Learning difficulties
•     Sensitivity to fragrances and/or other chemicals
•     Cognitive impairment
•     Thrush
•     Sore throat
•     Indigestion
•     Acid reflux
•     Chronic pain

Sadly, I’ve been experiencing many of these symptoms for a while and it had never occurred to me that I may have Candida overgrowth.

(source)

As of now, it’s Day 2 of taking FiveLac three times daily before meals, and I’m feeling better than I have been for a while. To make it easier, I’ve gone “grain-free” and “white carbohydrate-free" (amaranth, buckwheat, quinoa, beans, and sweet potatoes are okay) and have limited my fruit intake to one per day. Sweeteners such as honey, agave, and maple syrup will be removed from daily consumption (you know, the huge amount of half to one tablespoon) until I can eat brown rice without my stomach growling at me. The other immediate change I’ve noticed is that I’m not ravenously hungry as I once was and I can do cognitive tasks such as studying on an empty stomach.

Going “grain” and “white carb” –free for the time being (and just in time for my birthday) has been a little difficult, especially for breakfast and dinner. I have had success with egg “crepes”, and I’ve been thinking about using soaked buckwheat for parfaits, but I’m finding that replacing grains means the loss of calorie intake, and I do want to nourish my body correctly. That, and I don't want orthorexia nervosa rearing its obsessive head.

I did have success with making a grain-free Bento Box Snapshot, however, made with chicken, peas, Iris’ recipe of perfectly cooked onions, and plain ol’ buckwheat groats. But I do need some inspiration for other meals, and any advice or recipes would be greatly appreciated.

As for going full throttle into the Anti-Candida Diet, I’m not sure. If that is that case, particularly when I talk to Cheryl about it, I’ll be looking to Ricki from Diet, Dessert and Dogs for inspiration.

* I found out what did me in: Ultra Greens.