I’m not exactly sure what has spurred my move towards a
healthier “me” in the past 6 months or so.
It’s really been quite unlike me.
I’ve never considered exercise to be an important part of my regular
routine. I’ve never truly considered the
food that I consume. I’ve dieted in an
attempt to reach a more attractive weight, but always in the sense that I cut
calories not that I made any attempts to eat healthier. Now I find myself on an ongoing quest to take
“the next step” in remaking myself into a healthier and happier version of
me.
I’ve been exercising on a regular basis for the first time
in my life – exercise videos and running mostly. I’ve been drinking water almost to the
exclusion of anything else. I’ve
dramatically cut my alcohol consumption and as of the last couple of weeks,
have begun to take vitamins and supplements designed to fill in the gaps left
by my current diet and attempt to ‘even out’ my body’s chemistry. I’ve come to love “real” tea, both iced and
hot as I’ve taught myself to replace Diet Coke with black tea or flavor my
ongoing water consumption with green.
I recently had a bunch of blood work done. I really wish that I had done it in December
so that I would have a baseline of sorts that might show me how far I’ve come
already. At this point – it was a solid
mix of “good news – bad news”. The good
news is that I’m remarkably healthy overall.
My sister, (my dedicated Naturopathic Doctor) commented that mine were
the best and most exciting lab results that she had seen in a long time. No cholesterol issues, no signs of impending
doom in the form of diabetes…all the things that we were concerned about
particularly from a genetic standpoint was good news. I also had her run a full food/vegetable
allergy panel. THIS news, to me, was the
“bad” news. Here is a list of my
favorite foods: spaghetti, lasagna,
nachos, Chipotle burritos, bleu cheese in most any form, Thai fried rice,
anything that is filled with or covered with melted cheese (particularly if
also fried), ice cream, vodka….yum. And
here is a partial list of my allergies:
rice, wheat, gluten, dairy (in particular cheddar & parmesan cheeses
for some reason)…the list was significantly longer, but these are the items
that fell into the yellow and red “2’s or 3’s” categories on my list meaning
that they were the items that I needed to be most concerned about. Notice any crossover between those lists? This was less than awesome news to me. I expected the lactose news and I have gone
lactose-free before – when I was nursing my youngest daughter. I was NOT expecting the wheat/rice/gluten
news.
I honestly don’t know how to eat gluten-free but I’m
determined to try it. And I think I’ll
record some of those efforts here – maybe I can either help someone else
considering this change or garner some knowledge from my mysterious base of
readers. I officially “started” this
effort today when I ordered my burger sans bun…but NOT sans French fries. Fries are potatoes, right? And potatoes aren’t gluten-ey? Right?
Hmmm…after I ordered, I questioned myself and did a quick internet
search. I ran across a couple of blogs
that I scanned very quickly and found that, in fact, French fries are often a
problem. They are apparently either
dusted with a wheat powder to make them golden and crispy – or they are fried
in the same fryers that are utilized to cook other items that are not naturally
gluten-free. Hmm. Oops.
First strike for the day. What
else did I learn? Never pick the
croutons off your salad…they will most always leave behind enough crumbs to
cause issues. Obvious news, I
suppose. But still takes a little bit of
the wind out of my sails as I begin to really realize how little I know. I am certainly lucky that my issues are not
so extreme that the addition of some invisible crouton crumbs might cause
extreme disaster but I am going to need to start doing some real research if I
want to try to do this the ‘right’ way.
And – for the record – I suppose it’s possible that this is
a figment of my overactive imagination, but I did recognize some *ahem*
gastrointestinal “issues” very shortly after I consumed the ill-advised but
frankly, delicious potatoes.
So – particularly knowing that I do NOT do very well reading
overly science-y tomes, does anyone out there have any awesome blogs, articles,
books, etc. to share that can help me begin to make these terrifying diet
changes? I'm thanking my lucky stars
right now that it is summer – the season of grilled meats and vegetables
instead of winter – the season of comfort-food-y, gooey, noodley
casseroles. At least I have a couple of
months to wrap my brain around these concepts before the cooking moves back
indoors.
