Playing with my food.

Let's talk interruptions! Interruptions in my chocolate consumption, my overall sugar consumption, my breads and potatoes consumption... and, * sigh * did i mention chocolate?

For months now, since early February, i've been playing with my food--elimination diet sort of thing. Heck, i'm no stranger to diets, waaay back in my childhood lo those many years ago, i would try to eat more carrots and less other stuff. i was conscious even at 10 of being fat, as wide as i was tall. That sort of thing is noticeable to other children who are in turn glad to point it out. Didn't matter that my thyroid had apparently ceased to function sometime in the early years, i was a butterball. A cute and cheerful butterball, but a butterball nonetheless. i got to participate in some way cool cutting edge treatments of the time to get my thyroid sorted out, and by the end of high school i was pretty darn cute and slender. Of course, back in those days, doctors would give diet pills to teenagers--i was up for 24 hours straight and trust me, i like my sleep, so i didn't keep taking those. After that there was the fast-once-a-week diet, the grapefruit diet (college,) the Atkins diet (post-college,) the cheesecake diet (no, that one was only in my dreams...) the McDougall diet (early marriage,) Weight Watchers, low carb, you name it, i probably tried it. i finally ended up on the "oh what the heck" diet, which is probably where i got into those X's.

ANYway, like i said, i'm no stranger to diets. So when i read that foods could maybe have an effect on my fibromyalgia pain, i was game to add another diet to my list.

So, on to the hunt for an elimination diet. i know of one fibromyalgia sufferer who ate only rice for a whole month, saw her symptoms disappear, and then added foods slowly back in. i'm not that hardcore, or maybe i should say "not that disciplined." So i trolled (i think that's the right word--i mean "troll" as in "trolling for fish" not as in the little guy who lives under a bridge) for a diet. i found the Caveman Diet, also known as the Rare Foods Diet, but i liked the Caveman thing so much better as a name. Its purpose was either to use as an allergy elimination diet, or to give your immune system a rest, and consisted of dumping all the processed nastiness of the present age of food and replacing it with natural, organic, unprocessed fruits, vegetables, some of the lesser known grains and deep water fish, game, and turkey. But no citrus fruits, and mainly the less often eaten fruits and vegetables, and if there was a fruit or veg on the acceptable list that you commonly ate more than a couple of times a week, not that either. This way a person would still get plenty of choices and plenty of nutritional goodies, but give their body a chance to recover.

Not so bad. Fortunately, here in the bay area we have access to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, making my life easier food shopping wise. i figured out some meal options, made a list and went shopping. Breakfast became something like almond butter and banana. Lunches were stir-fried vegies and turkey or fish, and dinners became salad or vegies and more fish or turkey or Cornish game hen. It was all pretty tasty! Sea salt or a little fresh lemon or ginger were the only seasonings i used. i lost 8 pounds the first week, which told me something--i wasn't sure what, besides maybe "there must be some kinda food allergy component here, cuz i never lose 8 pounds in a week" or simply,"boy i must eat a lot of crap the rest of the time."

And my symptoms? i saw some improvement, the more pure i ate the better (hard to eat out that way, though.) Wondering about the allergy part of it, i found a book about food allergies and started reading. Also very interesting. That's where i am right now, trying to see how dairy, corn, acid foods, and grains effect me. Oh--that's another thing, people with arthritis can do better with an alkaline diet, the opposite of acid. And avoiding foods in the nightshade family. So there's another component to explore.

i'm feeling very Christopher Columbus these days. Just hoping i don't set out for one place and end up another altogether, although i would settle for Hawaii.