Third time's the charm...

It's been well over a year since I was successfully plugging away on my rotation.  My body was slimming down, my health was improving, I had lots of energy, and then the big surprise came along.  It was around the 1st of August that I took a pregnancy test and found out I was expecting.

The first few months I was able to stay on my rotation, but then everything that was safe for me like fish and salads literally made me sick to my stomach.  Despite the rashes and reactions, the bad food still tasted better and had less of a nauseating effect on me and so I cheated for the majority of my pregnancy.  Because I was so sick all the time I also fell off with exercising.  Despite the lack of exercise and horrible diet I managed to gain only about 20 lbs.  The last few weeks of my pregnancy, though, I gained about 8 pounds and began swelling up like a balloon.  It turns out I had choleostasis and ended up having to do an emergency c-section because of problems with my son's vitals.

Once I was cut open it became clear that the vitals being so wacky was due to his over 100 cm long umbilical cord being wrapped around his head 4 times.  The kid apparently got bored.  After he was born he had a number of issues with his breathing and heart rate so he was taken away to be put in the NICU for a little over a week.  I spent most of my time visiting him and pumping to keep my milk supply up.  What I was finding, though, was that I was running myself down and getting more depressed with every day he was in the NICU.  I felt helpless.

We finally got him home, but he wouldn't breastfeed.  It was a huge dissapointment to not be able to breast feed, but in the long run I'm just glad to know my son is healthy and home with me.  He's over 3 months old and I'm finding myself in a really good place jobwise, love the MA program I'm in, and am ready to get back to where I was heading last year with my diet and exercise.  Tomorrow is my first day in a new workout group that will take place for 8 weeks doing a program called PiYo.  It seemed like doing the program and also getting back on rotation were 2 activities that go hand in hand.

I'll start posting recipes again and update with any extras I find out about as I get back on the diet.  I feel determined to help get myself back to pre-pregnancy health for both myself and my son.  He's totally worth me being at my best and, well, so am I.  Tomorrow is day 1 - chicken, beans, quinoa, carrots, spinach, etc...   Tomorrow night I'm having chicken with green beans and a dairy free peppercorn sauce - I'll post the recipe tomorrow- and day 2 I'm making Thai Cream of Leeks Soup from a recipe I found on Yummly - of course mine will use lime instead of lemon and no ginger.

The proof is in the dairy free pudding...

Today I had a follow up appointment with my doctor to check weight, liver function, blood pressure, and a variety of other issues he was concerned with.  I stepped on the scale and after figuring the difference from my last weigh in he nearly passed out.  I think what was most shocking was that the loss came after several months of very little physical activity because of the cast and I didn't reduce my caloric intake very much, either.

For me, the weight loss wasn't a surprise.  The first time I did the rotation I lost a ton of weight and had the energy to do a lot of physical activitieso which made even more weight come off.  This time, though, I just had my rotation diet to work with.  For my doctor it just didn't make sense, but he was happy nonetheless.  Then we pulled out my bloodwork and the entire panel was back to normal levels.  A bitter sweet appointment - my rotation is obviously working and for that I owe it to myself to stay the course.

There are days when I'm ready to throw in the towel.  I mean, I DREAM about eating pizza and Italian food - I feel a little guilty in my dreams, but ultimately I indulge and say screw the rotation.  In those dreams I'm OK with my body fighting allergens, making me feel terrible internally, and making me look bloated and red externally.  Then I wake up and I have to remind myself that for all that I'm doing right now, my future self will thank me.  This is all about planning for the future, even if the future is just as soon as my next meal.

It's strange to see familiar curves that are almost like a long lost love.  Fitting into pants that didn't fit a year ago is a giant accomplishment, yet, there is still a great deal of apprehension.  I got used to living in a certain shell and that shell is now changing in leaps and bounds.  Thankfully, all signs point to a healthier body and while the process is slow it gives me a chance to get used to it.  And this is also a real testament to the power of the rotation diet and working with my allergist on a holistic approach to healing the damage done to my body by the allergens and other toxic stuff I've ingested.  There were lots of doubters who laughed when I told them the hoops I had to jump through to stay true to the rotation, but looking at how everything is working together even those with doubts can't deny it's really working.

When I get my results I'll post the before and after results.  

Food, laundry, and a recipe.

A week after foot surgery and I'm going nuts.  It's not just boredom, but I HATE depending on other people.  At one point in my life I did everything I could to not have to rely on people because I was paranoid they couldn't do it the way I wanted it or they couldn't do as good of a job as I did.  I eventually got over that, until now.  But now with all of my allergies I have become one persnickety bitch and there's not a lot I can do about it.  And most of my asshole behavior or responses are either outright or veiled and they're towards my mom most commonly.  Am I ashamed?  Pretty much.  I know better and my mom is technically my care worker - now I know why most of those people don't stay in those jobs very long.

There are very specific ways that I make a lot of my food.  It took me nearly 2 f'ing years to get my mom to fully understand how my rotation works.  For a while I thought she just wasn't listening since I went over the caveats near, at least, a gazillion times with her.  Once I put it on paper for her to reference my rotation days, I realized that I was correct in my original assumption - she wasn't listening to begin with, but I really can't blame her.  At this point I just consider that and so much else simply water under my vagina - my first Girls reference!!!  So as my careworker, I've relinquished control of cooking my meals to her.  For a long time I thought it would be awesome to have a personal chef who could make all of my meals because the preparation, cooking and cleaning up takes an exorbitant amount of time.  Be careful what you wish for, Andreana.  There's a lot of knowledge in my head that I rely on to cook the way I want my food to taste.  Considering I cook less from a recipe card and more from guesstimating and just throwing leftovers in it definitely is cause for problems when someone else takes over and they are giant fans of the recipe cards and cooking precision.

The other morning my mom came to help me prepare my breakfast - a smoothie and a bowl of popcorn for a snack.  I got the smoothie going and asked her to pop my popcorn while I was in the shower.  I got out of the shower and immediately knew something went wrong when I was hit with this overwhelming smell of an appliance burning.  I had apparently not been specific enough when I said to fill up the top cup with kernels and toss it in.  From this my mom heard fill the entire area where the corn pops.  I wasn't pissed, but I definitely was dissapointed not to have a snack for the morning.

It's not just the cooking that I have unspoken rules for.  Laundry is apparently another area of my life that has   become a test for what I'm allergic to.   I can now officially say that my skin can tell when I come into contact with seemingly innocuous chemicals.  For example, my mom washed a bunch of my clothes at her house because the washer and dryer in my house pretty much suck.  I ended up sleeping in a pair of pajamas she washed and found myself not only turning bright red everywhere the fabric touched but spent the majority of the night scratching ALL over even after I stripped off pajamas AND undies that she had washed.  I tried to laugh it off in the morning telling my mom I must have eaten something the night before, but she eventually proposed that it was possibly due to the fabric softener bar in her washing machine.  The last time I used store bought products like that was a long time ago and clearly my body is a fan of the less complicated, homemade products.

My routine for washing clothes is not terribly interesting, but it might be helpful to those of you who find store detergents and fabric softeners are irritating to the skin or even if you're looking for a cheaper alternative.
For whites, 1 cup Arm and Hammer washing soda and 1 cup of hydrogen peroxide dumped over the clothes - this is the equivalent to Oxyclean.  I also shake in some Borax for good measure.  For the softener I use vinegar and a few drops of pure lavender oil.  For the detergent, I use my own laundry soap:
4 cups of hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar (sold at Walmart)
1 cup Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda
1/2 cup Borax
Grate bar of soap and add to a saucepan with the water.  Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.  Then fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water.  Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax.  Stir until the powder is dissolved.  Fill the buck to the top with more hot water.  Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.  It gets really thick and is almost gel like.  When adding to your own container, first stir the mixture then fill up your soap container halfway and then fill the rest with water.  Shake before each use.  You can also add a few drops of an essential oil per 2 gallons.  Add once soap has cooled.  This makes roughly 10 gallons of soap for under $10.

For colors I typically leave out the washing soda/hydrogen peroxide mix and just use everything else.  For the dryer I'm using a pair of cut up cotton pants that have essential lavender oil sprinkled all over them and throw them in as a dryer sheet.  It takes a little more work than just going to the store, but what I'm realizing is that my body is the expert that I need to be listening to and the extra work is worth it.  For now the extra work is being done by my mom and she is an absolute rockstar for willingly coming into my world.  She keeps me well.  

Well, hello there histamine intolerance!!

I'll start this one giving myself kudos.  I'm well into my 2nd month and I’ve been sticking to my diet pretty closely – if I slip it’s typically me eating rice flour on day 2 or eating some tortilla chips on day 4- and yet I’m still finding that when I look in the mirror there remains this puffy face looking back at me.  It’s frustrating because with my first go around with this diet I not only lost inches, but I woke up in the morning to a much thinner face and extremities that weren’t bloated and swollen looking.  Why can’t I beat this inflammation? 

The foods I’m eating shouldn’t be causing the swelling so the next culprit to check out would be my vitamins.  I already know that some of my vitamins contain allergens like gelatin.  In the past the gelatin hasn’t seemed to affect me this much, though.  So have I become more sensitive to the gelatin or is there something else that’s causing the inflammation?

This scenario took on another life and took me to another level of this allergy world.  In fact, if I see an ingredient that I don’t recognize on the vitamin labels – good example is "vegetable glaze" – I’ve started emailing the companies to find out exactly what generic terms like "vegetable" really means.  What is Country Life using to glaze these pills?  Luckily it turns out the glaze comes from the palm plant and I can rule out the glaze now.  Beeswax?  I’m allergic to honey and the pollen so am I also allergic to anything that bees produce?  According to the nutritionist at the company who did my rotation diet (Alletess) beeswax is OK for me to use or eat.  So it’s not the beeswax.  Damn.  There are no easy answers in this new world I'm inhabiting.

Next level down - While Googling the beeswax issue I came upon a really great blog (beeswax allergies)  about beeswax allergies and that led to a pret-ty big discovery - yes, that is an emphatic statement. Embedded in this particular article was a link to a whole new layer of elimination diets.  And, well, hello there histamine allergies!  

Indeed our bodies produce histamines when an allergen is introduced into our bodies, but histamine allergies refer to being sensitive to additional histamines that come from our diet.  Histamine intolerance can bring on BLOATING, diarrhea, stomach discomfort, hives, itching, etc…  Check, check and check!!!  All of the above!  Well, most of the above no longer applies, but for some reason this bloating is kicking my ass.  I’ve cut out a lot of those foods that contain high levels of histamines – alcohol (for the most part), yeast, fermented foods (well, anything fermented with yeast), cheese – but I’m still eating quite a few things that have histamines and the idea of cutting them out of my diet is daunting.  This daunting list includes fish, chicken, and some fruits and vegetables. 

Unlike the rotation diet that is intended to “cure” the body’s overreaction to the foods, the histamine elimination diet is a “for the rest of your life” diet.  The idea of limiting my diet that much more is painful and angering.  In order to feel better I have to restrict myself and that, to me, is an idea in total opposition to itself.  I guess that’s pretty telling about me and how I define feeling good.  Jesus, is this one of those epiphanies we have in our 30’s about life?  The level of freedom I had with my body in my younger years is no longer and probably due to some of those activities I freely took part in.  This is not how I wanted to be educated about my self, soul, internal compass. 

At this point I feel it’s important to repeat to myself that while these food restrictions are painful and expensive and complicated, my future me is going to appreciate and respect the amount of hoops I forced myself thru in order to get to a healthier body.  For some reason I get a little bit distracted at this point and can hear my sister right now, doubting the validity of my doctor’s diet theories, poo pooing that my allergies are real, and pretty much shitting on the idea that what I’m dedicating myself to for 2 years is a dumb idea.  I’m kind of the antithesis to her black and white world of medicine, and I feel like it infuriates her that I’m not adhering to her type of medicine.  Maybe it infuriates some of my friends that I’m doing something so extreme.  I kind of like this extreme though – I officially have license to complain ALL THE TIME!!  I’m hoping after the first 6 months this will all become old hat and the complaining will lessen.  I’m in deep enough that even my sister’s doubts or anyone else’s will be mitigated once they see the final results which will ultimately be a healthier, happier me.  At least that’s what I’m hoping for.

A few hours later and I may have a better grasp on the inflammation   In talking through the bloating with my therapist, it occurred to me that the facial bloating might be due to the cast and water retention.  When my face began to slim down I was swimming a lot and I was way more active than I am now.  I’m hoping that once this cast comes off and I can return to running around and the swelling will dissipate, too.  It’s all a waiting game for now. 

As for the histamine elimination idea, I'm still on the fence.  The more I read about histamines the more intimidating the whole thing becomes.  Well, intimidating or foolish.  After my initial panic I read somewhere that there are histamines in virtually EVERY food.  When does this madness end??????????  For now I'm gonna stay put, but be ever more vigilant about how foods make me feel - some days I know that I'm looking past a feeling of discomfort simply because I don't want to have to give up another food.  I'm at the mercy of my body for the next few years and I'm getting the feeling what it's telling me is way more reliable than what I'm reading on the internet.

The official Rotation Diet (still being written)

Here is what I eat.  This is why when someone asks me on Day 3 if I want to get shrimp I can't do it.  The idea of the diet is that I never eat the same food more than once in a 4 day rotation.  The foods are specific to each day.  There are some ingredients that I'll add to another day, but I try to keep this to a minimum.  My allergist wants me to increase my Omega 9 fatty acids and prescribed more "cold" olive oil on veggies, salads, etc...  While olive oil is technically only listed on Day 2 I'll still add some extra olive oil if it works with a particular dish on a different day.  

Day one is easy enough, but it gets boring.  In trying to find an alternative or addition to eggs for breakfast I happened upon Applegate Farms and their amazing chicken breakfast sausages in maple and sage.  Just recently I've added the smoothie with Sunflower Dream milk so I have even more options for breakfast.

Day 2 - When I first started the rotation I swear it was the day that I lost the most weight on.  Finding stuff to eat felt like a challenge I didn't have the energy to overcome.  Then I started using hemp milk and hemp flour and started trying out different fish on the list.  And then it's like the heavens opened up in the middle of the freezer isle at Whole Foods and I discovered Hemp & Sage burgers.  I managed to get the Merc in Lawrence  to start carrying them, too.  

Day 3

Day 4

I take a shit ton of vitamins....

Here's an upload of my allergy list.

 To my surprise not all vitamins can be taken at once.  There are some pretty specific directions on when to take a vitamin or what to take it with to ensure the body absorbs it correctly.  If you know me well you know you probably know from first hand knowledge that I'm not a directions reader and when I'm being given physical directions I'm probably zoning out even though I sound like I'm writing the shit down.  Luckily for me I can usually just google the directions and never have to admit that I was never really paying attention - why I don't just stop them and ask for an address I'll never be completely sure.  With assembly or vitamin directions, though, I tend to jump without looking.  Sure, it's a gamble.  Some times it works out and other times it's a giant, fucking disaster. In fact, most times I'm jumping into something I have limited knowledge with - like attaching spring hinges on a hutch - and the disaster is most assuredly epically shittastic.  And I manage to do it way more often than I'd like to admit because sometimes it does work out and those few times make it all worth it.

I've decided to just Google "when is the best time to take...." and have been going from there.  Again, to my surprise, I've been taking a few of my vitamins incorrectly.  Ummm, for a few years.  This time, though, Imma do it right.  For one, now that I'm on my rotation diet my body seems to respond more efficiently to the vitamins.  For two, I spend way too much money on vitamins to not be using them correctly.  For three, as a well educated person I should just know better.  If this was just a simple Flintstones multivitamin I probably wouldn't be as committed to educating myself.

When I first found out what vitamins I needed to take I didn't completely think it through before I started ordering using a best value strategy.  With Puritan's Pride massive sales - buy 2 get 241 free!!! - I thought I was doing good by getting so many of my vitamins in one place at such great prices.  Though, I had so may vitamins it looked like I was part of a vitamin pyramid scheme and bought way more than I would ever be able to actually sell.  AFTER THE FACT, I realized most of the vitamins I'd purchased and had already begun using contained ingredients that I was allergic to.  For instance, most gelatin capsules are made from gelatin - otherwise known as animal jelly from the innards of bovine or piggies, blechhhh - and even stupid veggie capsules can be off limits if they're made out of soy.  So I started looking for dry forms of vitamins if I couldn't find them in gel or capsule form made out of aloe or some other material I wasn't allergic to.  If they didn't have a dry version I tried to find an oil version.  Unsure about which oil was the "best" I checked online chat boards and comments sections which, typically, confused me even more.

I finally came to the realization that concessions were going to have to be made after spending countless hours trying to find vitamins in forms that just didn't exist.  I even called my allergist to find out what I should do about getting my Omegas because all I was really finding was fish oil that contained fish I was allergic to or contained lemon, gelatin, or even soy.  My allergist didn't give me any magic advice and pretty much agreed that I was just going to have to try to get by with what's available.

Then I found out about bioavailability and food based vitamins and I realized I needed to rethink my buying strategy yet again.  Luckily using a number of variables like the bioavailability factor, being food based, and price, I've finally found a grouping of vitamins that come from respectable companies and they seem to be working their own kind of magic.  I'll post what vitamins I take in another post because there are a lot and I've got a schedule for taking them.  This process gets a little more complicated with each layer of the onion that gets peeled away, though, every time I make a discovery or find some new piece of useful advice I am glad that I've been given the opportunity to make my body that much healthier.


L-Tyrosine should be taken on an empty stomach.  Depending on how much is prescribed - I'm currently supposed to take 500 mg per day - the easiest time is first thing in the morning.

Vitamin A, E, D and K are all fat soluble and so need to be eaten with fatty meals.  My bfasts don't usually have that much fat which means I have to stagger my giant fistful of vitamins in the morning.

Sunfilled smoothie (day 1 breakfast option)

This one was incredibly easy.  2 bananas (or how ever many you want to add) and about 4 cups of Sunflower Dream milk - I wanted to add papaya but couldn't find any at a local grocery store.  Add some ice and blend.  No need to add sugar or much of anything else.

In an effort to eat things that represent how I want to feel or that reinforce how I'm feeling I felt like ingesting something sunny might help brighten my mood.  While this recipe alone made me appreciative of the growing options for food I can eat, I was still kind of stuck reminiscing about how last few weeks kicked my ass.  The ass kicking wasn't a gentle nudge with the tip of a shoe or playful punch to the shoulder it felt like an all out war against my spirit.  It was a beat down for sure.  I am well aware that many say struggle is good and without some discomfort there is no real reason to change or be proactive about life.  And I believe that, wholeheartedly.  I just felt like I couldn't do much of anything right.  I felt like I was fumbling my life.  It all felt like a painful and bad joke - I felt like Samantha James (Anna Farris) in Just Friends when her plane catches on fire and, keeping with her idiot character, starts yelling out Ashton Kutcher's name thinking that she's been punked.  That's how I've felt from sunup to sundown.  After working so hard to stop focusing and obsessing over the bullshit things that happen, I'm right back in that nasty place where I say fuck way more than I should, and I get to the rage stage far too often and far too easily.  After all is said and done I feel chewed up and thrown out.  Thouh, any anger that arises is usually quickly followed by tears and sadness.  Which is followed then by being pissed about getting caught up in that shitty part of ego and Tolles' calls the pain body.  I'm getting stuck in a place that is depressing and annoying.  

The whole thing is cyclical.  Some days I'd get a win, start to feel like my head's back above water and then I find myself stepping in some giant pile of shit that at times was placed on purpose or another person puts some shit down and I get in trouble for putting it there, I challenge that accusation with irrefutable evidence, and then I'm taken off the hook but never apologized to for being accused and put in the hot seat unnecessarily in the first place.  I hate feeling sorry for myself and I try to make every bad situation into a learning lesson or put some positive, polly-fucking-anna spin on it.  For the most part this usually works and I can laugh my way back into a happy place.  Buuuut, I just couldn't get enough inertia to get my spin to pull the situation around.  My mom's simple advice tonight was to get past the negative and focus on the positive. I figure after she spent so many hours in labor with me I at least owe the woman the respect of giving her motherly advice the old college try.  

On that positive side I was thrilled to know that the smoothie was fantastic.  I said my thanks for having a new option come my way and began working on drying out my ipod that got wet today when I went swimming.  Another win for the weekend was yesterday when I went to see my allergist I found out that I'm 12 pounds lighter than when I last saw him a few months ago.  After spending 12 hours in KC yesterday spending a large portion of that time grocery shopping I now have a full pantry, fridge and freezer.  I'm also just 708 days - roughly- away from ridding my body of the allergic reactions to all of these foods.  The days breakdown like this - it takes 6 months to remove all traces of a food from our bodies and then up to 2 or 3 years to get the body to stop the allergic reactions.  I'm hoping those first few months are like time served so then technically I only have another year and a half until I can eat lasagna or a burger or a steak or a baked potato with sour cream.  Jesus, the more I look at the stuff I'm cutting out of my diet the more I realize all of that food is probably not a good choice for optimum health, anyway.  

Where will I be when I reach the end??