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Saturday, February 26, 2011

Wheat free..

well, I have been officially wheat free now for a few weeks. I've gotten lucky and found quite a few more GF items then I expected, and a little local store that has a nice little stock of things, and another store in town that has a ton of things, so it's just a matter of relearning how to do things and being careful about how and when things get done here at home when mixing the GF stuff with the regular stuff for Tom and the kids. We've tried some GF muffins, pasta, 2 types of bread, a cake mix and tonight a pizza crust. They've all been pretty good. One of the breads was very bland, but tolerable, the cake was quite good, and the pizza crust was great, though could be a little crisper, so we will work on that.
Oh, and we bought a new bread maker. My older one does not have a GF setting, and from what I've heard and read, GF bread doesn't work well in machines without one. Am looking forward to using it once I get flours and such figured out. We also bought a meat grinder attachment for my bosch mixer and we LOVE that! We did a batch of ground beef and it was so lovely. We're still using it for things and it is just so much better then what we get at the store. We're waiting on additional dies so we can do different sizes of grinds, but I think we're going to get a lot of use out of this.

week 2 results - oops, a bit late...

Another 3.5 pounds and about 8 inches lost! Woohoo!!
This gives me a 2 week total of 7 pounds and 23 inches. That means I've averaged a half a pound a day! And almost 12 inches a week! I can hardly believe that! It's just amazing and I love it!
Now I get to start adding things back in a little at a time to see how I react, and to get ready for the Hubby's return on Friday and the return of cooking for someone other then myself who won't eat most of what I've been eating for the last 2 weeks (and who wants to cook twice?). Friday and Saturday night I had the grand daughter for a few hours, so I made some 3 year old friendly foods during that time, and I will admit that I sampled. So I know I'm good with rice, potatoes and cheese already. I really wasn't too worried about having problems with any of them. So it was good to have that confirmed. However, today at Church I had a tiny piece of bread during the Sacrament (it's kinda like the Catholic Communion for any non-LDS folk out there..) and within minutes I had a headache and my throat started to feel a little closed off and tight. So, it looks like I do indeed have a wheat intolerance of some sort. I know I don't have Celiac Disease, thankfully, but I don't know yet if it's just a wheat allergy or if it is an all out gluten intolerance. Will take a bit more experimentation. But for now I am doing some research and will start slowly replacing things in the house with gluten and wheat free alternatives. This is going to be hard though. I love bread, and crackers, and pasta, etc so very much. At least these days there are viable alternatives, and I've already learned quite a bit in just an hour or so online about converting recipes, so, if I can find the things I need, I should be able to still do a lot of things.
Is going to be interesting the next few months while I get this all figured out and get my pantry all sorted through.

Monday, February 07, 2011

results - week 1

Ok, so Sunday was my scheduled result checking day, so Sunday morning I did the weigh in and retook all the measurements. I've lost 3.5 pounds and 15.25 inches over all!! That's just amazing for 1 week (with minor cheating, even!) after not having been able to loose anything at all since the accident. I'm loving the results, though, it appears I'm going to have to do some modification of either the diet, my meds, or both.
I have a new problem. My blood pressure is now dipping too low and I've been light headed and fuzzy brained. Saturday night I was down to 104/50. The combination of this diet and all my blood pressure medications is apparently too much. Saturday night I solved the immediate issue with some turkey bacon, which gave me lean protein, so wasn't too bad a cheat, and some salt which helped bring the bp back up a bit.
So I poked around the web site support group for this plan and found there are several variations. I'm going to be switching to one of those this week for week 2 while also keeping an eye on the bp levels and, if necessary, might have to cut back on the meds for a little while. I don't go back to the doctors until March, so I've got to be careful with what I'm doing. Depending on how this week goes, I might continue for a week 3, or I might have to put things on hold until after I see the doctors in March.

Saturday, February 05, 2011

diet update, day 6

Things seem to be going ok. I've not been sleeping well, have had aches, lethargy, and minor headaches. All of these are things we're told to watch for as we detox and our bodies let go of the stuff they're use to getting.
However, I wasn't told to look out for falling blood pressure. Today, mine went down to 104/50 for a while this evening. That is a bit too low for my comfort so I'm going to have to either play with the diet rules and add a bit more salt back in, or play with my pill dosage on the blood pressure meds. I've already cut the bp meds down from 3 pills to 2 pills a day, but I may need to reduce that further. I will be looking at my options and making changes in things starting tomorrow and then throughout the week. I'm now looking at this first round with this as a shake down to see what I will have to play with to make it work for me and my med list.
But, I have lost inches, and maybe even some actual weight. Tomorrow it the official weigh in and measurement taking day, so we will see what the results are.
I did cheat a bit today to counter the drop in blood pressure and had some turkey bacon to raise my salt levels a smidge and some odwalla for some potassium and sugar to help balance that. It did push my numbers back up a little (115/58) so I'm good with that for the night. Hoping the minor cheats won't spoil things too much tomorrow.

in family news, my middle step daughter got 1st place for her oratory at her divisional for debate!! woohoo!! state quals in 2 weeks!! way to go!!

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

diet, day 3

Ok, so things are going apace.. My biggest craving has been for some nice fluffy, crust french bread. Slathered in butter would be nice, but mostly I just want the bread. I did cheat a smidge today and ate a cracker. It was that or make croissants, so I think I made the better choice, but I just really wanted something bread-ish and caved. It does seem to have satisfied the craving though, so if that is all I do I should still be ok.
Other then that, it seems to be going ok. No big signs of anything yet, but then, it is only day 3, and we must be realistic about that sort of thing :) I do have to say that, over all, I am feeling better and "lighter," might even say healthier already. I seem to be having more energy in getting through the day. Dragging myself out of bed in the morning is still hard; I'm not sleeping well or consistent at night. Last night I went to bed about 11 and woke up this morning around 3:30 and was in and out for the next few hours until my alarm went off. But, surprisingly, I'm not as tired today as I would have expected. I even biked a mile on the stationary. Haven't done that in a while. It feels good. Sunday we will see if we have anything to show for the first week, either via the scale or measurements.
I hate going to the store right now. All those things I can't have taunting me. But, I've managed to avoid buying that one doughnut no one will know about, or that ice cream bar that looks so good and full of milk fats, or stopping for that one time favorite splurdge from high school - french fries and a chocolate shake. But, must be good, be strong, and just a few more days and I will have my first week down. Almost half way there now.