Keys in the Car, Not my Pocket

Its been an interesting day.

I woke up, planned out my day, had a very awesome smoothie for breakfast and set out upon some Christmas errands. My last errands, might I add. My days left before Christmas are rapidly filling up. So crazy, but like always.

I ended up at Wal-Mart, because when do errands not end up at Wal-Mart? Anyway, the Wal-Mart I was at is on top of a hill. I apparently didn't realize how windy it is because I opened my door a smidge without holding onto it. The wind almost immediately pushed my door into the beautiful shiny red car next to me.

Oh no.
I cringed.
Inspected the damage.
Paint was scratched.
No ding.

Then, what to do? I started to look for a piece of paper to leave my info, when the owner walked up.

"Hi. Is this your car? I need to give you my insurance information, I just accidentally dinged your car with my door."

Then, while I was writing down information for her, the wind blew my door closed....with my keys and wallet on my front seat.

Sigh.

I called the police. They wouldn't come, because there was no one in the car. Then, I called my car insurance. We don't have road side assistance. Dang. Thought we did! Finally, I called my hubby in tears. He suggested I call his mom to come get the spare from him and bring it to me.

She's wonderful and she agreed. Unfortunately, Justin's work and Wal-Mart are about 40 minutes apart.

I can't leave the car because the keys and my wallet were in plain sight on the front seat.
It wasn't too cold out today, but because of that, I didn't bring a hat or a scarf.
I realized it was colder than I thought, really quickly.
But, I was ok.
Then it started to rain.

Double sigh.

Luckily it stopped and Diane came and rescued me.
My fingers were frozen, but defrosted nicely once I was back in the car and on my way home.
Yay for heaters and no one else in the car so I could blast the heat on high all the way home.

Odd day.

This Week's Meal Plan

My dear friend Ashley commented yesterday on a post in which I said I would post some meal plans while I am on this elimination diet for my migraines so you all can see what I'm eating.

I'd forgotten about that, so I thought I'd remedy it. Here is my sample meal plan for this week. I go Tuesday to Monday cause my hubby gets paid on Mondays and I grocery shop after that.

 Some general notes:
For breakfast, I always have oatmeal, bacon or eggs in some shape or form...so I don't include those in the meal plans. Makes for boring repetitive writing. I make a list of snacks each week and pick from the list every day for snacks. I also only make a "dessert" once per week or when I'm craving something dessert-y. On days that I work I usually don't have a real dinner. I have a combo of snacks and leftovers!

My recipes are some from my hubby, some from online, some from cookbooks and some from my head. If I have a link to a recipe, I'll throw it in!

Oh, one last thing. My hubby is on a diet and works at a restaurant during the day and so only eats dinners with me. He also doesn't eat leftovers....so I don't need to always cook a ton of food. Mostly just cooking for me. I also buy snacks for him that I can't eat so he has his own "go-to" foods when he needs a quick snack. 

Tuesday:
Lunch: Stuffed sweet potato squash with ground lamb/goat cheese
Dinner: Seared Tuna Stead with sauteed green beans and quinoa

Wednesday (work): 
L: Thanksgiving leftovers from the freezer
D: Stuffed squash leftovers

Thursday:
L: Chicken salad on rice crackers
D: Oven roasted chicken with mashed cauliflower/parsnips with leeks and roasted brussel sprouts

Friday:
L: Veggie Latke's with left over oven roasted chicken
D: Gluten free chicken and dumpling soup (Using this dumpling recipe)

Saturday (work):
L: Soup leftovers
D: Leftover mishmash or snacks

Sunday (work): 
L: Soup leftovers
D: Roasted beef shank in crockpot with mashed parsnips

Monday:
L: Beef shank leftovers
D: Stir-fry with whatever meat I feel like that day and veggie mix from the freezer with brown rice

Snacks for the Week:
Raw almonds
Sheep/goat milk yogurt
Goat cheese with rice crackers and smoked salmon
Plain hummus with veggies
Celery with natural peanut butter
Brown rice cakes with artichoke dip on top
Apple with natural peanut butter

Desserts for the week!
Coconut Milk Custard (will blend that recipe with this one and only use liquid stevia as the sweetner)

I WANT YOUR PIZZA!

Today I felt the urge to wrestle a piece of pizza from a two year old and shove it in my mouth.

It wasn't like she was really eating it. No, she was using the pizza to dip into the ketchup and then licking the ketchup off the pizza. YUM. Oh to be two again....

It's funny with this whole restricted diet thing. I've been doing well, not a whole lot of cravings and then- BAM! I sat down to help this two year old eat her lunch and I WANTED her pizza. WANTED.

Sigh.

I miss cheese. Pizza. Cake. Cookies.
I want to feel better, but wouldn't it be nice to have your cake and eat it, too sometimes?

The Diet

This has been the big deal around my house lately. I've been doing crazy diets for the last six months, trying to rid myself of migraines. Well, they've all been leading up to this mega-diet. The short run down is, I need to give my liver/adrenals/gut a rest and figure out what food my body likes and can handle and which foods it hates and can't handle.

A lot of the symptoms I have are common to people with gluten intolerance and dairy intolerance. Sigh. Sometimes though, it's just that your gut is angry and once it's not angry, you'll be able to eat those things.  We know my gut is angry, because yeast have taken it over and are reproducing, not giving the good guys a chance to fight back. This explains many of my gastro symptoms. I'm hoping I'm not truly intolerant to gluten or dairy, but if I am, it won't be the end of the world. There are lots of alternative things I can eat. I won't die. (I keep telling myself this....I'm SUCH a dairy girl.)

All these angry things in my gut could be overtaxing the gut, which is an insult to the body, which could and would produce headache. So, this diet is an elimination diet. Everything that might be causing a problem, we took out of my diet. Oh, and we also have to kill off the yeast, so I can't eat anything that feeds them. Plus, I'm taking a probiotic so the good guys can move in as the bad guys die. Complicated, huh?


What I can't eat:
Dairy
Gluten
Sugar/honey/any sweeteners except for pure stevia
Certain veggies: corn, peas, white potatoes, bananas

Alcohol
Caffeine
Table salt
MSG

What I can eat in limited quantities:
Brown rice/quinoa - 1/2 cup 3x/day max
Raw non-roasted/salted nuts and seeds - a small handful 3x/day max
Fruits - apple, pear or berries only once per day
Tomatoes - once per week
Fish - twice per week
Mushrooms - limit

What I CAN eat:
Filtered water
Herbal teas with Stevia
Vegetables
Beans - green, black, kidney, lentil
Peanut butter (counts a nut serving for the day)
Brown rice crackers (counts as a grain serving)
Brown rice cakes with peanut butter (counts as a grain and a nut serving)
EGGS
Organic/grass fed red meat, chicken, turkey, venison, ham, pheasant, duck, pork
Almond milk
GOAT CHEESE <---- my new best friend
EVOO/unprocessed canola oil/coconut oil/raw flax oil
Apple cider vinegar/rice vinegar/balsalmic vinegar
Real sea salt or Dead Sea salt

I know many of you are shaking your heads, asking what in the world I am going to eat. Well, luckily Dr. Shaw had a cookbook that he emailed me. These recipes got me through the first week. Then I did some googling and realized that the diet he has me on is very similar to the GAPS diet. There are MANY sites with GAPS recipes. My diet also has many similarities to the Paleo Diet and there are also many free recipes for that. Plus, the cookbook I have, Nourishing Traditions, has many recipes that are ok on my diet and many others that can be modified to be ok. I'm eating, I promise.

Perhaps I shall post my first week's meal plan for you all. We'll see.

New Plan for the Head

I went to Dr. Shaw last week. He spent an hour with Justin and me discussing why he thinks I have migraines and how I can feel better. We talked not just about my head, but about other concerns I've been having. Things like being itchy all the time, thirsty, tired even when I sleep for ten hours, nauseous, odd pains in my side/back and I could go on. I had written down every symptom I have had over the past five years and still currently have. The list took up three notebook pages. I'm 27 and I firmly believe I should be feeling better than this. I knew there had to be a solution, not just to my headaches, but to feeling better in general.

We talked about a lot at the appointment. Dr. Shaw's explanation of my biochemistry made sense and his theory of what is wrong inside of me fits all my symptoms. He drew pictures, we asked questions and I cried. It just all seems so obvious now and simple. It won't be simple to fix, but it's fixable and I'm excited for that. I won't go over biochemistry here, because I'm tired of explaining it and I can't do it justice on the internet. I'm just going to list things and hopefully, it'll all make sense to you. If not, that's ok. It makes sense to me.

Problems:

1. Low iron/anemic
2. Adrenal fatigue
3. Systemic yeast overgrowth
4. Overworked liver
5. Probable estrogen dominance
6. Migraines (obviously)

Fixes:
1. Iron vitamin, three times per day
2. Adrenal support vitamin, three times per day
3. Probiotic once at night (for now, might up it later)
4. Liver detox vitamin, twice per day
5. Nothing, this should fix itself as the adrenals are fixed.
6. Magnesium twice per day, B vitamin three times per day and an elimination diet

I'll talk more about the elimination diet in another post. I think that's rather enough for now. For the record, I'm taking pills at four different times each day and I'm ingesting 16 pills per day. It's all a little overwhelming right now, but I just keep hoping and praying that it will work in the end. If it does, then all this is MORE than worth it. 

Abolishing Migraines

I feel like everything has been a whirlwind lately.

Justin is having surgery on Wednesday to open up his nasal passages. This will hopefully make his sleep apnea MUCH better, hopefully almost completely resolving it. If not, we still have a few other people to visit for him.

I found out I could test out of a class, studies, took the test, got a 71% when I needed an 80% and then realized I could have used the book. And I didn't. Yeah. I'm trying not to dwell on it. It's ok. Let it go. It's ok. Let it go. I'm just repeating that to myself, over and over til I believe it. And- well, I'm going to stop there, cause my heart rate is starting to rise. It's ok. Let it go. 

deep breath


My project at work is ongoing and going well. I just desperately need more data for it. Desperately. By the first week of November preferably. Data is such a pain to collect, I almost feel guilty asking people to help me out and collect it. But I do. Hopefully by the end of the year, this project will be wrapped up and I can stop coercing people to help me.

Finally, I started a new treatment plan for my migraines. I met with a new doctor, Dr. Shaw two days after the Women of Faith conference I went to. I had an idea of what he was going to ask me to do diet wise. He confirmed all that, threw in a few things I didn't anticipate and gave me vitamins. I'll do a post on the specifics later, but basically, I'm doing an elimination diet right now. I have taken all possible allergens out of my diet for a month. Hopefully in that time, my headaches will calm down and by the end of the month, I'll be able to add things back in one at a time and see if I react. This will help me pinpoint any more dietary triggers. In the meantime, I'm taking 15 pills of vitamins a day to help out my low stores, boost my energy and lower my migraine threshold.

The point of all this is not just to decrease my headaches, it's to get rid of them. A lot of days, that goal seems rather farfetched to me, but Dr. Shaw is pretty confident that we can get rid of them, or at least greatly lower the frequency and severity. I'll take either.