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.

Update on my Head

So, since the 10 day tortilla chip migraine went away, I've actually been doing pretty well! I've had a few days of tense-ness and some days where I have about a 3-5 out of 10 headache, but no nausea and no wanting to bang my head against the wall! Whooo!

I did experiment with bananas this week. For the past few days, I've eaten one or three slices of dried banana chips (made by me!) every day. That small amount doesn't seem to bother me. Yesterday, I ate a large handful and chomped on a few raw bits as I was putting more in the dehydrator to dry out.

This morning I woke up (about twelve hours after consumption) and I had a good ole' migraine. It went away with two Aleve and one Imitrex. Improvement! And, I might be able to loosen my banana policy. Ok here and there, but no large quantities. Love it.

Change in Plans

Well, the neurologist had given me a script for methergine to break the migraine. Yup. If you read the link, its used to stop uterine bleeding after a birth. Oddly enough, it helps heads, too. Love off-label uses of meds.

Anyway, been taking this for two days and not liking it. Crampy/sharp abdominal pain, heart palpitations/fast heart rate, hard to remember when I took the last dose, need to take it three times per day and oh yeah, my head still hurts and I'm still nauseous. Add onto that the events of last night which included not sleeping. At all. Not one wink. Up and down all night, tears, frustration, resignation, etc. All there. Sleep? Not happening. After 26 hours of being awake, I was able to fall asleep for about three and a half hours. And yup. Now I can't fall back asleep. Grr. Still exhausted, but feeling much more rational now.

I never have this problem. I am the girl who can sleep anywhere, anytime for any length of time. You name the length, I'll sleep it. Put me in a car? Sorry, you wanted to talk?? So sleepy..... The women in my family have a unique ability to SLEEP. We all to go to bed at midnight? Usually ten am, the first one rolls out of bed and goes and pokes the other one who groans and rolls back over. Yeah. We're good sleepers.

Anywhoo. Not sleeping is not normal for me and the only different thing I have done different in the last two days is the methergine. Took the first dose Tuesday night and didn't sleep well, very restless. By the time I had five doses in, wasn't sleeping at all. Plus, I always get the odd side effect from meds and this felt like a med reaction.

Had anxiety in the middle of the night about how this was going to affect my head. Remember? Solid sleeping schedule = less headache? Wondered what not sleeping will do to the headache. For the record, it's not much worse.

BUT, still nauseous, light sensitive, pony tail sensitive and with pain. Now with abdominal cramps. And heart palpitations. Yay.

So called the neurologist. He said to stop the methergine. Check, did that about five hours ago. And go pick up some steriods. Check, asked hubby to stop and pick up on the way home from work.

Le sigh.
Drama.

(At least I did Wal-Mart today and was too blurry to feel too nauseous with all the bright lights and such. Yay for shopping, boo for driving so tired.)

Whats Been Up

I had a rough two weeks about ten days ago. I had multiple headaches and I couldn't pin down what it was that was causing them and I was frustrated.

Then I had a great week or so. No headaches, just a mild tension that I could feel all around my head, but no pain or nausea.

Then I ate some MSG in some tortilla chips. On accident. Just careless. I didn't read the ingredients, just grabbed a brand that had been ok for me before, but it was a different flavor. I ate about 3-4 handfuls of them that night at dinner. I thought everything on the dinner table that night was "safe", so I "splurged" a bit and ate two large spoonfuls of Giant Eagle macaroni salad and half a slice of apple pie. All three together equaled a headache that started in intensity on Saturday and lasted until today and it hasn't gone all the way away just yet.

The sad part is, my friend Heather looked at me over apple pie and asked if I was going to be ok eating all of that. She didn't want me to get a headache. I felt confident when I said, yes. (I have great friends.) I'll be more careful from now on, Heather. :)

Symptoms have included sharp pain over my right eyebrow, tension like I'm being squished in a vise between my temples, achy pain over my left eyebrow, blurry vision, nausea with movement, light, walking and some loud noises. I had a fast pounding heart rate with dizziness over days 3 to 5. I believe it was from so many doses of Imitrex. I had taken 5 doses in the first three days, all of which is perfectly reasonable. (That means I didn't take too many. I was taking it as prescribed.)

I took Aleve twice daily for days 1 to 3 when I figured it wasn't working, so I should stop irritating my stomach. Cause it works faster if you take it on an empty belly. And it creates holes in your stomach eventually when you take it on an empty belly. I've thrown up in my mouth, which is more than I've had happen with the nausea in many, many years. My ears also ring constantly when I have a migraine. The more my head hurts, the louder they ring. Doesn't really bother me, just think it's interesting. I also bump into stuff more and drop things more when my head hurts. Sometimes I have trouble remembering words or stringing words into a sentence quickly. This happens to me normally, its just much more pronounced when my head hurts.

I worked Monday with a migraine, again. I had migraine pain on Saturday and Sunday that was relieved with Aleve and Imitrex. The pain was at about a 5-7 out of 10, but I was controlling the nausea and light/sound sensitivities with Imitrex and Aleve. I took more meds and went to bed when I got home from work. I woke up at 3:30am and my head was pounding. I should have called off then, but I fell back asleep. Woke up, went to work and stayed about an hour, until my head was pounding so bad and I felt so nauseous I had my head on my med cart and had tears in my eyes. More from frustration than pain. Luckily, another woman I work with volunteered to come in and relieve me and the charge nurse for that day watched my kids until the other woman got there. I was at about an 8 or 9, 10 by the time I got home.

Thank you Janine and Monique. You have no idea.

I went home, curled up into a ball with the covers all up around my head, slept for five hours, got up, laid on the couch, then slept all night. Kept down some food. Pretty much been laying around since then. I gave myself until Wednesday at 2pm to feel better before I called the neurologist and asked for meds to break the migraine. When it's been longer than three days and six consecutive doses of Imitrex, you can call in and they'll call you in a script. I agonized over that phone call. I didn't want steroids. No worries, they called me in something else. I am to take it three times per day for seven days. I've taken five doses thus far. It makes it better for about four to five hours after the pill, then it comes back and I take another pill.

I hate pills. But the relief is immense. I was able to unload and load the dishwasher today. Yesterday all that moving was too much. I did go to Target to get meds and walk around and the Goodwill to walk around. I didn't realize how nauseous I was and how much the light/sounds bothered me till I went to Target. I had to breathe deeply the entire time I was there to keep from throwing up. But I walked around anyway. Just needed to get out of the house and feel normal. Then I went home and laid down for a good while til the world stopped hurting.

As long as I stay in my house, curtains draw, don't move much and go slow, I don't hurt that bad and I don't feel that nauseous. Go outside, see fast movement, sunlight, etc and it's all over. But in my house, no problem. I actually don't feel all that bad. I just have to lay down every hour or two. Not bad.

Tonight I have a sharp pain over my right eyebrow and it won't go away. The pain was so sharp I actually grabbed my head at one point. Odd. I don't usually have sharp pains and I don't usually let on externally how bad I am hurting. I think, at least. My back flank area aches, like it always does when I have lots of meds in my system. I've had sharp stomach pains today, too. Who knows why. But I've been able to sew. Amazingly, it had not hurt my head more to sew or read on the computer or watch movies. Which is awesome. Laying on the couch in the dark in pain is boring. Movies make it seem like a pretend vacation from reality as well as playing with my fabric.

I watched some good stuff and some stupid stuff. Some stuff I turned off five minutes in for lewdness. Seriously people. Not necessary. I even cooked and ate real food for dinner. Veggies and rice. YUM. But I have not yet washed dishes. Yuck.

I don't know why I wrote all this stuff. Probably so I'll remember. Because one day, I'm not going to have headache anymore. I keep reminding myself that getting off meds is worth it.

By the way, I took my last dose of imipramine Tuesday night. I'm off it. Which is probably why this headache is taking so long to go away. But it's worth it. I still haven't tried everything I know of to try to get rid of the migraines. There are more dietary changes I can make, supplements I can start, a nutritionist and a naturopathic doctor I can go see. I will try everything I know of before I go back on daily meds again. Even if it sounds crazy, I'll do it.

At this point, I would prefer to shoot myself in the foot than to go back on daily meds. My only option at this point if I go back on meds again is Prozac. Don't even get me started. I hate SSRI's like you wouldn't believe. I hate the side effects, I hate how I feel, I hate it all.

There's lots more things to try. Something will fix me. I just have to find it.

P.S. - the diet is working. It might not sound like it, but I tried for a year to get off imipramine and couldn't even get lower than 18mg without intense headaches. This current migraine occurred because I messed up on the diet and ate a "not-safe" food. I was doing great on 12mg of imipramine for the entire week before the migraine. So yes, I'm staying on the diet. I don't even mind it much at this point. I found a way to make "safe" chocolate. I'm happy food wise. And ten pounds lighter.

Eating Real Food on a Budget

Eating real food means that I have to follow a budget. It's more expensive in some ways, but cheaper in others.

Organic and whole foods can cost more.
BUT I'm not buying anything I can make myself or snack/processed foods.

Ta-da! More expensive, but buying fewer items, so it should equal out, right? Right.

Unless you are me and go to Trader Joe's for the first time, get excited about all the food you can actually eat there and buy a ton of splurge items. I spent way too much money at Trader Joe's and blew up my food budget.

I cried.
Yes, I cried.
A couple times.

I have been trying really hard to stick to our processed food budget and it's been working, until now. It made me upset that I had such weak willpower and went over so much. So not me.

Luckily, my loving and forgiving husband has been working overtime and covered it for me.

I cried again when I told him. AND, I just did the numbers and realized the total I told him I went over was a low estimate.
Poo.

I'll have to tell him the real estimate in the morning.
Double poo.

So, to understand what happened, I went over each receipt from all six stores I went to.
AND after about an hour of computing and circling things on receipts that were splurges......


I feel better.

My meal plan would have fit into my budget if I hadn't gone over and splurged and if I hadn't needed to stock up.

Yes, I'm crazy and anal to spend an hour and break all this down, but its necessary.
I need to be able to do this on a real budget.
It's important to me.
Thanks for listening.

Stayed Up Too Late

I had an awesome blog planned that would tell you how much freezer cooking and such I did over the last two days. So awesome. And yummy. I even had pictures. Well, I still have them.

Buuuuuut. I stayed up too late looking at thing in my Google Reader and Pinterest.
Whooops!

Maybe another day. Work tomorrow.
Shower and sleep now.

Night!

P.S. -NO MIGRAINE TODAY!!!! YAY! Days like today make me feel like everything I am changing and modifying makes a difference. Yes. Days like today get me through days like the last 5, all of which had migraines in them. You win some, you lose some. Today, I won. Hallelujah! Psalm 21.

Sugar is Evil

You all knew this. I was living in denial.

I have "cheated" a few times while on this crazy little diet of mine and both times it's been with sugar.

{Let me clarify here. Sugar = refined white sugar}

Both times have ended with migraines started as soon as five hours after eating the offending item and lasting as long as thirty hours.

Poo.

Bad news. Sugar gives me migraines.
Sad day. I love sugar.
Good news. There are lots of alternatives to sugar.

Honey.
Pure Maple Syrup.
Pure Cane Sugar Crystals (in limited quantities).
EAT SALT.

That last one is my little experiment. When I have a sugar craving, I try to eat something yummy and salty instead. Like all natural peanut butter or all natural corn chips that I can eat. It's going ok. Eating less sugar, so  something must be working!

There are more. I just don't use them as of yet.

I <3 honey and pure maple syrup.

(Lazy) Two-Week Meal Plan

This is a lazy meal plan.....or perhaps I will just call it a flexible meal plan. Since I've been eating real food that I actually have to cook and because I hate food-type stores, I now realize the need to meal plan. So, I list out a bunch of meals that I will cook with some sides and then a few desserts, go shopping all at once, cook in large batches, freeze some, eat some and then we are done! Whew. Oh, I list breakfast items, too.

Breakfast items get their own category, because I love breakfast. Favorite meal of the day. YUM.

Two Week Meal Plan - May 27 to June 9th

Main Dishes

Lemon Garlic Drumsticks
Eggplant Torta (sorta like lasagna I think!)
Cucumber Soup
Apple Bacon Tomato Soup
Tortilla Wraps
Chicken & Fruit Salad
Marinated Chicken dish
Ahi Tuni Steaks with Coconut Lime Cous Cous

Sides

Squash/Onion/Zucchini sauteed up in EVOO
Side Salads
Hummus - 3 different kinds cause I'm making a lot!

Breakfast

Eggs - any new way I can think of!
Hot Wheat Cereal
Gluten Free Apple Pancakes (although I'm sorta sick of these)
Bean/Deer/Tomato Quiche
Bean Apple Cinnamon Muffins
Overnight Oatmeal (maybe....can't decide if its important to stay away from oats)

Desserts

Yogurt with Fruit (If my new yogurt starter ever comes)
Baked Custard
Flourless Cocoa Cake
Organic Strawberry Smoothies

So there you have it! Some of the recipes I am altering to make them more nutritious, or just plain ok for me to eat right now. For all the main dishes, I just make the recipe and it's usually enough to feed me and Justin for one meal plus have one to two leftover dishes to pack up for work or lunches. Some recipes I am striving to make two of so I can have a freezer meal when I don't feel like cooking. Like today when I made Cucumber Soup, I made a triple batch because cukes were on sale when I went shopping so I got 6, instead of the two the recipe called for!

I'm getting used to cooking smarter, not more. AND cleaning smarter, not more or harder. Right now, I have three types of beans soaking on my counter. Tomorrow I shall cook three pots of beans for a long time, use some beans right away in recipes and freeze the rest to have instant "canned" beans when I need them. Using dry beans is MUCH cheaper than buying in the can. Plus safer.

Ok, longest post ever. Sorry! Bye!

Going Crazy

I am going slightly crazy tonight.

I want a hot fudge sundae. With oreos. I don't care if it's an all-natural raw milk ice cream with dark chocolate made with coconut oil fudge or even homemade soaked chocolate cookies-- I WANT SOME.

Sigh.

I am experiencing food fatigue, I think.

It's not because I'm on a "healthy" diet or even a "no-MSG-diet". It's because I'm on this really strict diet for a while here.

I have found healthy options to make chocolate, chocolate fudge, ice cream, peanut butter. All my comfort foods. You name it! There are healthy options out there for splurge items as long as you eat in moderation. Right now I am in a stage where I have total denial of homey, comfort foods that I like.

I just feel tired tonight. Tired of this stupid diet. Tired of these stupid headaches.

I made pumpkin bread. It tastes like sorgham flour and rice flour and it  made me want to barf. I can smell it in my house and I want to barf.

I'm eating my third bowl of rice today because nothing else sounds appetizing. Cereal would be nice. Oatmeal would be nice. Cheese on things again without worrying about color additives. Chocolate. Cookies. Cake. Tea. Coffee.

Sigh.
Two more weeks left, right??

Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater

I like the title of this post. I don't know why, but I do. I've had this saying floating around in my head for the last few days. I am not even sure that this is the correct form of the saying. Knowing me, it probably isn't. (I tend to make up words to things and then really think that my made up words are correct. My hubby thinks it's hilarious to listen to me sing along to the radio in the car.)

Anyway. I cheated on my diet. I went to a wedding shower for two friends and I cheated. It had been a really rough day for me. Not sure why, but I had a mini melt down for a half hour right before we went. Tears and all. Thank goodness for a forgiving, understanding husband. I apologized later, not that the apology excuses things.

Anyway. Again. I drank two cups of the punch (sprite/7UP, sherbert, canned juice, etc). You know, the really yummy kind. Probably all in all 32 oz. of punch. And I had strawberries. With melted chocolate on top. They  had a miraculous chocolate fountain. Love those things. OH, also ate some fried chicken.

Hubby looked at me during my eating of this and was like, "Are you allowed to eat that stuff?" My answer? "No." And I kept eating.

That night, my belly was so bloated, it looked like I was AT LEAST 4 months pregnant. My belly gained about 3 inches around. It even felt firm when I palpated it. Yuck. I had headaches and nausea for the next two days. Wonderful!

Lesson learned.
Don't cheat.

Migraine

I woke up with a migraine today. I wanted to share it, because I haven't had one in five days, but also because I don't just want to share the good stuff, but the bad stuff, too.

I had increased tension when I went to bed last night, so I got up and took an Imitrex. I woke up six hours later in awful nine out of ten pain. (Sorry, I'm a nurse, I describe all pain on a pain scale, lol.) I got up, took more Imitrex and Aleve and went back to bed, even though it was eight or so already.

As I laid there, waiting to fall back asleep, I just thought, "I can't do this anymore."

I'm at that point. The point where you just can't keep doing what you are doing because it's hurting you. It was time for change and every headache I get now will remind me of why I am doing all of this. I just can't live in pain like that anymore. I can't and I won't.

I'm not surprised that this migraine cropped up. I really don't think this one had anything to do with food. I think it was more a hormonal issue as my friend came today. Migraine and my friend coming on the same day? Yup, for the last two years, that has been the pattern. I will be looking into a possible hormonal imbalance in the future, but for now, it's enough to know that this is not the diet failing me.

Good reassurance.

Cravings

I worked today and I think 50 BILLION people offered me a cupcake.

Ok.

Only one! But it was SO hard to turn it down. I was proud that I didn't have a moments hesitation. I immediately said, "Oh, no thank you. But thank you!" That's something, right?? But it did make my mouth water, just a tiny bit. Or a tiny lot. A lot.

Then one of the girls at work was eating this gorgeously large chocolate chip cookie, and some of my kids got yummy things on their tray, and I talked about pancakes with a four year old when he woke up for the day at 3pm.

(Yes, 3pm. We mess up kid's sleep schedules in the hospital...some families come to us like that, though. Anyway, back to food.)

Right now I am home from work, just ate an amazing salad and I still want sugar. I think I'll have a gluten-free apple muffin with soft butter instead....but I'm wishing for jelly inside.

Really, I think abstaining from a lot of sugar is good. I ate too much of it, really. I was and am an emotional eater. I eat just to eat and to feel thing in my mouth and belly. A full stomach is comforting to me.It's like I used chocolate like anti-depressants. Don't feel good? Get some chocolate. Hard day? Have some chocolate. I lean on food and depend on sugary food more than I would care to admit.

So, this is good for me, but it's hard.

These things I know:
- it won't always be like this
- that there WILL be an adjustment time
- anything worth doing is hard
- if this is going to help my headaches and clear the way for the Lord's will to be done in my life, much will be coming up against me. (I'm expecting it and relying fully on Jesus at this point. He protects me and sustains me, always.)

Pray for me when you think of me, please.
Pray that God would heal my headaches completely and that He would give me strength and wisdom to sustain this new diet-life-style. Amen!

First real-food-msg-free-meal!

Well friends. What you have above is my first meal of my new diet, the MSG-free diet, which just happens to also be gluten-free, low sugar and mostly organic. :) That night, I had sweet potato fries lightly coated in olive oil and kosher salt, a hard boiled egg, freshly steamed broccoli and a few slices of Colby cheese, made from whole milk. It may look odd, but I've been craving those sweet potato fries for a few days! Made me excited to start this diet! There is no meat, because I forgot to defrost that morning. Uh, I'll work on that.

For breakfast, I've been doing omelettes with cheese, spinach and red bell peppers or tomatoes. YUM! Kept me full for like 5 hours! I am working on making an apple-honey brown rice with milk breakfast porridge for tomorrow. I'll let you know how that goes!

Lunch has been a hodge podge. Yesterday I made spinach-cheese-tomato-radish sandwiches with the spinach acting as the bread. Pretty good! Then, for dinner I made brown rice with sautee veggies- red bell peppers, yellow squash, onions and garlic with salt and pepper. Amazingly good. Odd, but REALLY yummy. I ate that for lunch today and will again for lunch tomorrow.

I'm not the best cook and most of what I make is really simple, but I am loving this food. Craving some gluten at times, but not bad. Also craving a bit of sugar, but again, not bad. My husband is eating Easter ham right now, and that sounds pretty good, too. BUT, I am more excited to taste the soaked brown rice coming off the stove soon! I soaked brown rice for 24 hours and then cooked it. I'm excited to see if it tastes any different. It's supposed to be good for you, so we'll see!

OH! Haven't had a migraine or a headache since I ate the last bit of pizza on Thursday. :)

The New Diet!

So, a friend recommended the site www.msgmyth.com to me. I went on there and read all about MSG and how it messes with your brain/hormones/etc. I thought it might be part of my headaches. They have this "test diet" that anyone can easily do and not eat MSG. It's limited because MSG has so many names/forms that it comes in that it is overwhelming and difficult for someone to totally avoid it without some guidelines. You can find the test diet by scrolling down the sidebar on the front page and clicking on "Test Yourself".

To summarize the diet for you if you don't feel like clicking over, I will be eating ONLY these things:

1. Raw milk or low-pasturized, non-homozynized organic whole milk
2. Organic, pastured eggs
3. Whole milk Colby cheese or whole milk mozarella cheese
4. Vegetables minus carrots, potatoes and beets (as much organic as possible and washed)
5. Fresh fruit minus bananas, grapefruit, grapes and berries
6. Organic, non processed, additive and preservative free chicken, turkey and deer
7. Short grain brown rice
8. Pure cane sugar if I must use sugar
9. Pure olive oil, fresh or dried whole herbs, canning/kosher salt and I added in raw honey

They recommend following this diet for 1 week to two months to see if it helps your symptoms improve. I am going to stay on it for one month strictly. It at that point it is working, I will stay on it another month and quickly wean off the imipramine over 3-4 weeks. If it really works, I'll be mostly headache free without meds on the diet. THEN, I can add things in one by one and see how my head reacts.

Call me crazy, but I think it's worth a shot. Doesn't take much, didn't cost me much more than our usual food budget and is WAY healthier for me in the long run, so I'm not doing any harm! So far I've discovered that veggies taste amazing fresh, short grain brown rice is SO yummy and I've discovered how to make decent gluten-free apple muffins, since normal flour wasn't on the list, but brown rice is, and you can make flour with brown rice. AMAZING!

(that's my muffin up there! Looks yummy, huh? I used a recipe from The Nourishing Home on FB. She is awesome and has tons of healthy recipes in her Notes section!)

I find that I am not physically craving food, but mentally craving food. I find myself with a want to eat, but not being hungry. I think I just like putting things in my mouth. It's an emotional crutch for me. It'll be interesting to try and break through that in the next few weeks.

Tossing the Prozac

I dumped my little juice concoction of Prozac last night.

I just don't think I'm that desperate yet. I think there are other options that I can try right now that will enable me to get off the imipramine completely without having to get on Prozac and then get off. I'm not worried about an accidental pregnancy, so I shouldn't be worried about getting off the imipramine.

It'll come. In its own time.

And until then, I'm reading and researching like a crazy person. I think I stumbled upon a whole natural foods MSG-free diet that I am going to try to test the theory that chemicals and processed foods with MSG is making me sick. We'll see. Still praying and reading.   

The Food Plan

The last week or so, I've been trying to avoid foods that contain these items:

- refined sugar

- MSG

- high fructose corn syrup

- partially hydrogenated anything

So, most of everything we have in our house contains these items. Even my butter and applesauce. Stinks. BUT, I've been doing well, sticking to whole foods, natural sugars, proteins, etc. I've been cooking everyday and realizing the need for more recipes for whole foods. I know how to cook with processed, packaged foods, but I am not as good when it comes to whole, raw foods. 

I will learn. 

lol.

And probably have lots of funny failures in the meantime.

(I'll post them here, don't worry.)

The one thing I've noticed is that except for one or two little twinges every now and then, I am not really craving sugary sweet stuff like I used to. I actually want to eat veggies and "real" food. More than I ever have before. Perhaps not eating sugar makes you not crave sugar? 

I did cave once and eat six little mini cookies. Interestingly, I noticed that I had a nice sized headache about two hours after consuming them after an entire day free of headache. Hmmm....makes you wonder. Headache wise, it's been rocky since the cookies. Nothing HUGE, but one or two sudden headaches with bouts of almost instant nausea. Yuck. 

Anyway, the long term plan in my head is to use up what we have and when we buy replacements, to buy things that I can eat, so I have more options! We'll see what happens!  

Honesty

I had a sort of frustrating last 36 hours.

I woke up today with a headache. Had one last night. Praying about the ND with my husband, who I neglected to make part of the deciding process in the first place. (Still learning how to be a good wife...another post on this later.) I get frustrated when it seems that I'm doing everything I know how to prevent my head from hurting and it still hurts. I am pretty much taking Imitrex every day. I have a pretty good supply stocked up, but at this rate, it won't last me long enough for long term. And I hate taking it.

And I hate getting on Prozac. I hate being on meds, period.

Sigh. Ok. Done.
Just needed to get that out of my head.

Clinging to the Lord's promise of healing to me.
I believe.