I survived the Chili's chips and salsa

Last night my carb cravings got really bad. Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband who went and got me some chips and salsa from Chili's at 10pm in response to this uncontrollable craving (probably, mostly to shut me up and stop whining, but that's alright). I ate the chips and salsa and it tasted so good. The chips are definitely not on the gallbladder friendly diet (they are made with corn and that is a huge no-no food) but at least the salsa was, so I justified eating it in my carb-craving head. Followed the chips and salsa up with some green grapes and took my gallbladder/digestive supplements and all was well. No nausea, no indigestion, no heartburn, no nothing. Sweet. Chili's chips and salsa are in.

What did upset my digestion the last few days were two rice dishes that I ate. Last night I had my favorite Sushi Popo vegetarian combo for dinner and something was not right with that rice. My husband even noticed it in his dish. Had some not so pleasant indigestion with that one-- I kept burping it up and it didn't not taste quite as good the second time around. But, hey, the chips and salsa got rid of it, so it's all good. Today I ate some leftover mango salsa and basmati rice and that gave me some very mild nausea that was just noticeable enough to be annoying. Luckily, dinner went over very well with my tummy-- homemade summer vegetable soup filled with tomatoes, onions, zucchini, yellow squash, potatoes, basil, and a little bit of Parmesan cheese. It was awesome. And despite it being vegetarian, my husband lapped it up like it was going out of style. He likes my cooking, what can I say?

Again, I hate my camera and the lighting in my apartment. Someday I will have a nice new camera that takes awesome pictures of all my food, no matter what the lighting.

As a side note from my diet, I did something good for my mental well-being on Friday-- I got a fancy new haircut. I love it and I think it's a great reward for all the hard work I've done over the last seven or so weeks. Check it out (ignore my messy bedroom, I have since cleaned it up).

The Lure of Chocolate Fondue

Last night I enjoyed an evening with some good friends. We ate dinner at Sushi Popo (my favorite- got the Vegetarian Combo like usual), and then decided to go down to the riverfront for drinks. I was good and stuck to my water, though the wine smelled amazing. What I wasn't so good on was resisting the chocolate fondue. I swore I was only going to eat the fruit, but ending up dipping everything in the amazing Belgian chocolate.

The restaurant where we went is called Water Street Wines, Cafe, and Coffee. http://waterstreetcoffee.com/ I wish I had my camera with me to take pictures of the tasty goodness, but wasn't carrying it around.

Now, ask me if I paid the price for eating chocolate, a serious gallbladder no-no food? Sure did, but not as bad as I would have thought. I woke up at about 3:30am with some mild nausea, but nothing so bad that I couldn't go right back to sleep. Didn't have to resort to sleeping sitting up on the couch, so I think we are making progress! I think it was worth it.

Not eating chocolate is near impossible for me though! I had to put a napkin over the top of the leftover fondue to keep from licking it all out of the bowl. The chocolate addiction is gonna be a real hard one to break!

Food Allergies

I realized the other day that I still haven't chronicled on here the joy that are my many food allergies. I guess it's probably time... especially since now that my digestion is back in somewhat of semblance of order there isn't always exciting things to report every day.

I have a lot of allergies. Hence the fact my friends always laugh at me and say I should live in a bubble. I laugh along, and I never take offense to that sentiment. I've learned to live with my allergies and have been doing allergy shots for the past three years to get rid of them. The one thing you can't get allergy shots for though is food sensitivities/allergies. Allergy shots can get rid of environmental allergies (pollens, molds, dusts, pet dander, etc), but not food allergies.

Most people are born with food allergies. I was not. The only food allergy I had growing up was pumpernickel bread, and even that was more of a sensitivity since I don't get full fledged anaphylaxis or vomiting or anything exciting like that; I just get really swollen lips with hives. Granted, it ain't comfortable, but I was always thankful with that one that I didn't have the anaphylaxis. My baby brother is deathly allergic to raw egg, peanuts, and shellfish and he does get anaphylaxis, and I also have an uncle whose whole face swells when he eats strawberries and a few other foods. So, food allergies do run in the family but my baby brother was the only one of my siblings to be born with them.

I first started to develop food allergies in the fall of 2002. Every time I ate carrots, peas, or apples my lips would swell with hives and my tongue would start to tingle horribly. By the spring I had added tree nuts to the list, and all of this was confirmed when I starting seeing a new allergist who did a scratch test on me to see what foods I was allergic to. Believe or not, it wasn't until the scratch test that it dawned on me that I was in fact having an allergic reaction when these things happened. I'm a bright one, I know.

From then on I seem to continually develop more and more food "allergies" to items which were staples in my diet. Eating out is always an adventure, though most restaurants are accommodating whenever possible (which is good). Try ordering a salad at a restaurant nowadays without carrots in it. The waiter looks at you like you just asked them to do back flips down the aisle or something. Everything is premixed, and my food allergies are to very common foods that are way beyond the usual "nuts and shellfish." Funny enough, I had one waiter once who didn't flinch when I asked for a salad with out carrots, and it turns out he had a friend who was also allergic-- that made me feel good, sad but true, cuz at least then I wasn't alone! Anyway, as of today I have a very long (and ever growing list) of food allergies. Here it is:
Carrots
Apples
Peas
Beans
Tree nuts (but not peanuts)
Cantaloupe
Honeydew melon
Cherries
Raw Egg
Raw Fish
Shellfish
Sulfites (so no wine, and no bread from Subway)
Subway (something they put on their vegetables I think)
Pumpernickel
Kashi brand foods (not sure what the allergy is to, but I can't eat it)
Soymilk (I think)
Soybeans (I think)
Any fruit that is not organic
And probably a few others I forgot about

The list is long, needless to say, and quite random. All of the reactions are the same, but vary in degree of severity: hives on my lips, tingling throughout my mouth, hives in the back of my throat (sometimes), and feeling like my esophagus is swelling or spasming.

So, how did this all come to be? The timeline of when I developed all of these problems directly coincides with when I was diagnosed with GERD and put on Nexium. No joke. About three months after being on the Nexium was when the food sensitivities began. After about a year on that stuff with no results I switched to OTC antacids (Prilosec OTC, Zantac 150, usually), and I used them fairly consistently up until last month. There was a short time in 2003-2004 when I had gotten most of the GERD under control by using natural supplements (Aloe Vera, enzymes) and avoiding trigger foods (chocolate, caffeine, anything acidic, especially tomatoes), but that was short lived since the GERD kept popping up again and again. Funny thing is, I have a girlfriend who ended up with a similar outcome after being put on Nexium and she didn't last nearly as long as I did on it. Doesn't it seem odd that food allergies would have popped up for both of us after using it? I think so.

I still need to do more research in to the subject, but I think that the gallbladder might have something to do with my it because GERD usually happens when the stomach is having trouble digesting or is overwhelmed with food it can't digest. Sure, acidic food can play in to it, but that wasn't entirely the case for me. I wonder if the GERD was my body's way of telling me something- screaming at me to stop eating so much and eat healthier food. Here I am now, not quite two months in to my gallbladder friendly diet and I have not taken a single antacid since I started (and there have only been a very few occasions where I even thought I needed one). I wish the Traditional medicine community would get get together with the alternative medicine community and start sharing these stories and do some research in to what the root of these diseases are and how to treat them naturally without resorting to pills. I mean, think about it, why should we take a pill that pretty much stops digestion completely????? And why would a doctor want to prescribe that willy-nilly? It doesn't even make sense! Yeah, heartburn sucks (preaching to the choir), but look at how much eating a whole foods diet changed my need for heartburn pills... I'm just sayin' is all.

BTW I have learned that diseased gallbladders can also be a sign of food allergies/sensitivities, such as gluten and milk. I am going to get myself tested for both in another couple of months and see if that might be part of why I have such bad gallbladder problems at such a young age. I am all about getting to the true root of the problem and want to exhaust all possibilities so I can prevent it from happening again!

Best Meal Ever

Tonight I was finally able to personally cook some of the recipes out of my new Indian cookbook and BOY OH BOY!!!! Quite possibly one of the best meals ever.

First let's start with the amazing smells. One recipe called for freshly ground coriander and when the smell started to overtake the kitchen my senses came alive. The smell is abosolutely amazing, and difficult to describe- though it definitely had a hint of lemon or lemongrass type scent to my nose. Plus the smell of the tadkas-- Indian sauces that are prepared with onions, oil, and spices over a high heat before the actual main food item is introduced-- was intoxicating and the whole apartment smelled amazing.


There were two dishes I made tonight for the meal. The protein portion of the meal was a baked halibut in a broth of shallot, coriander, cayenne, ginger, and garlic, topped off with tomatoes and cilantro. Can you say flavor? My friend and my husband absolutely devoured this dish (I ate the other one first, so I didn't eat quite as much of the fish, but it was really good).


My photo doesn't look near as good as the one in the book (especially with the awful yellow lighting my dark dark kitchen). Either way you get the idea. Look at all of that flavor!

The vegetable dish was a ginger lemon sweet potato, and this was to die for. In love is all I have to say. The flavor explosion was borderline orgasmic it was so amazing. The tadka was made with red onion, turmeric, mustard seeds, serrano chili peppers, and ginger, and then the sweet potato was added and steamed quickly with everything and then right before serving you mix in some freshly squeezed lemon. Amazing doesn't even begin to describe how wonderful this dish was. The recipe was an absolute keeper. I can't wait to eat the leftover for lunch tomorrow.

Again, crappy lighting, but you get the idea. The picture in the book does much more justice.

And who says healthy eating has to be boring? Right?

The only part of the meal that did not follow with my dietary restrictions was the onion, but it's kind of a necessary evil in most cooking. Usually the onions don't bother me, but like I mentioned in a previous post I am more sensitive to the onions now than I have been in a while. I can smell the onions coming of my pores (which is a bit funny when I get a whiff of myself!), and I have a bit of gas indigestion going on. The way I look at it, that's a small price to pay for such a wonderful meal! There is no gallbladder pain, so I'm cool with it.

Maybe I'm not as bad as I thought I was

Yesterday I blogged about some events that happened at work and how they effected me greatly and how hard it was to let go of things sometimes. While this still holds true for me, my gut proved itself right today. The intense feelings of unease I was having were justified and my primal instinct was correct. After a series of events that unfolded today- starting with finding out what had really happened after piecing the puzzle together- I ended up taking action and saying something like I had wanted to from the beginning. In some ways, I wish I hadn't waited until the end of the day today, but then again, if I hadn't my story might not have been as strong a case to rectify the situation. Still not 100% sure everything has been resolved, but I did my part and can really move on now.

This brings up another interesting issue that I have been investigating in regards to mental health. We have trained ourselves to ignore our primal instincts- telling ourselves that we are just imagining things. You hear stories all of the time about how people sense something bad is going to happen right before it does, and when they react on that primal instinct the end up saving their lives or preventing that bad thing from happening. Now, this situation was clearly not life or death, but had I believed my gut reaction that something wasn't right it could have prevented the whole series of events from actually happening. I personally have had other times in my life that I convinced myself that I was imagining things or I was the crazy one and that there was nothing wrong. In some cases this turned out to be quite traumatic for me and I am still suffering the consequences it has had on me since. From my own story and the stories I have heard from others I wonder why we don't spend more time getting in tune with our body's natural primal signals. Not so long ago, I am certain I saw Oprah do an episode on just that subject. It's great what she has done to cause more awareness of this subject, but I wish there was more. We need to learn to pay attention to the hair raising on the back of our necks, our heartbeat quickening, our eyesight becoming extremely focused, and that general sense of unease. Our bodies are speaking and too many of us don't listen or react.

In other news, my acupuncturist told me today that I am a "rockstar" since I am doing so well. He said I only have a slight fold in the left side of my tongue and everything else has cleared up. How exciting is that?!?! And it seriously only took just under three months to clear up years of problems. Natural medicine stimulating the body's ability to heal itself is amazing to me and I wish it were more mainstream in American culture. The results cannot be ignored from where I am sitting.

Learning to Let Go

Part of our health and well-being is our mental health. For me, this is something I have been striving to obtain for many many years now. After eight years of therapy I can say that I am making great strides, and am happy to report that I discovered earlier this year that I'm not the crazy one (in most cases, anyway), but I'm actually rather normal. My biggest issue is that I am a very sensitive individual and after having suppressed this side of myself for so long (28+ years) I am finally starting to learn how to be my true self without becoming the "crazy" one.

Now, I am a sensitive person, but not to the point where I cry at the drop of a hat or take offense at everything. No, I'm just your basic everyday living breathing sensitive person who has a good heart and wants to believe that others have a good heart too. My sensitivity comes to the forefront when I am treated wrong or disrespected, and for a long time now that has caused me to react with a lot of anger. This stems from a lot of things, and by removing the source of where the anger and frustration started I am actually doing much better than I normally would be. However, I do get my feelings hurt in a big way when someone doesn't treat me as I would like to be treated- especially if it is manipulative or abusive in any way (that's when I really get upset). In all fairness, my sensitivity is normal or should be normal, but in today's society we are taught to not have feelings and suppress emotions. Yeah. After 20+ years of that I discovered that wasn't work so well for me and was actually making me one of the "crazy" ones.

Anyway, today I had a coworker really treat me in a manner that I felt was dismissive, manipulative, and rude which caused my sensitivity to boil over. When I told my coworkers something didn't feel right early on, they all assured me that it was probably just in my head and things were fine, agreeing that I was probably reading in to it too much. Then I got a whammy where my gut was right and the situation panned out in the way I hoped it wouldn't. The coworker who mistreated me was one who I never pinned for being that kind of person, and I'm still not sure why things had to play out the way that they did. Perhaps I am naive in assuming that people can be straightforward with each other. Maybe I'm totally disillusioned in this matter, and maybe I'm completely missing the boat altogether. Thankfully, I have a wonderful therapist and friends who reassure me all the time that when these things happen I'm not being crazy and completely over-sensitive.

The largest probably for me is learning to let go of those negative experiences. It takes me a long time to move on from those hurt feelings and stop talking about it. Sometimes it feels as though I have to vent a certain number of times before the "ick" is out of my system and I can drop it. Sometimes, it just takes a conversation with the offender/instigator to get a better understanding of where things went wrong. Either way, I'm not one of those people who can just move on with it as though nothing happened right away. I wonder if it's something in my DNA, or better yet, something in how I was taught when I was growing up. I believe in a lot of ways I was taught to hold on to my anger, frustration and hurt, and in some respects I taught myself how to hold on to it because they were the only true feelings I had. It's just so hard for me to move on, as much as I desperately want to.

With this situation, I have to move on and stop wasting energy on it. I have one week left at that job, and in the grand scheme of things it really only makes it easier to leave that job. It doesn't make me feel any better about it, but there are times when I have to learn to let go and stop fighting. I've spent so much of my life fighting for people to treat each other nice and I haven't gotten very far with that battle. This is one fight that is not worth my energy at this juncture, but had I been staying at the job I would have fought it hard.

I'm going to learn to let go slowly but surely. It's just going to take a lot more time to break my body and mind of their old unhealthy habits.

Backing Up

First I want to start out today's post with some lovely food porn (I use this term loosely of course, but it's so tasty looking how could you not want a piece?).



Tasty looking, right? It was a little creation I whipped up the other day with some left over veggies I had and one of my new spices. I know it's not a super complex, fancy recipe, but it sure does taste good. I used red peppers, baby bella mushrooms, spinach, extra virgin olive oil, and my new Sunny Paris Seasoning (see previous post). The flavors are light, but quite good. The meal itself--which I combined with quinoa, also seasoned with the Sunny Paris stuff-- is quite filling and satisfying. The best part for me is that it's chock full of iron from the quinoa and spinach. When you are eating a primarily vegetarian diet, that iron/protein thing is super important, especially for women.

Speaking of, I've noticed something these past few days. (WARNING: For those who don't like the discussion of bodily functions or women's things, do not read on) I am in the "PMS" stage of the month and really took note of how my body, and especially digestion, has changed just these last few days. Looking back, I realize that this is something that happens almost every single month without fail, and always has. Furthermore, these changes coincided last month with when I felt as though I was set back in my progress and was experiencing lots of nausea again. Interesting.


Anyway, the major change that happens for me during the week before my period is that my stomach stops sending signals to the rest of my body. I don't get hungry, I don't get full. Seriously, I know it sounds weird, but it has always been that way for me when I have PMS. As a result, I have a harder time gauging how much I should eat and even when I should eat. Since I don't get physically hungry in the sense of my stomach growling I have to listen for other cues from my body, such as feeling faint or light headed. Fun. Otherwise, I would just not eat, but I know that when I start to feel kind of "off" in that way I need to eat- despite not feeling hungry. The hardest part by far is figuring out when to stop eating. I literally have to go strictly off portion size and hope I got it right. Usually, I think I end up eating too much, which is not good for my gallbladder or stomach at all. But if I don't eat enough? Yeah, then I feel slightly hungry a few hours later, accompanied with the lightheadedness. Double fun.


I'm not sure why my body reacts in this way. I don't have any theories to explain it, but I guess it's just hormones, right? Then I look at the other side effect-- slowed digestion and constipation. Gross, yes, but I warned you! I have been so constipated feeling the last few days, even though my diet has not changed at all from what it was the week before when I was digesting quite well, thank you. Sure, I still go #2, but it isn't as easy and takes a heck of a lot more effort. And compared to the number of times I did go #2 the last few weeks, we are severely cut down. According to my acupuncturist and all of the natural medicine sources I have read so far, we should actually being going #2 more than once per day with normal digestion! That was mind blowing to me! Nonetheless, I would at least like it be easy to go again like it was last week. I wonder if I do a liquid diet this week if that will help move things along? Maybe I should try!


Figuring out all of the little nuances of my body is a very interesting process. I have never listened to it so much and really taken in all of the subtle changes that happen and thought about why they happen. I am learning more about myself than I ever thought I would!

Spicing Things Up

My diet is a bit on the boring side, I guess. I pretty much saute vegetables and eat them with rice for most of my dinner-time meals. Not the most thrilling food in the world, but I like it anyway. I decided I needed to spice things up a bit and get some special seasonings to make my sauteed vegetables taste different from day to day. For that, I made a trip to my favorite place for spices: The Spice House in Evanston.

If you like to cook at all, or need help just making your cooking taste good without measuring out spices or guessing which spices to put in, this is the best place to go. I've been going for there for about two years stocking up on lots of different spices for my meats, vegetables, and fruits. Part of the reason for the trip was that I was out of my favorite: Lavendar Vanilla Sugar!

The loot yesterday was pretty good. I got a new extra large container of lavendar vanilla sugar and some other spices for my husband and I to use. Here's the awesome stuff I picked up:

• Lavendar Vanilla Sugar: pretty self-explanatory here. It tastes awesome on anything sweet or in tea or on pretty much anything. I use it all the time in my baking.
• Sunny Paris Seasoning: freeze-dried shallots, ground Mysore green peppercorns, dill weed, freeze-dried scallions, French basil, French tarragon, French chervil, finely minced parsley flakes, and ground Muntok white pepper
• Ruth Ann's Muskego Avenue Seasoning: Kosher flake salt, Tellicherry pepper, green peppercorns, lemon peel, white onion, or minced green onions
• Pasta Sprinkle: California and French basil, Greek fancy oregano, minced garlic, and French thyme
• Back of the Yard Garlic Pepper Butcher's Rub: Tellicherry black pepper, garlic, Kosher flake salt, sugar, red bell peppers, shallots, parsley
• Vulcan's Fire Salt: Salt, Louisiana Chile Mash, Garlic, Habanero Chile, Shallots, Tellicherry Pepper, Lime Peel, Pimenton de La Vera, Picane, Cumin, allspice and Vinegar

Needless to say, the last two were for my hubby. Not quite my cup of tea the peppery, spicy stuff.

Just for a quick perspective on how much I love The Spice House, here are all of the other spices I own (an highly recommend).

• Pepper Lemon Seasoning
• Milwaukee Ave Steak Seasoning
• Spicy Cajun Style Seasoning
• Old World Central St Seasoning
• Maple Sugar, Granulated
• Pilsen Latino Seasoning
• Rocky Mountain Seasoning (makes the best meatballs ever, as a side note)
• Gateway to the North Maple Sugar Seasoning
• Chip Dip Seasoning

I have included a link to their website if you want to check out all of the tasty goodness. I'm looking forward to using my new spices to help me continue along with the gallbladder diet, and hopefully avoid complete culinary boredom!

Tasty Goodness

Two of the main foods of my gallbladder diet are cucumbers and avocado. I have always been a fan of cucumbers, and have become a huge lover of avocados the last five or so years (once I tried homemade, fresh guacamole and discovered how friggin' amazing it is). For lunch today I had both, in some pretty tasty concoctions that I wanted to share with you real quick.

This first one is a really good Asian cucumber salad recipe that I got from Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals. Now, those of you who know me well know that I don't always care for her food, but this was definitely one of her home runs. Sweet and vinegary, the cucumbers taste amazing. You will see the onions on the plate on the side, and that's because-- as discussed yesterday-- I don't actually eat the onions if I can avoid them. So good though.

Then there is the simple avocado recipe I got from the Haas Avocado people's website. Super simple. It's just sliced avocado, salt & pepper, a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, and either half a lemon or lime juiced. My mouth is watering just talking about it again. There is no better way to enjoy avocado outside of guacamole if you ask me.

That's the food porn I have for today, folks. Looks good, doesn't it?

On a side note, I did buy new pants today, and, yes, I am officially back down to my "small" size! Woohoo! I wasn't expecting to have lost weight, and definitely not this fast, but isn't it amazing how fixing my digestion through detox, supplements, and acupuncture had such a dramatic effect on my body? And conversely, isn't it mind boggling how having such poor digestion (and a not quite as stellar diet that did feature fruits and veggies, but had quite a bit of not as good things included) had caused my body to react-- or revolt-- for that matter? I can't ask that question enough.

Onions, onions are no fun...

I'm quickly realizing/remembering that onions don't settle well with me. The really interesting part of this was that I was reacting to them near as badly a few months ago. Perhaps, because I wasn't completely digesting them the side effects weren't as bad? Who knows. It doesn't make sense either way.

I made two dishes with onions in them today, and although I avoided eating them as much as possible (like usual, just using their essence for flavoring) just the little bit I did ingest made me taste onion for a long while afterwards. This was a more mild bout of onion-atosis, but it doesn't mean I liked it anymore or it was any less annoying. Sometimes I can't get rid of the taste of onions after eating them, even with teeth brushing and mouthwash. I'm just one of those people I guess who is more sensitive than others. My dad is the same, so I must have inherited it from him.

I do find it really interesting that all of the sudden the severe onion-atosis is back in full force, whereas a few months ago it was much more subdued. Then again, there is always the possibility that I just wasn't eating as much onion and therefore didn't have enough reason to get onion breath previously!

On a really positive note, tomorrow I am going to go buy a lot of new pants. I can't wait. I officially have no pants that fit me because I have lost so much weight from the detox. I should be back down to my "regular/small" size or close enough to it, from what I can tell. My "medium" size is quite loose on me, so I am assuming I can go back down another size. I haven't worn my "small" size in almost four years (spending most of the past few years in my "medium" size), so this is going to be so exciting and a wonderful reward for all of my dedication to fixing my health!

The ever aching gallbladder

Strange thing that I've started to notice over the last few days is that my gallbladder region, and in turn my gallbladder itself, feels quite sore and achy. It's not pain, but it feels more like if something were bruised or an overworked muscle. I'm not quite sure why it feels this way, but I hope it's the kind of ache that means that it's been working hard to clean itself out and get back in shape.

The last few weeks my digestion has been really good and the nausea is all but gone (finally!), so I am feeling good about the progress I am making. Not to mention, I have lost well over twenty pounds now and officially must by a whole new wardrobe since nothing fits me anymore. I haven't been this tiny since grad school! The rapid weight loss shows how much my body was needed to rid itself of an overwhelming amount of toxins and how poor my digestion was operating before I identified and started to address the gallbladder problem. It's still mind boggling to me how quick my body has responded to the supplements and diet, and I feel as though the aching in my GB this week just shows what a work out I've given it! Lots of fruits and vegetables have certainly been doing a good job of cleaning house!

Granted the aching sensation and tenderness come and go, but that little bit makes me wonder and make me even more focused on continuing forward.

As a side note, I had another Indian dish tonight-- one from my new cookbook. It was a mild fish curry with potatoes, and a side of rice crepes. There was a lot of coconut milk in everything- which is surprisingly one of the approved food items for my GB-- and the sweetness was nice in combination with the spice. I liked the crepes so much I might make them for a dessert or breakfast someday soon and load some warm berries on top. So good! As for the fish dish, I actually think it would have tasted better with chicken or a fish other than cod. The fish had tasted "fishy" but that could have also had something to do with my husband overcooking it (which was actually for my benefit, since I can't eat raw fish and he wants to make sure it's "killed" for my safety. What a sweetheart.). Anyway, I can't wait to try more Indian recipes and see what new flavors I can experience!

See. Healthy eating can be fun and tasty!

Adventures in Curries

Last week I got my cookbook for my newest favorite recipes of simple Indian food: vegetables stuffed with lamb and basmati rice, spicy cucumber salad, and beet salad. I had gotten all of the recipe out of a year old issue of Prevention magazine (good mag for health nuts like myself), and have fallen completely in love with all of them so much so that I broke down and got the cookbook. I'm so excited about it! Especially the recipes with butternut squash, one of my favorite foods for the fall!

The book is called 5 Spices, 50 Dishes: Simple Indian Recipes Using Five Common Spices by Ruta Kahate. I ordered it on Amazon for a steal of a deal and it was readily in stock, as opposed to all of the brick and mortar stores where not a single one had it in stock and the price was much higher. Gotten love Amazon. Anyway, once I try some more of the dishes out of this cookbook, I will share them. A lot of the spices used in this book are very good for digestion and food is especially healthy in how it is prepared. Can't wait!

Now that I have discovered that I like Indian food, I decided to be adventures in my eating the past few days. On Tuesday, my husband and I took my mother in law out to our favorite restaurant in the Quad Cities, Le MeKong (I highly recommended the Pho Bo and Spring Rolls, yummy). Since my usual dish is quite heavy on the red meat (a big no no for my GB diet) I had to select something different from the menu. I settled on a Tofu Curry dish and could not have been more pleased. It was a fairly mild curry and the dish had tofu, zucchini, tomato, pineapple, and onion. The curry tasted amazing on the tofu and zucchini and I was excited to have leftovers for lunch today! I avoided the pineapple and tomato because they are too acidic for me and have caused me many a tummy ache the last few years, but I didn't care what they tasted like because everything else tasted so good!

After having such a good experience Tuesday night, I was trying to figure out what to eat for dinner on Wednesday. I was laying down during my acupuncture session trying to figure dinner out and all I could think of was curry. Curry sounded so good again. So we ventured out to the Indian restaurant in Peoria, Sizzling India. I had a hard time finding something to eat, given not only my strange food allergies (it is nearly impossible to avoid carrots sometimes) but my diet restrictions at the moment, so I ended up enlisting the help of the waitstaff. The owner was especially helpful, listening to all of my food sensitivities and personal taste preferences, and recommend a very tasty dish for me. It was a chicken curry with peppers and tomatoes and the taste was quite good and the spice mild enough for me to eat. I would have liked to have had more vegetables in the dish, and a lot less onion, but it was quite good nonetheless. I did have some issues with heartburn last night and this morning from all the onions, but by lunchtime it had all cleared up (sans any OTC drugs, thank you very much!).

I really want some more tofu curry. Hopefully I can find a similar recipe and make it at home, but until then, at least I have my new cookbook to experiment with!

Mental Health

The last few days there has been a lot going on with the mental health side of my journey. Granted, the mental health side of my personal wellness initiative actually came months (actually, years, in many respects) before the gallbladder problems. Nonetheless, it is still a very important part of the process for me, and the last few days I have been having to deal with and face some of the issues/people that greatly affect this part of my wellness.

I'm still not ready to go in to a lot of detail in a public forum like this, but those who know me well are aware of the drastic changes I made to improve my mental health earlier this year. There were many toxic people in my life, and after a series of events my therapist and I decided it was time to separate myself from them. It sounds really drastic, I know, and it is, but I had to save myself and my sanity. The effect these people had on me was so intense that even now, five months later, just talking about them and the unhealthy interpersonal dynamics I was dealing with when involved with them causes my blood pressure to rise and a large amount of anger to start spewing out. Anger so intense, it's as if these events happened earlier today, when in reality the events happened months or years ago.

My anger came from many different places. Anger at feeling as though I was never heard, constantly being pushed out or forgotten about, being treated unfairly, and some rather consistent mental/verbal abuse. The situation was highly toxic for me, and it took me years to realize the full extent of what was going on and how I was planted in to a "role" that I could never get out of and that the dynamics would never change no matter how much I tried. I was pegged, and either I could get out or I could continue on in the unhealthy dynamic allowing myself to be manipulated and beaten down. I chose to get out.

Getting out of that situation was the best thing I have ever done for myself. My mood has improved, my stress levels have gone done, and the anger has dissipated. I feel free, finally. However, the wounds are still fresh and when confronted with these people or even talking about them I feel that anger bubble up all over again. It's intense and I know it will take a lot more time of separation to get the anger to cool and for me to be able to confront them again. And I'm not giving that a specific timeline... I'm in no hurry to involve myself in that situation again any time soon!

I truly believe, after 8 years of therapy, that the world would be a much better place if everyone got therapy. Unfortunately though, in my experience it is usually only the sane people who get therapy because they realize something isn't right or someone isn't making them feel right and they really truly want to feel that sense of saneness again. However, many of the people (not all, of course) with personality disorders or other serious issues are too proud to get therapy, believe they don't need therapy, have convinced themselves they are "normal" and don't need therapy, or truly believe they are "sane" when they in fact are not-- and everyone knows it but them-- don't ever seek out the help they so desperately need. I've been talking with a friend about this a lot lately, and the more we talk the more I realize the profound impact therapy truly does have on people and the overwhelming importance of having good mental health is to our overall well-being and quality of life. But you can't force someone to go to therapy, they have to want it, and convincing them they need it is only half the battle.

Why are we so uneducated about this stuff?

Sometimes I can't figure out why people are so flat out rude and unsupportive. I guess it's just not in my nature to be that way, but then again it's also not in my nature to close minded about things and the possibility of alternative ways of doing things. Especially when it comes to my health. Obviously, I'm not one to just medicate the hell out of myself or have unnecessary surgeries when there is the possibility I can treat it with alternative, natural means.

Yet again, I had someone close to me discount what I was trying to do and tell me, verbatim, "you know you're going to have to get your gallbladder removed anyway, right?" Very rude and snippy and completely disregarding all of the progress I have started to make with the diet and supplements. This persons response was that of course I feel better because I changed my diet, and the supplements aren't going to do anything to fix it. Excuse me? And then they went on to say that there was no studies or documentation to back up what I'm doing. I explained to this person that they were looking in the wrong area of medicine (traditional) and that they need to do some research in to natural, homeopathic, and Chinese medicine. The funny thing is that this person is in medicine and didn't even know the actual function of the gallbladder versus the liver. Not sure why that was, but I corrected them and assured them I would prove them wrong and save my gallbladder naturally without resorting to surgery.

I just don't understand why some people feel the need to be so blatantly mean and rude. Especially to someone close to them? I grew up in an environment like this, though it was a bit more underhanded, and it is the worst feeling in the world not having support from your loved ones on something that is so important to you. No understanding, no compassion, just ice cold reactions. In a world where people have compassion, reactions would be more supportive, along the lines of "good luck with that stuff your trying, even if you do end up having to get your gallbladder taken out in the end." Why is that people I am close to can't speak in human terms like that? It's always just commanding me that I'm stupid and ugly or fat or whatever they feel like putting me down on that day.

But I'm just venting. Part of this detox thing I'm doing has a lot of mental components to it as well. Negativity and stress are so hard on the body, especially the digestive system. My body has been in a "fight or flight" mode for several years, particularly during the last two years, and this can cause a large number of the digestive problems I have had, as well as the weight gain (yikes). So, to keep things happy and stress-free, to save my health, I am going to have to surround myself with only people who are supportive and positive in my cause. Are you one of them?

My pants are too big.

It's been a few days since I posted, but there have been some interesting developments/discoveries over the last few days. Well, at least, interesting in my point of view.

Today, I had a coworker tell me that he noticed I had dropped a lot of weight. That was a really nice compliment. Granted, the day before I was telling another coworker about the 20 pounds I have dropped over the last six to eight weeks, and she commented that she never thought I was heavy in the first place. Another compliment, I guess, but go figure, ya know? Anyway, I was telling my coworker today about the diet I am on and how I am trying to fix my gallbladder and health problems through natural means. He was really impressed by what I was doing and encouraged me to keep with it. I was very touched by this, and thankful to finally have someone who is really on my side and understands the commitment it takes and the importance of everything I am doing. He shared a story with me about a person he knew who had rather advanced cancer and got rid of it through natural methods just as I am, using diet, supplements, and whole health nutrition and natural medicine principles. From what he told me, she has been cancer free for years now and never once used chemo or other harsh treatments to get rid of her cancer. This conversation only strengthened my commitment to fixing my health naturally and continuing with it thereafter.

Another thing I have discovered over the last few days is the importance of staying hydrated. When I am making sure to get plenty of water in me throughout the day I have much less digestive problems and nausea, as well as lack of issues when I lay down to sleep at night. For the last two days I have made a conscious effort to stay well hydrated and am feeling better again. I guess I had stopped drinking as much water for a bit. Now that I am back on track, I feel good again.

Interestingly enough though, I am experiencing some GERD overnight again. It has woken me up early in the morning for the past few nights and I can't figure out why. Granted, the GERD is nothing compared to what it use to be-- though, that's not to say it isn't still annoying and uncomfortable-- so that is a major improvement. I just wish I could figure out why I am getting GERD again. I haven't had it for the better part of a month and my diet has been the same since then so you would think I wouldn't be getting any still. I'm going to talk to my acupuncturist about it tomorrow and see if he has any idea as to why it's happening, maybe he will have an answer.

And finally, my pants are too big. I bought two pairs of new ones, but I'm afraid to take the tags off and wear them because those might be too big in a few weeks with the amount of weight I am dropping. There is nothing worse than buying something and not being able to wear it anymore, or at all, shortly after buying them. I know this problem well, but my experience has usually been in the other direction!

Salmon no more

Well, that salmon dinner last night was really not a good choice. When I laid down to go to bed my old friend GERD came back to visit me. It was not pleasant at all. The sensation is something like having the feeling that vomit (or undigested food) is slowly creeping up your esophagus towards your throat. Mind you, there is no vomiting involved, but just the rather unpleasant sensation that makes you wish you did vomit to make it stop.

Since I have sworn off any acid reducing medicines-- I believe they contributed to my gallbladder problems directly by shutting off the acid in my stomach and thus causing the back up of undigested stuff that caused the stones and other digestive problems-- I resorted to sitting up on the couch, drinking water, and reading a book for a while. The sensation of indigestion seemed to go away after an hour or so and I went back to bed.

Things were fine until about 6AM.

Just as my husband was leaving for work I woke up feeling horribly nauseous from the GERD, that apparently had NOT resolved it self completely the night before. I drank some water and propped up a ton of pillows so I could sleep for another hour, and that seemed to do the trick. Unfortunately, it only temporarily relieved things as I spent most of the day feeling intermittently nauseous and fine.

I give up sometimes.

Anyway, I did have some very mild bouts of heartburn today accompanied by some mild nausea, but it was nothing compared to what I used to get. What I find interesting is that I think the problems were directly related to being dehydrated. Once I got enough water in me, both last night and today, the indigestion symptoms seemed to go away. I know I didn't drink enough water yesterday so in a way it makes sense. The body really can't function at it's best with out some lubrication, ya know? It's like putting powdered detergent in a washing machine and only putting a drop of water on the clothes. The clothes aren't gonna get clean because there isn't enough water to dissolve and activate the detergent.

Ok, with that analogy, I think it's official that I've been selling appliances for too long!

Bored with food

Well it was bound to happen. I am bored with food.

Actually, this is nothing new for me. I get bored with food every so often and nothing, and I mean nothing, sounds good. I have zero interest in eating anything. Now, had this been a few months ago I probably would have eaten ice cream or fast food for dinner because when I don't feel like eating I don't feel like cooking either. My mentality back then was that if I didn't feel like eating anything I might as well eat crap food... cuz those sugar highs are just too irresistible, really. Not a good mindset, but what can I say, I was drugged by the American fast food lifestyle and sugary, carby crap was a food group.

For dinner tonight, my husband immediately suggested we get Sushi Popo (see previous post about Guilty Pleasures), but even that sounded gross to me. I ended up talking him in to eating the dinner I had planned up earlier in the day of salmon, quinoa, and spinach salad. Not that it sounded good, but I had everything but the salmon in the house ready to go so at least it didn't require tons of effort. The salmon was what had both of us questioning the meal choice, and the questioning didn't stop when we were eating the salmon either. We both love fish, but for some reason neither of us cares for salmon at all. I ate about three bites of mine, and despite him complaining about how he didn't care for it my husband ate both his piece and what was left of mine. At least I can say the quinoa and spinach salad were really good! But forget the salmon. What was I thinking? I blame it on the Food Network show I watched earlier that had salmon in it...

Anyway, I hate it when nothing sounds good. It makes meal planning a nightmare. I would rather just eat cereal because at least then it doesn't take any more effort than to pour it in to the bowl. But I can't eat cereal! Argh! Oh, well. I made it through the day and tomorrow is back to leftovers while I'm at work, so I don't have to think much about what I'm eating. It's already planned out, and that's awesome.

Guilty Pleasures

When one is on a detox diet, such as the one I am on, they must have a few guilty pleasures. Foods that bend the rules slightly but still, mostly, follow the diet. Today, I indulged in a few of mine.

Breakfast was my usual gluten free waffles with nectarine and honey on top, so that was still following the rules. But for lunch, I had Sushi Popo's vegetarian sushi combo. Yummy. Now, this meal pretty much follow the rules because it is heavy in cucumber, avocado, and rice.

It's awesome. But it kind of bends the rules by having little bits of fried crispies in the avocado roll (which usually has mayo in it, but I have them leave that out for fear of bending the rules too far-- and it usually does and makes me nauseous).

Yummy, fried food. So this one bends the rules a little and it can cause some slight gastric upset for me, but I try not to eat all six pieces and focus on the other sushi rolls instead.

Then for dinner tonight I made one of my newest most favoritest foods. Lamb and basmati rice stuffed vegetables. This stuff is so amazing. The lamb is definitely not on the list of approved foods, but it doesn't seem to upset my stomach at all. I assume this is due in part to the fact that lamb has much less saturated fat (or something) then red meat. For some reason I don't have trouble digesting it.

Doesn't that look amazing? Stuffed zucchini, peppers, and tomatoes. I don't eat the tomatoes cuz my tummy doesn't like them, but I devour the pepper and zucchini. I made a double batch so that I could have leftovers for during work the rest of the week. Can't wait!

Dessert was sliced peaches and blackberries with honey and lavender vanilla sugar on them. Delish! And there are leftovers of that too to put on my waffles in the morning!

Are you hungry now? :)

Acupuncture is my friend

Had my acupuncture appointment today and I am one happy camper. I told my doc that he could never leave me again since last week was so awful. He laughed and then told me he would be gone for a week again in February. We both agreed that if I wasn't better by then we needed to just rip my gallbladder out, and he said he would personally do it for me.

Anyway, no nausea since I got pinned early and I am feeling much better. I still got a little dizzy for a while today, but I drank some vitamin water and the dizziness went away. I might need to start investing in a multivitamin despite the fact that I have no interest in swallowing another pill. But hey, if it means I don't get dizzy all the time I'll do it. Of course, it could be that I have a sinus infection too, so I'll probably rule that one out first. There has been an awful lot of green/yellow snot lately, and it is my first summer with my "new" nose (I had a septoplasty, not a rhinoplasty, don't worry) so some of the scabbing in there could be causing problems.

I was really excited today to find out that one of my friends decided to go get acupuncture after I told her about how well it was doing for me. She's only had one appointment so far, but we are going to compare stories tomorrow. There are a lot of benefits she can get from sticking with it so I want to encourage her to keep going. Apparently, at her first appointment last week she had a "stinger" on one of her acupuncture points and they had to take it out. My doc said that can happen sometimes when there is too much heat (in other words, the flow of energy is severely blocked in that area). He's still trying to figure out how to proceed with her treatment.

Finally, I got my second box of supplements from the GB lady. So excited! I ran out of the anti-nausea supplement last night but had been super low and not taking it as much for the last three or four days, so I am excited to have my relief back in hand! Despite the setbacks I had last week, I know with all of the treatment I am doing (acupuncture, supplements, diet) that I am going to get my body fixed and avoid having surgery. I just know it.

I need my acupuncture now!!!!

This last week has been a bit of a rough one and I believe it is due largely to not having my acupuncture appointments. I have had more nausea this week than I have since before I went on the GB supplements and I am noticing that my tongue is really starting to wave again from the slowed digestion. This could be in part due to the foods I have started to incorporate back in my diet as well-- namely, grains other than rice and the occasional bowl of cereal with rice milk-- but I feel it has a lot to do with not having the acupuncture either.

And the reason for not having my acupuncture sessions this past week? My doc is in Scotland. That jerk! :)

Oh, well. Tomorrow I will get to see him again and hopefully he can pin me up real good to get things flowing properly again. If I feel better next week, that will be the true test of how effective the acupuncture is in this whole fight to fix my GB. Even though we stopped pinning my GB spots the last few appointments, I am going to have him pin them again this week. I can't wait for relief!

Speaking of acupuncture being awesome, about a week and a half ago I had my halfway point reassessment. Part of how they determine how to treat you with chiropractic or acupuncture is by identifying areas in the spine of imbalance from heat, muscle tension, and alignment. They use this neat NASA type machine that scans your vertebrae one at a time and pinpoints the areas of imbalance. It then produces a neat report to show it all. The importance of this is that each of your vertebrae are connected to different organs in your body through the nervous system, and thus the imbalances in the vertebrae suggest and identify problem areas. Super cool.

My first back scan was a nightmare. Look at these, taking note that the longer the bar the worse the problem, and anything in red is a serious imbalance, blue a moderate imbalance, and green a slight imbalance.

This one shows muscle imbalance (YIKES!):

This one shows abnormal muscle activity:

And this one shows skin temperature deviations:

Look at some of those lines! And all of the red! I was a hot, hot mess when I started acupuncture.

Now for the good news. Look at the progress I have made on my six week rescan for the temperature variation (that was the only one they did):

No more red lines! And all of the lines are short! Proof of progress, I think. Pin me up some more!

Relearning what a portion is

The lesson for today is that I am slowly learning what a portion size is for real. We have a serious epidemic of portion distortion in the US and I, for one, am also a victim of this issue.

After all of the sickness and lack of sleep the last few days I am focusing intently on figuring out what a true serving size for a meal looks like. During the past few weeks I have gone from one extreme to another and now am working on finding that middle ground between starving and sick. For me, finding that perfect portion size is super important to how I feel all day since my digestive system is still compromised. If I don't eat enough (or even enough of the right things) I end up starving and dizzy within an hour or two afterwards, and if I eat too much I end up nauseous and with heartburn of varying degrees wanting to hang my head over toilet-- for which no amount of digestive supplements will help.

Breakfast was too large of a serving today and I guess it would be as I was pouring out my single servings of cereal, rice milk, and fruit. Just adding the calories in my head was making some bells go off in my brain saying that it was going to be too much, and it was even though I didn't finish it all. So I spent part of the morning with some mild nausea. Lunch was the perfect portion size, with a small bowl of soup, a small spinach and cucumber salad with lemon and flax seed dressing. I also had a small side of bread, which I think was a bit more than I needed, but all in all the digestion went alright. Dinner was not quite enough, apparently. I had rice with sauteed vegetables and some grapes neither of which were very large in size. About two hours later I was craving sushi and feeling mildly hungry, so I got a little bit of sushi and miso soup and now feel just fine. But, I think I'm starting to figure it out. I think.

This is probably going to be the biggest hurdle for me to overcome during this process. Changing the foods I eat is easy. Making sure I have the exact right amount of them is absolutely mind boggling.