I'm Bored

I am bored with my endo diet. I want to quit. I want to grab a handful of those pretzels on my countertop without a thought.

I want to be able to have the cake I am making for a friends baby shower. (wouldn't it be great if this was the one I was making? :))

I want to eat a sandwich, something I rarely did before this diet but somehow now want.

I want to have a glass of wine at the neighborhood bunko night.

I want to eat pizza at a pizza shop.

Yet when I think about the fact that I want to quit because I am bored I realize where I go wrong in so many areas of my life. I want to quit because thinking about what I have to eat and figuring out a new system for my life is no longer fun. It now feels like work. I haven't yet established a consistent habit in which I don't have to think about what I am eating. I don't want to think about it anymore so I am bored. Yet does that eliminate my reasons for doing it in the first place? Did I decide to try this diet because I thought it would be "fun"?

No follow through. That is my problem in life. I have lots of good ideas and I enthusiastically research and start them but then when they start to feel like work and I tell myself I am bored and I quit without ever reaping the full rewards of my efforts.

I need to tell myself the truth. The truth is, while it has required some work it hasn't been that hard. I do have to think a little more about what I can eat but the choices have been plentiful and delicious. I am not suffering. The truth is, I am actually feeling and seeing a difference in this diet. I feel good, have actually lost a couple of those pounds that have been sticking the past few years, and I feel like my mind is clearer than it has been in months if not a year or more.

My goal is to be very strict for 3 months and then allow myself a little more leeway, like a slice of cake at a baby shower. I am about half way through that time period. I just need to hold on and focus on how good I have felt the past few weeks and how good I will feel about myself when I have seen a project through to completion and have reaped the rewards. I just need to hang on.

Weekly Menu number 2

OK I know you are all dying to know what I will eat this week so I thought I would share again:

I am repeating a couple recipes from last week that I never made. I also thought I would share that I found a spelt pizza crust at Whole Foods for Pizza. And another old recipe that I can still eat: Mix chopped up baked chicken with a chopped red pepper and a chopped red onion and pour bbq sauce over the whole thing, mix, pour on crust, top with a little rice cheese and bake. Yummy. OK OK I admit that after eating it I looked at the ingredients on my Famous Daves bbq sauce and discovered that the first ingredient was high fructose corn syrup and it also contained soy and wheat so clearly I will have to find a more natural brand or learn to make my own but none the less the pizza was great.

On to this week:

Curried apple and cauliflower soup—I got a book from the library called “gluten free vegan” so I am going to try a couple recipes from there this week.

Mushroom and Olive Pizza—also from the gf vegan book. Has a recipe for pizza crust that I might try.

Chicken Thai lettuce wraps from last Sunday.

Cornbread bbq chicken bake—from last week that I didn’t make. I did find a cornbread mix that I can eat.

Tilapia with the broccoli/ginger salad.—again from last week that I didn’t make.

Turkey Tacos-Jake and John like soft shelled tacos but I prefer to make a salad with corn tortilla chips.—I wonder what is in the seasoning packet I usually buy? Will I have to make my own seasoning? We shall see.

John and I are having an “off-site” meeting this coming weekend, staying at a friends cabin, so we are going to go out to dinner Saturday night. Don’t know what I will eat but they do have a couple nice restaurants in town. I guess if I am not eating anything we can afford to go a little fancier. I have planned a few snacks and lunches to eat while we work. I am going to cheat a little with some banana bread during the “tea time” break that I have in the agenda for the weekend. I did buy some gluten free flour from Bob’s Red Mill but it looks like I need a little xanthum gum to go with it and I bought date sugar but it is still sugar so I still shouldn't eat it (that is the cheating part). I was also wondering if there were any recipes out there for gluten free bread in the bread machine. It is one of those things I haven’t brought myself to purge from the kitchen even thought I haven’t used it in years. Maybe it will come in handy now?

A new group of bloggers

I have been on the Endo diet for a whole week. No wheat, dairy, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, etc. I feel good and it really hasn't been a significantly challenging experience. Yes I had to endure 3 parties where I couldn't eat 90% of the food offered but I was prepared for that and it really didn't end up to be a big deal. I left the parties feeling healthy rather than bloated and remorseful. I was sure I must have already lost a couple pounds but today I found my favorite guacamole at the natural food store and it didn't have any of my taboo foods in it so I bought it and a bag of corn tortilla chips and, well, let's just say if I did loose any weight this week it is sure to be back. Apparently I can over indulge even when I am on a restricted diet.

Before I started this diet a friend led me to a blog called Frugal Granola by a woman who has been eating gluten free and that led me to other web sites devoted just to gluten free cooking with recipes and more. The mommy blogs I have been stalking have led me to more mommy blogs so now I am finding a whole new area of the blogging world in food and healthy eating. As if I needed more ways to squander my time on the computer.

I though I would share a couple new recipes I am adding to my life which are delicious and would not require you to be on an extreme diet to enjoy. I found both recipes at Gluten Free Mommy.

First is Wild Rice Salmon Cakes. Now anyone who knows me understands that I find following a recipe exactly to be challenging. I don't like to get alot of bowls or measuring utensils dirty and if I don't like or don't have an ingredient I just skip it. So with this recipe I skipped the Parmesan cheese which I can't have and I didn't feel like making 2 kinds of rice so I just did the wild rice. It was still delicious and I think I will bake all Salmon patties from now on because I have never had them turn out so well before. I ate 3 of them. John agreed we needed to add this to the rotation.

Second is Thai Chicken Wraps. Again I can't follow a recipe so instead of the veggies she mentions we just julienned up the veggies we had in the house which happened to be carrots, cucumber, red onion and pea pods. Also I hadn't shopped for these rice tortilla shells she mentions so I make it a lettuce wrap and finally I used "some" maple syrup in place of the sugar in the peanut sauce. Oh and I was about out of the creamy so I used some crunchy peanut butter in the sauce. It was delicious although a bit messy but my 14 year old son ate 3 of them as did my husband. Jake used regular tortillas instead of the lettuce but John braved the messy lettuce. I picked up some butter lettuce today which I think would work better for wraps because it doesn't have as thick a stalk running down the middle of the leaves. We just had some red leaf lettuce around.

The other thing I thought I would share is from the Frugal Granola site. She does some Monday Menu carnival thing and posts her weekly menus each week. It is fun to see what she is eating and so I thought I would post my menu for this week.

Today: Thai Chicken Wraps
Monday: Spaghetti with Quinoa noodles
Tuesday: Seafood Chowder
Wednesday: Cornbread BBQ Chicken
Thursday: Wild Rice Salmon Cakes
Friday: Pizza on Spelt flour pizza crusts I found at Whole Foods
Saturday: fish (I think I bought Cod?) with a Broccoli and ginger side dish.

I am also going to try to make home made apple sauce this week because I accidentally double bought large bags of apples and then we didn't eat either of them. Normally I would be making an apple crisp every night but a friend suggested apple sauce which would be perfect for sweetening the plain yogurt I can eat

I also picked up a gluten free flour mix and some alternative sugars to make banana bread or cookies but think I will try to get a little more detoxed before I try those. I did have a mild headache for the first 2 days of this new diet. I was amazed at how quickly my body realized I wasn't eating these things. Could it have been the holiday binge?

Finally, I am proud to say that I managed to exercise 3 days this week. Exercise is one of the suggestions along with this diet that is supposed to improve my Endo Pain. So what we are learning is that if you eat healthy and exercise you feel better...Interesting. Who knew?

The Endometriosis Diet

Since January is a time to start and restart new healthier habits in your life I have decided to jump on the bandwagon and improve my health with a special diet designed to control my endometriosis.

I was officially diagnosed with Endometriosis about 5 years ago when we were trying to get pregnant with our mid life crisis. While the doctor who diagnosed me didn't know alot about it (typical), once I did some research on endo my entire life started making sense. I feel certain I have had it since I was about 14. That was the year I started having the pain. At the time it was related more to intestinal issues and I never put together that I was experiencing it on a monthly basis. A few years before my diagnosis we had made some major changes in our diet due to the discovery of a dairy intolerance in Jake. It significantly improved my health as well and so I was feeling pretty good when I got the diagnosis. However, over the past 5 years as we have become more lax with our healthy diet I have noticed an increase in my pain level during the month as well as developing a significant amount of fatigue surrounding my period. I have learned to keep moving when I feel this way and get what needs done done but my mind is in a fog and I lose the joy of my tasks. It is time to make some changes

I am a bit of a natural girl. I have considered taking some prescription drugs or going on the pill to elimnate my periods all together but I am uncomfortable with solving this problem by covering it up or dumping hormones into my already out of whack hormones body. However, the pain is to great to take nothing so Advil is my friend. I take a large dose when I get my period and maintain the level with regular refreshers for 3 days. Several months ago I found an endometriosis diet that attempts to balance hormones and inflamation naturally and finally made the decision to start the diet after my next period which was coincidentally due to come around the first of the year. Well as luck would have it my body decided to have a 3 week cycle this month and my period came on Christmas Eve, Merry Christmas! I was at Walgreen's on Christmas morning buying tampons, thank you Walgreen's employees. The parking lot was full.

You can read the Endo Diet in detail if you wish but the summary is that I will be eliminating: dairy, caffeine, sugar, wheat, processed foods, soy, alcohol, red meat, limiting eggs and fried foods. I have done the dairy free thing in the past and am still mostly dairy free so that doesn't worry me and I haven't had caffeine in years so I am good there. I will miss my glass of wine at Bunco and Margaritas at my sisters in the summer but can probably survive without those. Red meat, fine, I like veggie burgers and we mostly eat chicken anyway. What I am really nervous about is the wheat and sugar. I have never eliminated those successfully. I tried to get rid of sugar one time but I sort of cheated by using a bunch of other sugars besides white sugar. Maple syrup and sucanant were my friend. And one time we considered trying to do a month of wheat free. I think I made it 3 days before deciding I didn't have a wheat allergy.

I have been chatting with friends who have been successful at similar diets in their lives and reading up on it. All seem to agree that planning is the key to this type of diet. I need to be bringing my food places, eating meals before parties so I am not hungry and planning menus and shopping so I am not tempted to pick up something quick. I had hoped to get a weeks worth of menus planned tonight to start the week right but my brain is still a little foggy and so I just planned tomorrows food. I was excited to realize I could do breakfast and lunch with food I already eat regularly. A smoothie for breakfast and a salad for lunch. Today I had a salad with lunch and just put oil and vinegar on it instead of dressing and loved it so already one problem solved. I was looking online and came across a recipe for wild rice salmon patties at Glutton Free Mommy which I am going to try for dinner tomorrow night with some veggies. That means tomorrow I will have to get recipes for the rest of the week done but I know that I can follow the diet for one day.

I know this will be challenging but I am ready for the change. I am ready to have energy to raise my family, care for my home and love my husband. To be able to think clearly all month long and not have to put projects on hold. To not be gripped with fear when I get to work and realize I ran out of the house without taking a second dose of drugs and I feel the pain returning. Not living in fear that I will forget to take an evening dose and will wake up in the middle of the night in gripping pain. I am ready to take control and get my life back.