The Devil You Know

My first day off the AIP and I decided to have for breakfast: Tuna Salad and a cup of tea. Tuna salad because MOTHER FUCKING MAYONNAISE* YO and the tea is Tulsi Vanilla tea because VANILLA BEANS YO. Halfway into it, I have kind of an unhappy tum. I don't know if this is because I'm slumping over the table, though, because it's kind of cold in here and I don't want to get up to put on a wrap.

BLAH.

So I'm taking a break from the food and writing this up. Aaaaand I should probably go get a damn wrap.

Okay. Got a wrap. Let's see if sitting up straight and getting warm helps with the stomach cramping. UPDATE: It didn't.

I emailed my friend Melissa Joulwan about my thyroid numbers and my decision to abandon the AIP. During our conversation I asked her thoughts on reintegrating weight lifting now that my cortisol levels aren't sky high (Dr. Khosh said the morning one even looked a little low and it wouldn't hurt to boost it up a bit, so lifting weight would be great). She had some good words on the subject (she always does--she's a very smart woman). What struck me the most was her suggestion to stop thinking of it as Exercise, and instead to think of it as Activity. With the idea of Exercise comes a lot of social conditioning that includes the idea that I should be sweating, breathing hard, feeling my heart pound, etc. And even though my adrenals are getting better, it's not a good idea to put them under heavy stress yet. So those notions of EXERCISE aren't something I should entertain. Instead, I need to think about incorporating resistance training as an ACTIVITY, taking each movement slowly, moving purposefully through the full range of motion, and pausing between each movement to regulate my breath and body. My reaction to this was "In other words, treat weight lifting as if it was a yoga session."

With this information in mind, I'm going to approach Andrew with the following schedule: Body weight movements for strength-building on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule with supervised heavy lifting at the CrossFit box on Saturdays. I'll continue my morning yoga, where Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays are designated restorative posture days, and (conveniently) Sundays, Tuesday and Thursday evenings I have yoga class.

This all sounds very good on (digital) paper. It's going to take some discipline to apply it. I am not good at maintaining a schedule that requires me to exercise do activity (other than cooking dinner and relaxing) after work in the evenings. But I don't want to give up my morning yoga, and I can't fit both yoga and body weight resistance training into my morning schedule. Also, it's easy to do yoga quietly (mckitterick isn't up that early--or if he is, he's not happy about it), whereas lifting my body around to quiet boop-dee-doop yoga music does not inspire appropriate energetic effort. So the more demanding ACTIVITY must happen after I get home from the office.

I can do it if I want to do it, though. Fitness is a matter of priority.

And my stomach still feels weird, so I'm going to put the rest of this tuna salad in the fridge and make some peppermint tea. *sigh*

Update: Oh, hey. I just learned of KU's basketball loss on Facebook. First: Is anyone really surprised? KU always chokes, y'all. Second: I'm so relieved the loss happened on a Friday night because the angst and shirt-rending will have mostly dissipated by the time I return to the office on Monday morning.

Update 2: I forgot to report Dr. Khosh's reaction to my thyroid numbers. His basic reaction was "How are you doing this?" Because really, I feel okay! He said he'd only seen two patients with TSH numbers that high, and I'm one of them. The other woman had such incredible fatigue symptoms that she couldn't even drive herself to her appointment. So hey, I'm doing something right here. The only thing I can think of is the super clean eating. Paleo diet FTW, in my case.

* Because I'm not allergic to duck eggs, and they had some at the Merc (supplies of duck eggs are spotty)

I'm going spending another month on the AIP. Not only for all the reasons I talked about yesterday, but because I'm going to start low-level resistance training this weekend. I want a full month of monitoring my body changes from that (good or bad) before I start introducing foods. If I have an autoimmune flare-up (swelling, aches, fatigue), I need to know it's movement-related, not food-related. If I'm making two changes within two weeks of each other, there's no way to guarantee I'll be able to tell the difference. In fact, it's highly unlikely I'll be able to tell the difference.

Considering the emotional/psychological motivations to extend the experiment and the practical reasons, there's absolutely no reason not to extend it another month.

Kiva cautioned against going too long on the experiment (nine months or more) because reintroductions after an extended period of time can be traumatic. For example, after a year of eating raw food, an acquaintance of mine has now severe stomach upset when she eats cooked food, and if she eats fish more than once a week she gets terrible skin break-outs. She's pretty much resolved to just not eating cooked food or fish for the rest of her life. Having that level of problem with eating sweet potatoes and spices sounds like whole lot of not fun, so I'm looking at the month of July as the latest I'll wait before starting reintroductions. Of course, if it turns out my body's just too sensitive to those things, that's one thing. But I don't want to set myself up to fail just because was too scared or lazy to start the reintroduction process.

GOD DAMN this shit is taking a lot of my mental energy.

Sleep note: The past three nights I've been too cold to fall asleep. I have to leave the mattress pad on high for about an hour while I lay there, chilled, before I even feel drowsy. Once I finally fall asleep, I'm okay (except for one night I got up to pee, but was able to fall back asleep). Replacing the down comforter with the down blanket is helping, but the blanket alone isn't enough to get the bed cozy enough for me to fall asleep. I need to either:

1. Remember to turn the mattress pad on High two hours before retiring
or
2. Put the comforter on top of the blanket, turn the mattress pad on High within an hour of retiring, and then push the comforter off when I go to bed

Since I need to remember to turn on the mattress pad under either circumstance, the first one makes more sense to me. That way I don't have to worry about piles of bedding unnecessary for the entire night. OTOH, it's a wonderful feeling to crawl under that giant comforter when crawling into bed. That thing really is a comforter.

By the time I get this figured out, it's going to be spring and warm weather.

Last night I made a pretty amazing faux curry (curry spices are verboten on the AIP). Here's what I did.

Faux Curry
1 lb ground beef
2 onions, chopped
3-4 garlic cloves (or more)
1/2 can coconut milk
1 c broth--chicken or beef
1 acorn squash, cooked
1 t ground ginger
2 t turmeric
2 T coconut aminos
2 c cooked chard (or any other leafy green--spinach would be great, I think)

Cook down the onions until golden. Add garlic. Add beef and brown. Scrape acorn squash meat from shell and put in blender with broth, spices, and aminos. Blend until smooth. Add to meat mixture. Stir until heated through. Remove from heat. Add coconut milk and greens. Stir to combine. Ta da!

This is pretty much how I feel right now, guys.


SO DISPIRITED. ( Cut for whining and gifs )

Sometimes I wonder about my memory, you guys.

I recently eliminated fruit from my diet, in an effort to further cut down potential inflammation. I wasn't making much progress with the AIP, and I know that raw foods are problematic for me. So it was easy enough to conclude the fruit might be keeping me from seeing results on the AIP. I was into my third week of no fruit when I remembered the part about needing more glucose than some people because of my body's need for extra support converting T3 to T4. *facepalm*

Obviously, I shall be reincorporating a few select fruits that are high glucose, low glycemic index, and have a low inflammatory rating. Medjool dates top the list, with bananas somewhat at the bottom of my acceptable range, thanks to a higher inflammation factor. But bananas are convenient, tasty, and not terribly sweet. Grapes are okay (at least they meet my criteria for acceptable for my purposes), but they're so sweet. I worry they'll trigger sugar cravings. Pomegranate juice is okay, which is a good thing since that's what I use to take my BioSil (it and Cod Liver Oil are the only supplements I still take that aren't prescribed by Dr. Khosh).

So! A few limited fruits are back on the menu. I hope this eliminates the muscle fatigue and sleeping problems (which, according to research and experience, it should).

BTW, this is the nutrition data website I used. It has a lot of information about foods, far beyond the typical protein/carbs/fat nutrition data labels.

As I approach the halfway mark of my AIP experiment, I feel ready to start looking at What Next. One of the things I appreciate about the AIP is that it's actually really easy. I mean, I'm just doing what someone else tells me. I can't tell you what a relief and a blessing that is. Years of experimentation and floundering around in uncharted waters is exhausting. Yes, the AIP is limiting, and I've given up a lot of stuff, but it's been a fucking walk in the park compared to when I was first negotiating gluten-free, then grain-free, then paleo, etc.

It's not news to me that I like being told what to do. I'm a secretary. I take direction well. And, really, self-experimentation is not fun when your life is on the line. It's all well and good for people like Timothy Ferriss, but I'm not (yet?) at a point where I try things to see how much better I can do them. I'm just trying to keep doing things at all. So yeah, having someone competent and who has gone through similar trials telling me what to do is Just Great.

That knowledge about myself leads me to wonder if I should try the year-long program from Precision Nutrition. I agree with mckitterick's opinion that it sounds kind of cult-y, but so did CrossFit. Also, one of the women's counselors is Krista Scott-Dixon of Stumptous, whom I've adored for years. It's pretty expensive, though, and I have a lot of questions about the exercise program especially (like, would I need to join a gym--that's a dealbreaker). But it's something on my radar, anyway.

Next week, after my body has had a chance to acclimate to the higher glucose in my diet, I'll write up an analysis of how I feel, six(ish) weeks into the AIP.

Thanks to ms_danson I already have one hour of my four-day weekend planned out. Check this.



WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK. Oh my god I can't wait.

Man, I wish I'd seen this image before I posted the Men's Fashion collection. Just look at that. Damn.

Another pretty thing to look at (especially for the Renner-lovers here): Have some Jeremy Renner with gorgeously smudged eyeliner. Hngngngng.

Confusion is rampant in the English department today. Two faculty members thought the admissions committee meeting was this morning (it's next Wednesday), and another faculty member asked me if I'd confirmed the graduate committee was still planning to meet on Monday afternoon (I have no recollection of sending that meeting proposal, and nothing in my Sent mailbox).

Tomorrow is not only my birthday, it's my 30-day marker for the AIP. I haven't been talking much about how I'm feeling because honestly, other than slightly higher energy levels, I haven't felt any different. That's kind of disappointing. I have started to cut back a little bit on the amount I'm eating. I think I was eating kind of a lot too much. So February is going to be less about watching what I eat (I'm in a groove now with the AIP restrictions) and more about how I eat. I might even start food tracking.

So I guess I should go figure out what the hell is going on with that Monday meeting issue.

Does anyone want two Pyrex casserole dishes with snap-on plastic covers? I haven't used these things in years and I want them out of my cabinet.

I suppose I'm doing okay on the AIP. I miss booze, but not as much as I missed coffee when I quit it. So I guess that's good. I don't miss spices terribly much (yet), although I would very much like to have a curry. Cold weather calls for curry. I'm drinking a lot of hot water with lemon. Or a splash of orange juice. Sometimes with a spoonful of coconut milk if I'm feeling decadent. If nothing else, the AIP is moving me even farther away from the notions of food as comfort, reward, indulgence, or anything much beyond just plain fuel. Considering my limitations in using food in social settings (unless I plan to cook for everyone present), this is not a bad thing.

Mentally/emotionally I'm doing...okay? My lady hormones are fucked up right now and that's just plain exhausting. My cycle is so out of whack I can't even see it from here. I think I'm a bit over two weeks late to start my period. I actually took a pregnancy test over the weekend because I figured it couldn't hurt to make sure. My first pregnancy test ever! Exciting! But like every other test I take for anything besides food allergies, it came back negative negative negative.

Story of my life.

On Thursday I'll consult with Kiva to get the start date of my December period, since I stupidly tossed my 2012 planner without copying that information over to the new one. I want to make sure I remember things correctly before I make an appointment to see my GP. Which I'm going to have to do unless things move along soon because I've felt PMS-y since, oh, NEW YEARS. Total drag for everyone in the house, let me tell you. I am really tired of my breasts hurting and having low-level cramps pretty much non-stop. Bah.

The only reason I can think of that would have cause this is in November I stopped taking the estrogen regulating supplement because other than lengthening my cycle by a day or two, I hadn't noticed any improvement. Things went downhill after about three weeks off it, though. Weird spotting, then a terrible period, then more spotting and now nothing. I've been back on the supplement for over a month, so I would have thought things would have evened out by now, but OF COURSE NOT.

It's all so frustrating. And that issue is not helping my general attitude regarding the AIP. But hey, when is this stuff ever easy? There's never a good time to make major life changes.

Well. We need some good news in here, yes? The good news is I've had enough energy to get up and do yoga two days last week and then this morning. Last week I also managed to get away from my desk and walk around the building every hour on the hour. I had Grand Plans to continue that, but we've got one secretary out on family issues and the other called in sick today. Since I'm the only person in the offices, I don't feel comfortable leaving my desk for that long that often. So instead I'm doing squats or jumping jacks or push-ups or other stuff in my office when my little 60-minute timer beeps.

Also I am sure that I'm sleeping better, now. The vivid dreaming has slowed (perhaps alas), but lately I've been able to sleep through the night without earplugs. This is pretty huge. I've had to sleep with earplugs since high school. I'm sure I'll need them to sleep when I travel or sleep anywhere other than my dark, silent bedroom, but still. Small progress!

I've been thinking about reviving my Goal Posts, but I feel like I'm dealing with so much right now. I don't feel comfortable making goals, no matter how small, on a weekly basis. But for the foreseeable future, my activity goals are:

Morning yoga.

Step away from my desk at least once an hour for purposeful movement. Going to the bathroom or distributing the mail does not count.

Purposeful movement after work five days a week. Right now I'm thinking Mondays and Wednesdays I'll work with the TRX, Tuesdays I'll do dance drills and maybe some improv, Fridays are dance class, and one day a weekend I'll join mckitterick on bagwork/punching.

Hey, one day of the AIP (AutoImmune Protocol) down! Only eighty-eight more to go.

Last night I went to the Merc to buy vegetables for the week, but I had to make a trip to Checker's because the Merc was lacking spinach, and I'm still buying some non-organic items for mckitterick (orange juice, cheese). The whole experience was stressful because I was spending not quite twice as much money for about half the amount of food and the two stores aren't exactly next door. At least Checker's is close to our house.

My body better adapt to the better nutrient qualities of the organic food so I need less food to stay satisfied. Yesterday and today I was so hungry all day. Not fun. I'm also exhausted. Tired like I haven't been tired in a while. I AM READY FOR MY CLEAN EATING ENERGY BOOST, OKAY?

I really gotta figure out where I can pick up some extra money. I'm having to pull out over half of what's left in my teensy little savings account to pay off all the crap I've got due in the next couple weeks. The bloomers yet again failed to take off at another store downtown. She sold one pair. =( I'm going to have to carve out the time to make an Etsy store as a last-ditch effort.

Whine whine whine. Okay, enough.

Do you need help figuring out the plot/characters of Les Miz? See if this helps.

A million thanks to aprilstarchild for pointing out to me the tumblr Hobbit Haikus. SO GOOD.

I really want to see that movie. Soon. It's probably not going to be this weekend, though. I'm already spending approximately three hours in the car tomorrow driving to and from Warrensburg, MO, to pick up my split side of a cow. Ugh. I need to find a closer farm for grass-fed beef. I emailed M&J today to find out when they'll have a side of beef available for purchase again, but the email bounced. I left them a voice message.

Has anyone who reads this ever heard of the sister singing group The Roches? They're about as far as it can get from what anyone would expect me to like, but I've been listening to them at work lately. Man, I love their voices. I am so grateful I got to see them live, ages ago.