After years of irritable inners and multiple, unwelcome, transient inner guests, I finally found the courage to visit a Nutritionist to get some advice on potential dietary contributory factors. (*don't fear, that's the end of the gross stuff!). I think she was a bit overwhelmed by my health history (fair enough), and that probably contributed to why she decided to remove almost everything from my diet.
Some of you may have seen the stalkbook post about the food and beverages she excluded from my diet in a rather traumatic 1h appointment, 1 very long week ago. For those who haven't, in order of importance to me, caffeine, alcohol, dairy, sugar, gluten, pulses/beans, nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant) and grapefruit were banished. You might - appropriately - wonder what I AM permitted to eat/drink? Whilst not entirely sure ourselves, it seems that all unprocessed meat, most vegetables and fruit, eggs, water, and anything that tastes like cardboard qualifies.
I have discovered great admiration for vegans (yes Chris, you and the filling of my Instagram feed with vegan meals comes to mind), those with Coeliac disease (gluten allergy, not just intolerance), and all those parents juggling multiple children with multiple allergies. I also have a great deal of gratitude for Him who has willingly joined me on this journey. I never thought I'd see the day when he chain-drank herbal tea or gobbled chia seeds and flaxseed meal with his cardboard oats for breakfast. He's trading this ripper of a diet for the less than exciting food of a neighbouring country for the next few weeks, so I think he might actually miss brown rice, celery sticks and lemon and ginger tea.
We are now finishing day 5 of this experiment and we had 3 early days of afternoon headaches which we attribute to caffeine withdrawal, and 4 days of almost constant, very painful muscle cramping. So much pain that it woke us overnight multiple times and had me jiggling around like I had ants in my pants. The Nutritionist wasn't sure about the cause of it but suggested it may be low magnesium or potassium, so we should eat more greens. MORE? There's not much more we could include, but based on her suggestion, we shared an entire head of broccoli with our rather unappetising tuna and spinach quiche (no cheese, no pastry, no milk, no tomatoes) for dinner last night. Lo and behold, I have been able to sit still for nearly an hour at a time today, a distinct improvement on the 15 seconds of yesterday. Broccoli!
I have also discovered that I like liquid gold *cough*, I mean quinoa. It cost our horrified food budget the equivalent of AUD22 for 500g of the blasted seed. Knock me over with a feather, He likes quinoa too. Well, 'like' might be too strong - He did say that a steak with a glass of red would be his preference, but we do enjoy it and would consider eating even if we didn't have to. So until I find somewhere in East Africa that wants to reduce the price to a fake silver bangle, I've decided to give growing my own a go. According to the internet it's quite easy, works best in dry-ish soil with lots of sun (Africa!), and in 3-4mths I'll have 4-6" plants in my garden with pretty red flowers that I can shake seeds from. I KNOW you want to follow the process, so rest assured, I'll post a chronology of pics on my stalkbook so you can encourage my little goldlings to grow.
We are very optimistically hopeful that these dietary prohibitions are not permanent, especially the caffeine and alcohol(!), but only time and the wisdom the Nutritionist will reveal the final sentence. Thus far, we both have admitted that we feel lighter and just generally a bit better. Now that the caffeine withdrawal has ceased, we are even waking easier in the morning. I'm still craving coffee and would devour a snack that has cocoa in it, but celery sticks with natural peanut butter will have to do for now.
Some of you may have seen the stalkbook post about the food and beverages she excluded from my diet in a rather traumatic 1h appointment, 1 very long week ago. For those who haven't, in order of importance to me, caffeine, alcohol, dairy, sugar, gluten, pulses/beans, nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant) and grapefruit were banished. You might - appropriately - wonder what I AM permitted to eat/drink? Whilst not entirely sure ourselves, it seems that all unprocessed meat, most vegetables and fruit, eggs, water, and anything that tastes like cardboard qualifies.
I have discovered great admiration for vegans (yes Chris, you and the filling of my Instagram feed with vegan meals comes to mind), those with Coeliac disease (gluten allergy, not just intolerance), and all those parents juggling multiple children with multiple allergies. I also have a great deal of gratitude for Him who has willingly joined me on this journey. I never thought I'd see the day when he chain-drank herbal tea or gobbled chia seeds and flaxseed meal with his cardboard oats for breakfast. He's trading this ripper of a diet for the less than exciting food of a neighbouring country for the next few weeks, so I think he might actually miss brown rice, celery sticks and lemon and ginger tea.
We are now finishing day 5 of this experiment and we had 3 early days of afternoon headaches which we attribute to caffeine withdrawal, and 4 days of almost constant, very painful muscle cramping. So much pain that it woke us overnight multiple times and had me jiggling around like I had ants in my pants. The Nutritionist wasn't sure about the cause of it but suggested it may be low magnesium or potassium, so we should eat more greens. MORE? There's not much more we could include, but based on her suggestion, we shared an entire head of broccoli with our rather unappetising tuna and spinach quiche (no cheese, no pastry, no milk, no tomatoes) for dinner last night. Lo and behold, I have been able to sit still for nearly an hour at a time today, a distinct improvement on the 15 seconds of yesterday. Broccoli!
I have also discovered that I like liquid gold *cough*, I mean quinoa. It cost our horrified food budget the equivalent of AUD22 for 500g of the blasted seed. Knock me over with a feather, He likes quinoa too. Well, 'like' might be too strong - He did say that a steak with a glass of red would be his preference, but we do enjoy it and would consider eating even if we didn't have to. So until I find somewhere in East Africa that wants to reduce the price to a fake silver bangle, I've decided to give growing my own a go. According to the internet it's quite easy, works best in dry-ish soil with lots of sun (Africa!), and in 3-4mths I'll have 4-6" plants in my garden with pretty red flowers that I can shake seeds from. I KNOW you want to follow the process, so rest assured, I'll post a chronology of pics on my stalkbook so you can encourage my little goldlings to grow.
We are very optimistically hopeful that these dietary prohibitions are not permanent, especially the caffeine and alcohol(!), but only time and the wisdom the Nutritionist will reveal the final sentence. Thus far, we both have admitted that we feel lighter and just generally a bit better. Now that the caffeine withdrawal has ceased, we are even waking easier in the morning. I'm still craving coffee and would devour a snack that has cocoa in it, but celery sticks with natural peanut butter will have to do for now.
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