MRT

Yay, finally got my results!! And life is about to get real crazy. So my doctor says she still wants me following the non-inflammatory diet that she gave me last time as much as possible, but those are more like guidelines of what I should be eating, not actual rules. Like if I mess up every once in a while it's not the end of the world. But these things from the MRT she says for sure don't mess up. So yellow I can't eat for 3 months and red I can't eat for 6, and maybe never. Which makes sense, because I need the inflammation to go down. So here goes!

Red: Cabbage, Leek, Soy

Weird, right? Cabbage?? The soy doesn't surprise me, but cabbage and leeks? Weird. I love cabbage! Also my doctor said I needed probiotics, but I'm not supposed to have dairy, so she wanted me to eat sauerkraut, because that's a good source of probiotics. So I've been eating cabbage every day for the last month! No wonder my skin has been acting up a little. So obviously going to not eat that anymore.

Yellow: Apple, Avocado, Beef, Buckwheat, FD&C blue #1 (blue food coloring), Goat's Milk, Ibuprophen, Paprika, Peanut, Phenylethylamine, Rye, Sodium Metabisulfite, Spinach, Strawberry, Tuna, Vanilla, Whey

So some of those don't surprise me, like I already knew I was lactose intolerant so the whey isn't all that shocking. Or peanuts I don't even like so that didn't surprise me at all! But some of them are sad, like apples and avocados and strawberries and spinach. :( those are some of my favorite foods! I eat spinach almost every day. Others are just random, like umm blue food coloring? huh? But, I'm glad I finally have answers! So yay!

So here goes 3 months of not eating anything of the above! Though I think I will wait a week to start because this is my last week on campus and quite frankly it is just so hard to stick to any diet when I'm eating most of my meals at work. Because half the time there isn't labels on anything I'm eating, and nothing is organic at work, and all these other things. But Friday is my last day on campus, so come Saturday it's hard core diet time. Also I'm going to Wyoming to hang out with the parents for like week starting next Tuesday, so that will help too. I sent my mom and email giving her the list, so she will make sure I don't eat anything too bad :)

Turkey Soup

So tonight I found out that turkey, carrots, sweet potato, asparagus, celery, and quinoa make a pretty dang delicious soup. So that made me happy! I was just using up left overs in the fridge and that's what I came up with. Which is why I love soup so much, it's so easy to just throw together some random ingredients and pour in some broth and call it good. YUM!
Also, my dr apt is in 1 week! So that's exciting :) hopefully she has some plan figured out for me for the summer. And hopefully I get my MRT results soon. I don't remember if they send them right to me or to my doctor, but I sent my blood off 2 weeks ago tomorrow, so I'm hoping they should come in soon if they are sent to me, and if they get sent to my doctor then I will get them on Monday. I'm excited! Scared that it's gonna be something crazy but also excited! :)

Fish Taco Bowls and my new favorite thing

OK so it's pretty easy for me to get discouraged about food lately with so many things I can't eat and then I feel like all I do is mess up, especially at work when I don't actually know half the ingredients I'm eating so I could be messing up without knowing, but that all changed tonight. I made the best dinner ever!!! So I normally am not a big fish fan, anything that tastes like the ocean smells is just not ok with me. Do I love the smell of the ocean? Yes. But do I want it in my dinner? NO. So most seafood is out. I do like shrimp, but shrimp is not allowed on this diet. But, one kind of fish that I do really actually like is Tilapia. It's less super fishy tasting. So the other day at the store, since I'm trying to branch out and all that, I figured hey why not? And bough a couple tilapia filets. Best decision of the week I have to say, because it led to tonight's amazing dinner: Fish Taco Bowls.
So no processed foods for me, that pretty much means if I want grains they need to be in whole grain form. I have been using brown rice tortillas every once in a while, but the brown rice bread that I have gives me gas, so too processed obviously. So tonight I made fish tacos without the tacos! With mango salsa (see, told you I would reinvent Mexican food with no tomatoes or peppers). And it was awesome! So here goes

Fish Taco Bowls
1 cup brown rice, uncooked
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
2 Tilapia filets
1 tsp each: salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder
olive oil for frying

Cook the rice according to package directions, and then mix with black beans. Put in the bottom of bowl. Meanwhile, mix the spices together and season both sides of the tilapia filets. Heat the oil in a pan over medium-high heat, and put the tilapia filets in the oil (I only made 1 tonight then I have left overs for tomorrow but you could of course make them both). Cook on one side until white (4-5 minutes?) then flip. Leave cooking on the other side until a crispy skin forms (6? minutes) and the fish is white and flaky all the way through. Place the fish on top of the bean and rice mixture, and top with some mango salsa. Enjoy!
*Cooking times are very very estimated as I was talking to my roommate while cooking and not in any way paying attention to the clock

Mango salsa
1 mango, diced
1/2 avocado, diced
1 tsp minced garlic
2 shallots, diced
1 tsp lime juice
salt to taste

Mix everything together in a bowl. Viola!

Ok and then I had some asparagus in the fridge that I needed to use up, so I figured hey why not eat that up tonight too? So I made prosciutto wrapped asparagus... Umm new favorite thing ever. It was so good! All salty and flavorful and yummy! And so easy. Seriously, I just took a package of prosciutto, cut all the pieces in half, and wrapped each around a piece of asparagus. Roasted it all in the oven, 400 degrees for 12 minutes, and it was perfect. The asparagus was nicely cooked, the prosciutto was crispy. IT WAS AWESOME! New favorite thing :) Didn't even need any extra spices or seasonings or anything because it already had so much flavor. YUM!

These two things made me really happy that I can still make yummy delicious food and not break my diet. So that was awesome. I know I can make good food at home, but sometimes it's hard when I don't have much time or I'm just not feeling like cooking. So these made me happy. Didn't take too long, tasted delicious, and followed all the rules. :)
Now I just have to work on eating better at work. It's so hard when there's things like unlimited pop and pizza staring me in the face and I have to sit there and go, yeah I'll eat my vegetables... and then most salad dressings at work have dairy or sugar in them, so I'm pretty much just stuck with oil and vinegar which is not all that exciting. Which is not a bad meal really, I actually like vinegar and oil and eating my vegetables is good for me of course, it just sucks when you have the same thing every day. It gets old real quickly. So that is where all my mess ups come from or where it gets real hard, is at work. I can't wait for it to be summer when I make all my own food and then I know for sure what's in it.

Diet... again hehe

Ok so the last couple days I've been messing up a lot, and sometimes on purpose just because I'm craving something so bad but as previously stated I'm going to stop that. I realized today (and a lot lately really) that I am really bad at sticking with things when they get hard. I just give up and do whatever is easier. But who really wants to be the person who can't fight for what they want? Or who just gives up on everything? I want to be healthy and I want to be fit and I want to be a strong person. So I'm working on it. But I'm also realizing that it doesn't happen over night. Of course, but it's hard to realize that. I think oh I can just do this now, but sometimes you mess up. But I'm really hoping that next time I mess up I don't take 3 days to get back on the horse like this time. Also my goal is to go the next 2 weeks without messing up. I just want to get to my next dr appointment! Then I don't have to go in and say I'm a horrible patient. Cuz that's never fun.
But I realized this morning at work (while I was daydreaming because there were only 3 people in the pool) that I'm gonna have to make some new habits if I want this to really work. First off, they always say when you get a new diet you can't expect to eat like you did before. I realize this, and it makes sense, but it's weird to actually go through personally. Like I said earlier, I love Mexican food but now I can't have tomatoes and peppers. So I'm just going to have to reinvent Mexican food in my mind to not involve tomatoes and peppers and corn tortillas. Will it be hard? Yes, but can I do it? Yes. Secondly, I'm going to have to realize that this is a months or years long journey, not a week. I can't expect to be ok with my new diet in 3 days. I have to get through the cravings of the old diet first, and then still give my taste buds time to change and for my mental state to get used to the new way of eating. My cousins recently went vegan and they said it took a good 4-6 months before they really got used to their new eating routines and didn't think something was "missing" from their diet. So I just have to accept I'm in this for the long haul. Which is hard, but isn't my health worth it? Thirdly, I think I need to get of Pinterest. Does this make me sad? Yes. But, looking at food I can't eat for hours on end really doesn't help. Also the other night I was really tired and planned on going to bed by like 9:30 or 10 but didn't get to sleep til 11 because I was browsing Pinterest. I've realized lately I'm kind of becoming a smart phone addict. I will just sit there and play on Pinterest or play games or surf the internet on my phone for hours because I think I have nothing else to do, but really my bathroom needs to be cleaned or I could at least be reading a book if I just want to sit there and not move too much. So I think that's another thing that will help, is not looking at food I can't eat on Pinterest all day. Sometimes I do find things that I can adapt, but generally it just makes me want something I can't have. Also it kind of takes away my own imagination. So I will have to work on that. Lastly, I need to be more prepared for food emergencies. Half the time I cheat on my diet it's because I am tired and don't feel like cooking or I'm working 12 hours a day and only have time for microwaveable food. So I'm thinking on my days off I really need to work more on making food for the days I do work 12 hours a day. And usually I'm ok about that, but I've been so focused on making good whole meals and all these creative things for me to eat that then it takes so long and I'm too tired to actually do it. My cousin Cathy always compliments me on the fact that I am creative enough to make whole meals and dishes to eat when she will just have a cooked sweet potato for dinner and call it good, but sometimes I think she has the right idea. Like last week I made baked pork chops and apples, which were delicious, but then I only had left overs for one day and I ate those one night that I didn't have to work because I was tired and didn't feel like making anything else, so then the day I did work I ended up eating microwaveable things that I am not supposed to eat. And let me tell you, I can tell a difference on the days I mess up versus the days I don't because holy gas machine. Sometimes I think I could power a small car. It's ridiculous. So, I'm thinking on my days off (like especially tomorrow since I have the whole day off and not just an afternoon) I'm gonna work on making more food that I can just grab and go. Like bake 4 sweet potatoes and throw them in a bag, make a double batch of quinoa salad, mix up some turkey salad that I can throw in a brown rice tortilla (the bread that I bought gives me gas, I think because it has agave nectar in it, but the tortillas have been fine so far), cook some plain chicken breasts or pieces of steak to just have cooked meat to throw on a salad, etc etc. I am usually a person who likes to just wing things, but when you are dealing with as many food restrictions as I am currently you can't really wing things. Also it will be good practice for going back to school in the fall when I will have to start packing lunches again. So I think this will be good for me.
So those are the things I've decided I need to work on the most, and will be working on over the next couple months. I can't wait until summer starts (only 3 more weeks of working on campus!) when I don't have to stare at food that I can't eat all day and I don't have to work 55 hours a week so I will have more time to devote to figuring out food and recipes and stuff. For now I am just going to do things simply. Also, I am going to visit the 'rents for about a week after school gets out, so then I can have my mom help me out with ideas, because moms are great for things like that. :) Also my mom is an awesome cook. So yay! Vacation!
Anyways, off to bed cuz I'm exhausted and it's 10 at night which is way past my bedtime even on a Saturday night. But wish me luck! This will be a very hard but hopefully very helpful and personal-growth-inducing couple months.

Diet

Ugh this is so hard. I am not going to lie, I've made it very few days without messing up. It's really hard to make sure I'm eating the right things especially when I'm at work and I can't always read ingredients. But I can tell when I am messing up cuz I get more gassy and stuff. So I am bound and determined to go the next 2 weeks until my dr appt without messing up! So even though after work I want nothing more than air heads, I'm gonna do it! Though I really hope that my doctor at my appointment says I can eventually have some of these things back because I miss mexican food. And without salsa and peppers I'm not sure how I'm going to make mexican food. But that's my favorite! So hopefully that works out soon haha.
Anyways not much of a point to this note other than I keep messing up but I'm going to try really really hard not to!! And thanks for the encouragement so far Cathy and everyone else. 2 weeks til my next dr appt. I can do this!

PS

Hopefully tomorrow I get my MRT!! Woot!! So excited to finally have some answers. I just have to call the FedEx office tomorrow and see what time their last shipment out is, to make sure I have time to go get my blood drawn and then get it back to the office. Sometimes I hate not having a car. A trip that could take 20 minutes if I had a car takes 1 1/2 hours because I have to walk all the way downtown after work to get the blood draw and then all the way back to the office. Good thing I have long legs! So hopefully FedEx will still send out packages at like 5 o'clock or something because I work until 3:30 so if they need it before 3 or 4 I'm kinda SOL. So someone cross your fingers for me, I'm gonna need it!

Gyro Salads

YUM! Made some awesome dinner tonight! I've been experimenting with this coconut milk kefir I found, it's the only non-dairy non-soy yogurt I have found that doesn't have sugar in it. But it's kinda weird... it's just so liquid-y! Which is what kefir is, it's pretty much drinkable yogurt. But that's still just so weird to me. I don't know that I could ever just drink yogurt... But I'm thinking it might have some applications. Like maybe a little bit poured over some baked apples or pears or peaches or something? Kinda dessert-ish. Mmm that sounds yummy right now. Anyways, moving on to what I actually made today...

So, gyro salads! Kind of. I'm stealing ideas from work :) so at work they make this beef souvlaki and the souvlaki sauce that they make there is AMAZING and by far one of my favorite things ever. However it is made with yogurt and as previously stated I'm stuck with liquid yogurt. Also the souvlaki sauce has white wine in it and no alcohol for this girl! So I blended the beef souvlaki with the beef gyro, using the meat recipe from the beef souvlaki and then some homemade tatziki sauce with the yogurt. And it was delicious. Though I felt like such a snob at the store the other day, make sure I bought only organic free range ground beef. Or they were having a sale on these pork chops that were from a local dairy farm, where they used up their waste products from making cheese to feed the pigs. And so then I REALLY felt like a snob cuz I was like well, I'm really not allowed to eat dairy, so if they are fed dairy will there be dairy in the pork? UGH. I hate being all high maintenance like this. Oh well. Moving on to food!

So for the meat, here goes
1 pound ground beef
1 TBS minced garlic
2 tsp oregano
pinch of salt and pepper

Mix all the spices into the meat. The end. :) Set it aside in the fridge for a few hours to let the flavors marinate, cook it when you are ready to eat!

Homemade tatziki sauce
1 cucumber, diced
2 tsp minced garlic
1 TBS diced fresh dill
1 TBS lemon juice
pinch of salt and pepper
about 3/4 cup (?) coconut milk kefir

Mix all the ingredients together, lessen or add dill to taste since that's a pretty strong spice! Again let it sit in the fridge for a few hours to marinate.

Then when it comes to meal time, it's easy! Brown the meat in a skillet (or you could bake it in the oven, spread it on a sheet tray, throw it in at 350 for about 15 minutes), throw some lettuce on a plate, top with extra veggies of your choice (I threw in some carrots, I'll bet it would also be really good with some radishes and onions), top with some of your meat and then spoon on some of the sauce! Enjoy! It was delicious.
One note though would be to not also slice extra cucumbers on top. I made a salad base just like I would any time, lettuce, spinach, carrots, cucumbers. And then I put the tatziki sauce in which is pretty much all cucumber and went oh.... that's a lot. Not that I don't love cucumbers, but it was a little overwhelming. But still yummy.

Also, on a side note, I must have ate something I wasn't supposed to tonight cuz man I cannot stop farting. I think it was peaches. I had a couple cans of peaches, I was going to make a peach bake again but then got distracted this afternoon. But after dinner while my roommates and I were just sitting on the couch watching the ACMAs I was like man I really want something sweet. So I figured I would just eat a can of peaches, since I wasn't going to use them to make the peach bake. And also I had specifically bought the kind that aren't in syrup they are just in their own juice. Which I'm not supposed to have fruit juice but I figured hey I would just drain and rinse them before I used them for anything. But tonight I just drained the can (not in a colander or anything, just pouring out what I could get) and then just ate them straight from the can and called it good. Less dishes that way. And within 10 minutes I was gassy. It was so sad! I was enjoying a quite nice gas free day until that happened! But this makes me really sad because it might have been the juice but what if it was the peach? What if I'm so sensitive to sugars I can't have any fruits at all? Or only the ones that have hardly any sugar in them, but that means no peaches or apples or watermelon. Which is just depressing! Those are some of my favorites! So I'm really hoping that it's just because there's still inflammation going on since I haven't been on the diet that long, and that after a few weeks of healing I will be able to eat fruit again. Because fruit is delicious and if I am told I can't eat it ever I think I will cry. Actually, not think. Know. I will bawl. Especially with summer coming up when all I want to do is eat cherries and watermelon all day every day. I don't even care that I can't have alcohol or chocolate as long as I can have my fruit! So we shall see how that progresses with how I'm feeling. Next time I want peaches I will definitely rinse them well first! Or just eat fresh ones. Those just aren't in the store yet.

Homemade Granola Bars

Umm Fail. Ha I tried to make some homemade granola bars today and they just didn't turn out all that great. Not too bad, but not something I want to eat every day.
First off I wasn't using any kind of recipe for them, just winging it. And I've never made homemade granola bars before. So I just threw some stuff together and called it good. So anyways, here's what I did.
Mixed together cooked quinoa, chopped almonds, unsweetened coconut, a little cinnamon and a little nutmeg in a bowl. In another bowl I mixed almond butter, cocoa powder (is that the same thing as raw cacao? That's the only chocolate I'm actually allowed to eat... I'm thinking now though that those might not be the same...) some stevia and some rice milk until it was kinda the consistency of cake batter. Mixed the chocolatey stuff in with the nuts and quinoa, and then baked them all at 250 for 30 minutes. Probably should have cooked them warmer, but I just wanted them to get a little drier but not all crispy. So anyways, learning experience.
So taste wise, they aren't too bad really. Not very sweet but then again I am trying to not eat sugar and get myself away from sweet things so in a couple weeks when my taste buds start to change they might seem too sweet. The flavor of the quinoa came through quite a bit, but that isn't too bad. I think I would do less coconut next time though. I'm not actually a huge coconut fan.
So all in all they aren't the best thing I've ever tasted, but not the worst either. I will keep playing with it. They might grow on me :)

On a side note, for breakfast this morning I made "Paleo Breakfast Burritos" that I had found on pinterest and those were delicious. It suggested ham slices, but I used turkey. Anyways, I sautéed some broccoli and spinach, then scrambled them up with some eggs and a little salt, pepper, and garlic. Put the eggs into 2 turkey slices, rolled them up and called it good. I did throw the rolled up turkey on the stove for a minute in the pan just so they would get warmed up but you probably wouldn't have to do that. And they were delicious! Had that and an apple and called it a good breakfast. They probably would be good with some salsa or avocado slices on top, but since I currently can't have salsa (no tomatoes... sad face) and didn't have any avocado then that didn't happen. But they were still awesome.

MRT and life discoveries

So, still haven't gotten my food intolerance test. I know, it's been like a week since my appointment. But they were out of kits when I went, and they said they should be in on Monday, so I figured hey, no big deal, I will get it then. Plus they were having the store downstairs, which is like an herbal shop, make me my yeast pills so I figured I would get it all on Monday. So I got a call on Monday from the herb shop, and they said they had my yeast pills ready, so I walked all the way to the shop (probably about a 30 minute walk from my house depending on how fast I go and how many times I have to stop at a light) and get my pills, but the MRT kits weren't in yet. So they said they would call me when they came in. So they called me on Tuesday that they were in, but then I was reading my paper that my doctor had given me for what she was "prescribing" and along with the yeast pills I am supposed to take Caprylic Acid pills.  So I asked about that, because I couldn't remember if I was supposed to get those from a different spot or not, but she said no I needed to get that from them, but those wouldn't be in until Thursday. So on Tuesday I had to work at the pool anyways, so I figured I'm not gonna walk all the way out there 3 times in one week, so I figured I would just go get everything on Thursday. But then I got out of work late on Thursday afternoon and then had to work at the pool so I didn't have time to go pick everything up. So I finally went to pick up the acid pills and the MRT test kit today, but then I look at the kit and it says it has to be taken Monday-Thursday. Why, I have no idea. But that meant that I couldn't get it today. SO I will have to go get my blood drawn on Monday. Good news though is that I do have my acid pills (haha makes it sound like drugs) now so I can start my yeast regimen tomorrow, which is good because that is supposed to go for 3 weeks. And my appointment is 3 weeks from Monday so if I want to be done I better get on that.

Also, this whole thing is a learning experince. It's crazy how many things you don't even think about until you can't eat them. Like things I have learned this week:
Coconut Milk Plain Yogurt has sugar in it. What the frick.
Sauerkraut is a good source of probiotics. Who knew?
I am going to miss tomatoes. Shocker, because I don't like fresh tomatoes, and I think I can live without spaghetti, but dang am I going to miss BBQ. I can't think of a way to make BBQ sauce without ketchup.


But anyways, moving on to things I can eat! I think this weekend I'm going to attempt some dairy free homemade tatziki sauce :) and maybe some gyro salads. With the sauce as a dressing. Because I love creamy salad dressings, like vinagarettes are good too but my all time fave salad dressing is and forever will be ranch. I just love the creamy spiciness of it. But I have yet to find a dairy free ranch that is anywhere close, so I might have to just give that up. But I'm hoping I can find some other creamy dressings to help me get through. Like tatziki salad dressing! Woot. I will let you know how it comes out :)

Non-Inflammatory Diet

So my naturopath gave me this hand out about how to eat a non-inflammatory diet, which she really wants me to do, especially for the next few weeks while I'm working on getting rid of yeast and figuring out my food allergies and things like that. It's really interesting! But sounds good for you. So for the next about 6 weeks or so (if not the rest of my life) depending on the results of my food intolerance test I get to eat things like:
Vegetables!! (include at least one green one daily)
Grains like millet, quinoa, and brown rice
Any kind of legumes and beans other than soy beans and peanuts
Ocean (not farmed) fish, but no shellfish
Free range and organic meats (Though she says to eat ones you don't normally eat to give your gut a break which is interesting because I pretty much just eat chicken when it comes to meat so it would make sense that my gut might need a break, but then I don't know what to do with myself. Beef and pork are out unless they are organic... Maybe I will start eating more lamb. Though I just continued reading and that is only allowed once a week. Guess it's turkey time for me! Or maybe I need to learn to like fish...)
Fruit, but only 1 to 2 servings a day
No sugar unless it's things like agave, raw honey, or stevia, and only with meals..
Nuts and Nut Butters ok (again other than peanuts)
Oils are allowed, especially coconut oil, EVOO, flax, hemp, walnut, almond, and avocado
Free-Range organic vegetarian eggs (which are the only kind I eat anyways)
LOTS OF WATER!

Things I will not be eating:
Sugar
Animal milks and cheeses
Chocolate
Gluten
Peanut butter/Peanuts
Meats or Eggs that are not organic and free-range
Nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant)
Caffeine (no coffee or tea)
Corn products
Soy products
Dried fruit
Fried or Processed foods
Alcohol

Ok this totally makes sense. I will give her that. Things like caffeine and alcohol, I don't care who you are you can't say they don't give you digestion issues. But some of them I find interesting, like peanuts? Not that I am sad about that, I hate peanuts and peanut butter. Call me crazy but I think they are the most disgusting thing in the world. That is like the one food that I will not touch with a 10 foot pole. And the processed foods thing makes sense, who really wants all that junk anyway especially when you are trying to clean out your system. In general I think this is a really good idea though, it should help me a lot. And then I will get my intolerances test back and then we shall see what I really can and cannot eat. But my doctor said to kinda ignore the 6 weeks part of it so I'm thinking this will be my recommended diet for the rest of my life. Because I obviously have gut issues going on so those would be better avoided if I can just stick with this. So this will be hard but I'm pretty excited! Haha I'm going to have to figure out some new meats to eat though... This is gonna be weird.

Also I made an appointment with the other naturopath that my doctor recommended, but that appointment isn't until mid-May. I figured I should get through the rest of the semester working so much before I tried to fit in more doctors. Also I am then going home for a weekend so I pushed it back another week. For now I will just work out in ways that don't strain my knee too much. But that means no running :( which is sad because I really was starting to enjoy it. And I still want to do the color run in September! So hopefully I can be fixed in time to train for that :) I would like to be joint-issue-free come about July, then I will have time to train for a 5k in September, and also come the fall I want to start taking Pink Glove Boxing, so if my knees are still messed up then that wouldn't work out very well I have a feeling. So hopefully this knee problem isn't too serious. *Crossing fingers*