FOOD ISSUES

Oh geez...I've become a full-fledged "one of them".  Have I written about this before?  Well, maybe, but now I'm way over the edge.

I have "food issues".  Oh, how I ridiculed people who complained of "too rich", "too spicy", dairy and gluten sensitivities (undiagnosed, so not "real" in my mind), too sweet, or not vegetarian, etc etc.  I'd roll my eyes and dig into anything put in front of me.

Then a dozen years ago or so I started to get a very dramatic reaction to rich foods and gone were the cream sauces. No more Fettucini Alfredo.  Not long after that I noticed a similar reaction to spicy fare.  Thai food, among my favorites, became a one-star affair instead of three.

I read two brilliant books a year or so ago, "Salt, Sugar, Fat" and "Grain Brain".  The first put me off any processed foods, the second was an indictment of gluten and most grains and carbohydrates.  I started to clean up my diet and let my eating choices be not only health-related, but also a statement about my opposition to being sold a lie by corporations that wanted me to be addicted to unhealthy processed foods for profit.

Four years ago (today!!!)  I quit drinking alcohol.  Two years ago I mostly gave up caffeine (now only a cup of half-caf in the morning and decaf any other time.)  For several weeks last fall, including over Halloween (a real test of my commitment!), I went sugar-free.

Then I fell off the wagon.  Grains and gluten snuck back in.  I started to have a nightly helping (or two or three) of dark chocolate with nuts and sea salt.  I reached for the pastries instead of the veggies at church coffee hour.

And then the headaches and gut issues this summer had my anxiety rearing its ugly head, trying to convince me I had something dreaded happening inside me.  Hub more rationally suggested a couple of weeks ago these symptoms could be diet-related.

Well, I don't eat hardly any meat -- no beef, just a little pork (oh, delicious pig!), some chicken and lots of salmon and seafood.  Pretty healthy.  I do love mozzarella cheese sticks and Greek yogurt.  Ice cream is a trigger food which I limit due to its addicting qualities.  I watch the carbs.  But the grains and gluten had snuck back in with the sugar and the ongoing dairy.  My weight started to creep up too, beginning to negate the 25 pounds I'd lost a few years ago.

So, here we go....elimination diet.  NO dairy.  NO gluten.  It's been 2 weeks and my headaches have subsided and some days are gone completely.  My GI system seems to be on the mend.  I've lost 2-1/2 pounds.

I'd feel happy and self-righteous if I wasn't so annoyed that this is working.  I know that makes no sense.  Of course I want to eat clean and be healthy.  I just don't want to be "one of them".  I want to eat any damn thing I please! But that is wishful thinking.  No one can do that and not pay the price in weight gain and disease or be party to the profit motive of Big Agra and its less than stellar track record with farm animals, pesticides, and creating addicting combinations of tastes and textures in fake processed "food".

So, I'll keep on, slowly and moderately re-introducing a bit of dairy in a couple of weeks to see how I respond.  I sorely miss my nightly Greek Yogurt and blueberries with a sprinkling of walnuts and cinnamon.  Oh....my....I miss it.  And a smidgen of dark chocolate can't possibly be deadly can it?  I'd like to reintroduce that soonish too.  The other stuff I find I don't really miss.

Except, well, for the occasional "special treat", like the teeny tiny slice of the Key Lime Pie my son and daughter-in-law made for Family Dinner this week...it would have been rude to refuse.  See?  I'm not perfect, but I do confess my sins of ingestion.

Bon Appetit!©

At least that's the view from here....

SOLSTICE-LIGHT-WORLDEND-BIRTHDAY-CAKE-DOC

Happy Solstice!  The light is returning!  We are alive!  I had a birthday!   I love Costco Tuxedo Chocolate Mousse Cake!  I have a doctor's appointment today!

1.  When I was flirting with "Wiccanism" I latched onto all the Solstices and Equinoxes and pagan holidays of the earth-based spirituality that Wicca actually is, but  I was a "lone practitioner", so it was a lonely little foray into that flirtation with a personal spiritual practice that didn't have much staying power.  Yet the Winter Solstice stuck more than others -- I used to make the boys go outside with me, clippers in hand, and cut away at the fir branches, holly, ivy, and laurel and bring it all in to make swags and wreaths and "bouquets" for the house.  I thought it was great fun and really beautiful.  The kids went along with it when they were young (kids just want something novel and "fun" to do); not so much as they got older, but I still enjoy bringing the greens in and decorating with them by myself.  So, Happy Solstice!

2.  It has been raining sort of non-stop for ... I don't know... years?  Not really, but we have been enduring the usual winter wet and gray and gloom for weeks now.  It gets light about 8 a.m. and dark again at 4:30 p.m.  In between is a sort of light-to-dark gray "Twilight" (Yes!  Perfect for vampires!) that never feels like true daylight.  It is a challenging time of year for sun lovers like me.   But today marks the start of the (at first imperceptible) return of the sun.  Yay!  In 6 months it will be light at 4 a.m. and not dark until 10 p.m. and that will be so totally great!  Hello sunshine!

3.  I am confident that June will come again because the world didn't end today as predicted.  Studying the Mayan calendar has been all the rage for some time since the prediction of the Mayans, according to some interpretations, was that this was the day the world would end -- 12/21/12.  I didn't follow the prophesy closely enough to understand why...but I recall we've had many such predictions and somehow we keep on keepin' on, so there's that.   Plus, the Mayans should have been focusing their prediction closer to home and they maybe could have warded off the end of their own civilization...just sayin'.  World without end, amen!

4.  So now I'm 62.  That used to seem pretty old and significant in a way that had something to do with some people retiring then and collecting social security.  At least that's what I recall about conversations between my parents and their friends.  For me, I got to get into a musical performance at the local historic theater last week on the senior discount (begging to be given the $2.00 off a few days prior to my actual birthday...nice box office worker took pity on this senior citizen and agreed to honor it).  I also thought I'd get the Denny's discount now, only to be told by Son Two that Denny's starts their senior discount at age 55, so I've been eligible for YEARS.  Of course, 7 years of Grand Slam breakfast consumption might put one at risk of even making it to 62, so I guess it's a good thing I was confused.  That and I haven't been inside a Denny's restaurant in about 15 years.  But the lure of using my age to advantage is hard to resist.  Happy Birthday to ME!

The family was all here for my birthday dinner on Wednesday.  I loved that.  I am in love with my family.  Seriously.  Oh, there are individual irritations and worries and frustrations here and there, but when we gather for special occasions, we rock!  Best behavior abounds and smiles and laughs and good cheer usually prevail.  (Hmmm...now there's some sugar-coated wishful thinking...but it's MOSTLY true, honest!)

5.  We capped the festivities with a birthday cake, naturally.  We don't bake, but we do search for really good store-bought birthday cakes and this year's was stand out.  Costco Tuxedo Chocolate Mousse cake.  OMG!  Killer good.  Literally.  No one could finish their piece of cake after the lasagna dinner (calories be damned on birthdays!), it was so rich.  But I discovered yesterday...and today...that it is the perfect breakfast dessert.  Toast and mousse cake!  Yes!  The list of ingredients, starting with "sugar", goes on for a good long paragraph and I don't know, nor can I pronounce, all the words.  But I'm telling you, it is so good!  Once a year I indulge in this kind of thing and I trust my body to get to the detoxin' post-haste once consumption has ended.  Gnosh Pit!

6.  Speaking of health...I have my annual physical today.  I think I'm holding up rather well.  I had that bout of fainting episodes for no reason a while back that landed me in the hospital and caused me near constant "queasy" nausea and anxiety for about a year, but hey, small price to pay for the ability to finally lose the 25 pounds of flab I'd accumulated over time.   My last trip to Hawaii I finally stopped obsessing about how I looked in my swimsuit and didn't even delete all the photos we took!  But since I've been feeling better, I've been back "on my feed" as they say and the scale is starting to be my enemy again.  So, I did think for a moment this morning about wearing a cotton blouse rather than a wool sweater for the weigh-in at the doctor's office.  Yes, that's my "old familiar" way of thinking about how to cheat the  truth.  But then I thought... Really???  I'm 62 flippin' years old!  I'm done lying to myself.  I'm gonna eat some mousse cake, wear whatever I like, and read the numbers on that scale with acceptance and gratitude.

The world did not end, the light is returning, and I'm still alive!  Halleluja!

At least, that's the view from here....©