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For the last few weeks I've been feeling completely and utterly BLEH. For the last few months I've felt off, but since Single's Conference I've just felt horrible. Jeff and I volunteered at Single's Conference as chaperones. The first night the dinner that was served by the conference center was penne pasta with chicken in a broccoli alfredo sauce. It was delicious, but a select few of our group got sick. One girl threw up, a few others had tummy aches. I got really bad indigestion and then nausea. Since then, no matter what I eat it I get bloated and really bad indigestion and tummy aches. Now I'll admit I haven't been eating great. I eat way to much sugar, lots of breads and chips and other crap. I eat because I'm bored or whenever I crave anything. So its no wonder I feel like junk.
In the last few months I've heard about multiple different food plans (diets if you must) to help people eat healthier, eat based on heritage (eat for your blood type), identify foods you have an intolerance to (elimination or rotation diet), cleanse, renew, etc. etc. So I started looking at these and its really crazy how food can affect you. Since these past few weeks I've been feeling like crap, I decided it was time to figure out what I eat that my body can't handle. I was looking at the elimination diet first. The premise is that you cut out the majority of foods that are commonly allergy or intolerance triggers in people. You eat a very basic food plan until your symptoms go away, then add one food back in each week or so and see how your body reacts. Its a great way to figure out what foods individual people react to. However, since it is designed for the general population (not specialized for individual people) it cuts out everything! I started reading the list of what you can't eat, and compared it to what you can.. and came to the conclusion it would be impossible for me to try at this moment. You can't have any dairy, wheat or breads, pastas, legumes, chicken beef or pork, most fish, most fruits, etc. Basically you eat lamb and pears - exotic but not cheap or easy to follow. (I don't think I've ever tried lamb...) I was also looking at doing a cleanse, but just for a weekend (not a whole week or 10 days like some people do). It seems like the most common one is the water, lemon, maple syrub and chili pepper mixture.
Anyway, I really wanted to start identifying whatever was causing me to feel so yucky. Monday I decided I'd start by cutting out breads, chips, sugar, and processed foods to see if that helped at all. The first few days were rough. We have tons of bread/chips/desserts in my house and (knowing I couldn't eat them) I wanted to eat them even more! I went grocery shopping on Tuesday and bought lots of fruits and veggies and some dried fruits (which I reasoned would be my replacement for chips and desserts). I figured I should add something else into my food groups and so I bought some cottage cheese too. I hate cottage cheese. I've never been able to stand the texture of it. But I decided to give it another chance. I was able to fight it down with fresh blackberries. I hadn't really felt any different yet, but I figured it would take more than a couple days to allow my body to catch up.
Last night we went to my parents house for dinner [Happy Birthday Mom!]. We started talking about trying to eat better [they tried to do the elimination diet but couldn't stick to it] and my mom told me I might have a dairy or lactose intolerance (because she does, and her mom did, and so on). So I decided to cut out dairy as well, and today was my first day adding that into the mix - no milk, cheese, etc. I had a smoothie (homemade) for breakfast and then some roasted pepper tomato soup from trader joes for lunch. But partway through my soup I realized it was really creamy... and when I looked at the ingredient list - voila! First ingredient was milk fat. So today didn't work. But I plan on continuing with my cut out stuff and see if my body BLEH goes away.
Until then, I'll make it through. I turned down icecream last night and opted just for berries, and again today at work. I can do this! Hopefully I'll be able to identify what I can and can't eat!
In honor of not eating sweets... I'll be posting my recipe for Blueberry Cupcakes with Lemon Whipped Cream Frosting... to share with all of you! Check back!
