One Week of Clean Eating

What an interesting experience!  I did not expect to feel quite the way I did after a week of clean eating.  As I alluded to in my previous post, I am not hell bent on compliance here, however, up until the evening of Day 7, I ate only Whole30 compliant foods.  I will confess that I didn’t stick 100% to the “spirit” of the program which is three meals, no snacking.  Most of the time I was OK, but as the week wore on, breakfast became more and more of a problem and I found myself snacking on cashews instead of eating a meal.  Even after making  this:

I still couldn’t summons up the enthusiasm to eat breakfast every day.  It is a meal I have always struggled with.  I was doing intermittent fasting and skipping breakfast altogether.  That style of eating actually worked really well for me but then I discovered the Chobani coconut and chocolate yoghurts and started eating those every morning for breakfast. Yum!  Back to the here and now, if I didn’t have a meal prepared, I also didn’t eat lunch on schedule. Yesterday for example, I didn’t get lunch until 3 PM because I didn’t have time to fix it.  This is on top of no breakfast.  Could I make this work?  Absolutely!  But I would need to change so much about my lifestyle to be 100% compliant and I am not feeling the motivation or the need to make these changes.

I woke up on day 2 of the Whole30 thing feeling great!  But that really was the last time I have felt great.  My head was less foggy than usual, but my stomach was a disaster.  And this was part of the problem with breakfast.  As soon as food hit my stomach, the gas and pain would begin.  It got progressively worse throughout the day to the point where I was miserable and in pain every evening. I looked to be 6 months pregnant.  This did not ease at all over the course of the week.  Yesterday I bought magnesium and what I hope is Whole30-compliant lactobacillis acidophilus.  I haven’t yet identified why I am having so many GI issues but I am guessing that either my soluble fiber intake is too low, or my stomach acid levels are too low, or I have an imbalance between the good and bad bacteria in my gut.

We were unexpectedly invited out to dinner last night.  I knew I had not the will power to get through a dinner out without breaking the rules.  So I compromised with myself. I’d order a salad and have a glass of wine.  Well, we all know that I don’t do just one glass of wine.  I was true to form and had two glasses with dinner.  I had a third when I got home.  I also ate a few corn chips with cheese dip.  Yup, if you are going to break your diet, might as well do it with style!  I am proud of myself for only having between 5 – 10 corn chips though.  If I’d not been on the diet, I’d have eaten the whole basket!

And that brings me to another aspect of the Whole30 diet that has surprised me. I haven’t been hungry at all. No cravings for anything.  I think the bloated stomach plays a big role there, but that’s OK.  My main objective for doing this was to stop the carb binges!

Luckily for me, my mother was an excellent cook and she turned some of those skills over to me.   Putting together meals without a plan isn’t that difficult for me.  I made this green curry from leftover stir fry chicken and vegetables:

 

My slow cooker has become a best friend and has allowed me to easily prepare meat that can be used in numerous ways, including my own version of southwestern pulled beef:

 

I have discovered some foods that I didn’t know existed.  This loaded sweet potato has a big spoonful of coconut butter on it.  This was one of my favorite meals to date.

 

I bought a spiralizer last summer and it really is the most practical diet tool in my kitchen.  I am not a big fan of spaghetti squash but I love spiralized summer squash or zucchinis.  I made this “pasta” dish and served over summer squash.

 

I also made myself a sweet potato shepherd’s pie using lamb from a roasted lamb that I fixed on the first day of the diet.  It was really, really good.  I also used the lamb in the breakfast casserole. I have yet to find breakfast sausage that is Whole30-compliant in my town.

 

I know that eating this way is not for me. I  don’t really enjoy it and the bloating impacts my life significantly.  After my intentional slip up last night, I woke with no bloat but with a wicked migraine that was resistant to all drugs.  I know the wine is the culprit and I am treating yesterday as a reintroduction day, of sorts.  That means that today, tomorrow, and the next day are pure Whole30 eating.  I will then add in dairy for a day, as detailed by the plan.

Many will criticize me for doing this for only 1 week.  I had hoped for 2 weeks but I just don’t see any point in being this miserable.  I find that the diet has too much meat in it for me.  I also feel nauseated at the prospect of a full meal for breakfast.  The last issue I have is muscle fatigue.  My muscles burn to a ridiculous extent when I do anything more than a brief walk.  Clearly, my muscles are not accustomed to drawing energy from much other than an immediate source.  On the one hand, it is probably a good indicator that my body is trying to use fat instead of glucose.  On the other hand, it sucks to feel so physically exhausted.

So there you have it.  My first attempt at a very dramatic dietary change.  Let’s see how the next 3 days go.

 

 

 

Trying Again

Well hello to my old friends. I bet you forgot I existed.  It has been so long that I couldn’t remember my password!  I fail to understand why, as much as I love to write, I cannot blog on a regular basis.  I guess it goes hand in hand with my inability to stick with anything!  Diet, exercise, resolutions, etc.  My weight yoyos like crazy.  When I exercise, it is down, when I am highly stressed, it is down.  Anything in between and I begin to look like a hippopotamus!  I don’t seem to be able to find a happy medium.  And so, I am starting to work on a new me all over again!  Is that a collective groan that I hear from my readers?  I don’t blame you in the slightest.  Nonetheless, I am going to give it a shot.  And since it is spring, this is an apt time for Springcleanedmom to do some spring cleaning!

What exactly are you doing, I hear you ask?  I don’t usually do things in half measures so I am throwing myself into a Whole30.  Yes, me, the anti-high protein, -low carb girl. Yes me, the anti-paleo girl.  I couldn’t care less what my cave-person ancestors ate and I don’t believe that today’s diet should reflect what they ate.  I know, I know, this doesn’t make sense at all.  Well, here is what I like about Whole30.  They are not advocating for a caveman diet.  They are advocating for a healthy diet.  A good deal of what they say makes sense to the scientist in me.   And a part of it is plain desperation.

It all started when I was a wee-little lass.  The “sick headaches”, the fatigue, the anxiety, the depression, and the insomnia.  And it only got worse through my college years, partially because I discovered alcohol (actually, that discovery was a little earlier than college).  My 20s were the worst years for depression, my 30s for migraine.  My 40s haven’t seen much in the way of depression, but pain has been my companion for a very long time now, as has insomnia.  I started running in my 30s and although this new-found love went hand-in-hand with a healthier lifestyle and weight, it also went hand-in-hand with chronic hip pain.  While surgery fixed some of the hip problems, it hasn’t been the complete answer to my troubles.   Every so often I have major flare ups which require steroids.  And in the past two weeks I have had shingles and debilitating back pain.  Out of shear desperation, I have turned to the internet and as luck (or misfortune) would have it, I stumbled across the Whole30 program!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love to eat.  I am addicted to food.  While I am fortunate enough to enjoy healthy foods, I am a potato chip addict.  If it wasn’t so bad for me, I’d live on a diet of dips, chips, and red wine 🙂  Who wouldn’t want to do that?  As you can imagine, I don’t feel so good when my diet consists largely of fat and sugars.  It is time to detoxify.  I am also treating this as a migraine elimination diet. I have started many of these over the years but have a hard time sticking with them.  Why do I think Whole30 will be different? Because it has an end date.  They even have a plan to add foods back in to the diet after the 30 days.  The one problem for me is that I am scheduled to have surgery mid-way through.  I thought about starting the “eating plan” after my surgery, but why wait?  If I cannot stick to the diet during my overnight stay in the hospital, so be it!  Technically, the folks who developed the 30 day plan would require I start over.  I will wait and see.  I am highly unlikely to beat myself up about eating something “off-plan) while in the hospital.  The two weeks of healthy eating prior to my hospital stay can only be of benefit.

Today is Day 2 for me!  Day 1 was a breeze.  Today I am lacking energy but given that I am on pain killers and muscle relaxants, I don’t think the diet is soley to blame!  I am looking forward to the morning when I wake up with the “extraordinary energy” that so many Whole30 and Paleo folk describe.   I am not hungry.  That is a good thing.  I do want something sweet but I can handle that.  I am feeling rather positive about this new journey even though I have never experienced a diet-induced change in how I feel.

How about you?  Who has made a significant dietary change and reaped benefits?  I’d love to hear your stories!

About those Resolutions

This is it, right? The first day of the rest of our lives?  A new day, a new year. Time for new resolutions.  Why is it that resolutions on the first day of a new year are supposed to carry more weight than resolutions made at other times of the year?  It doesn’t seem to make any difference to me; I never follow through!  However, since New Year’s Eve is usually the last “celebratory” day of the silly season, it does make some sense to set a goal of returning to “healthy” eating on January 1. For me, this means getting back onto the Weight Watcher’s diet and getting back in to an exercise routine.

With little children, my days of heavy partying on this last holiday of the year are gone. On a whim, I invited my running buddy and her family over to see in the new year with us.  Her children are older than mine, with her youngest being 10 and my oldest being 6. We had the best NYE that I can remember. We celebrated in a way that was similar to my own family celebrations when I was still a child. We ate a lot of food, drank some wine and champagne and played games.  All of the kids had a blast from the 16-year-old to the 3-year-old. The evening was so nostalgic that I hope we will now have started a NYE tradition.

My other resolutions include writing more and making more of an effort to keep in touch with friends. I miss my friends.  Talking to them through Facebook or email just isn’t the same. So for me, diet, exercise, g-rated parties, friends and writing are all on my list of resolutions. Now, how about you?

What NYE traditions do you have?  Did you make any resolutions this year?

Two Weeks Post Op

Hello world, it has been a long time.  I had my surgery on May 24 and haven’t blogged since.  Let me update you in the most minute detail since no one else wants to hear about it anymore 🙂

I had the worst week leading up to my surgery.  I had a menstrual migraine, the worst in months.  The day of my surgery was the heaviest day of my menses and I had a migraine that did not respond to my usual “hit it hard” regimen of 5 mg zolmitriptan plus two Lortabs (10/500).  By the time I got to the hospital, I was almost incapacitated.  Of course, I hadn’t been allowed any fluids after midnight and I am super-sensitive to dehydration.  My surgery was scheduled for 10:30 AM.  Thank goodness they were on time.  I was taken back to a bed, told to strip down to nothing under my hospital gown.  This was when the fun began.  If you are sensitive to details of women’s stuff, I suggest you not read on!

I was escorted to my bed by a wonderful elderly male volunteer.  He was such a sweet fellow and I fell in love with him right away.  He was kind and sensitive.  When he instructed me to change, he waited patiently outside the curtain until I was done.  He then came back in and asked a few more questions and got me settled.  I then asked for a female nurse.  He didn’t bat an eyelid and he very tactfully disappeared when one came.  For those of you who don’t remember, I was having hip surgery.  Hip surgery comes with a no knickers policy.  So with my face as red as a beet, I explain to the nurse what my problem is.  No worries she says (or, since I am in the US, it was probably, no problem).  I was given some of those lovely mesh undies that they give women after having their babies, and a hospital pad.  I was told that surgeons see this all the time.  It didn’t ease my embarrassment.  I was also told I didn’t have to change into these until just before I was to be taken to the OR.

The anesthesiologist comes to see me.  Since I had already taken drugs in the morning, I wanted to tell him what I’d had and how I was currently feeling.  The nurses had kindly turned off the overhead lights for me and I had my forearm over my eyes.  I told him what I had taken and also told him that the minute I moved, I was going to puke all over the bed.  He thanked me and immediately put an order in for three different antimetics – IV Zofran, IV Reglan and a scopolamine patch.  He also ordered fentanyl to be given before I went in to surgery to help ease my pain before the surgery.  Of course, before I could have the fentanyl, I had to get to the bathroom to take care of the wretched business at the other end.  By the time I got back to the bed, I must have been as green as a red-eyed tree frog.  I had asked what anesthetics I was going to get but the anesthesiologist, who didn’t know I am a pharmacologist, was rather vague.  He did tell me I’d get some midazolam (Versed) before I headed to the OR and that I would likely not remember anything about the ride to the OR.  He was absolutely spot on.

The next memory I have is waking and becoming aware of my surroundings.  I was shivering something fierce and this caused my muscles to contract which hurt the hell out of the surgical site.  They had me bundled in about 100 blankets from the warmer trying to ease the shivering.  I think I had 6 doses of fentanyl during that time.  When the anesthesiologist came by to see me he said “usually patients look worse after surgery but you look 100 times better!”  I thanked him for the pain medicine. I was finally awake and un-shivery enough to be returned to the secondary recovery area.

I was already in the continuous passive motion machine (the CPM) when I woke up.  Back in secondary recovery, I made a really rapid recovery.  The only issue was the darned scopolomine.  It is an anticholinergic.  My mouth was so dry I couldn’t talk.  At the time, I had forgotten about the patch so I didn’t realize that was the problem.  I had to see the physical therapists to be fitted with the hip brace before I was allowed to leave the bed.  By this time I was dying to pee and terrified of the potential mess that was under my butt.  I even asked the nurse to take a peak at the sheets since the PTs were two young boys (yes, they must have both been in their 20s!).  For some reason, they just didn’t get the message that I needed to get to the restroom pronto!  Finally the nurse came over and in a loud voice said “DO YOU WANT TO USE THE RESTROOM BEFORE YOU DO ANY THING ELSE?”  I loved that nurse.  She even took me to the bathroom.  I don’t think I can articulate how damned hard it is to take care of female business when you have just had hip surgery and you are in a hip brace, and there are two 20 year old boys waiting to get me on my crutches to practice climbing up and down stairs!  They had the door open before I had even flushed.  All I wanted to do was flush the evidence down the toilet but the nurse insisted that she’d take care of it and for me to just wash my hands.  Well, she didn’t seem to notice the two young boys waiting at the door and appeared in no hurry to flush.   Ugh, second lot of major embarrassment and it wasn’t even lunch time.  Actually, it might have been.  I think I was in surgery for 2 hours.

So here is bit that I am not sure how I feel about it.  My MRI-A was read by a resident, a radiologist who is supposed to be the best in my city, and by the orthopedic surgeon, who is also considered one of the best in the region.  The radiologists diagnosed labral tear.  Along with my symptoms, the surgeon diagnosed labral tear and CAM impingement (bony growth on femoral head).  He wasn’t sure that he wanted to remove the CAM impingement though and was going to play that one by ear.  It turned out that I had a perfectly intact labrum!  It was “deeply bruised” according to the surgeon.  They had to drain a lot of fluid containing all sorts of inflammatory mediators, cut away the synovial tissue that was grossly inflamed, and he did a psoas release (partially cut the tendon going to one of the hip flexor muscles).  So, the surgery was no where near as traumatic as if I’d required anchors to repair the labrum.  But what I am not sure about is whether the surgery was really necessary at all!  My OS seemed to think so.  In fact, he told me that had the labrum not looked to have been torn, I wouldn’t have had surgery and he felt the inflammation was so severe that it wouldn’t have gone away with conservative therapy.  I just don’t know.  I wonder if I should have gone for a cortisone injection into the hip first.  It was decided against because the local anesthetic that was injected with the contrast medium for the MRA completely abolished my pain for two whole days.  There was no doubt that the pain was coming from inside the hip.

I was finally sent back to the hotel after learning to crutch up and down steps and after sitting on an exercise bike for 20 minutes.  I was given a hip brace, night time brace and a CPM to take home with me.  I had to have a follow up PT appointment the next morning so we had to stay a second night in a hotel.  All in all, the experience wasn’t so bad.  I wish I hadn’t had the migraine. I am really interested in medical stuff and wanted to ask all sorts of questions.  But I was too sick to do so.  Well, my wrists are tired from all of this typing.  The story will continue the next time I find time to blog.

I Finally Get to be a Hipster

I am really not that cool so being able to lay claim to being a hipster is a big deal!  OK, bad joke but my hipster buddies will get it (I hope).  I met with my orthopedic surgeon for the first time on Monday.  Great guy, younger than me, typical arrogant surgeon.  Don’t get me wrong, I have friends and family that are doctors and surgeons and being arrogant is part of what makes them so brilliant.  This is an admirable quality  – at the right time, and trust me, this is the right time!  He is cute enough too.  Always good to know your surgeon, who gets to see you in the most vulnerable of all states, is cute.

That reminds me of a story.  I have a very, very close friend.  She got sick, went to hospital in state of emergency (I drove her).  She was convulsing by the time I got her there and barely conscious, from internal bleeding.  Not being family, I had to really talk my way past the guards front desk, to be allowed into the ER with her.  The first words out of her mouth when she was cognizant enough were “oh man, the male nurse is really cute”.  I am not exaggerating.  I took this as a sign that she would be OK.

But I digress.  Monday, I go to the OS.  He bulldozes through my diagnosis and potential treatments.  By this time I have had several clinical exams by other docs, x-rays and an MRA (one of those horrible ones where they inject a dye directly into your hip joint prior to taking their pics).  So the OS has all of this available to him prior to seeing me for the first time.  He asks me to tell him my story. I tell him that he has my pictures, what more does he need?  He tells me that he prefers to make a judgement call based on the clinical story, not on the pics.  OK, I like this guy already.  He wants to know where I am hurting.  Everyone else around me is sick of my story.  I am absolutely excited to be able to tell it (again) without the yawning and eyes glazing over….

But really, once he determines that I have tried the conservative route, and doing nothing is not an option for me, he tells me that he would recommend a date for surgery ASAP.  A week would be best.  But he acknowledges that I may not be able to organize it that quickly so he opts for 10 days. WTF?  Most surgeons have at least a month of surgeries booked up.  Red flag, I hear you all ask?  But no, I suspect that this is because my beloved PT is very close to said OS, and said OS is looking to move to a different practice.  I come to find out that beloved OT’s other patient who she sent to same OS is scheduled for the same day.  He is clearing the books so he can start anew.  He is paying off all debts to friends LOL.  At any rate, I am thrilled to bits.  I get to move forward… Plus the dude (yes, I have reduced my arrogant OS to a dude) is pretty big in the world of hips, so I trust him.

So, life has been hectic ever since.  I had to get blood work, EKG etc all done.  I have medical equipment to rent but the company still hasn’t called me.  Hello, there are only three days next week to get it delivered to my house!  Being a chronic migraineur, I am on a narcotics contract with my neurologist so I had to visit him to organize my pain medicines.  He was super-cool about it all and has promised to take care of all of my post-surgical needs.  As a show of faith, he wrote me a rather large prescription for my pain meds and let me fill it right away.  It is important for me to have him on-board because my surgery is in another city and is out-of-network.

Kids are organized to go to my mother-in-law for the first week but after that, they will be back with us.  Husband has an out of town trip about 16 days after my surgery.  I hope to be able to organize someone to come and help me.  Now on to work.  I have about two weeks of work to get done in less than 4 days.  The dog needs to go to the vet this morning so I have to give up precious work time to take him.  Sigh.  At least the vet is a friend and is making time to slot us in.

So fellow hipsters, tell me about your experiences post op hip arthroscopy for labral repair and possible osteoplasty of femoral head.  Were you in a brace?  For how long?  Two weeks on crutchers or longer?  How long in the CPM?  I know 6-8 hrs a day but for how many days?  What about the Philippon cylinder?  How long with that?  How was your pain level?  I have never had surgery before so this is scary and exciting all at the same time.

The Old New Me

I was doing so well.  I was off the booze, off the Lortabs, off the Ambien.   Life was starting to look better, feel fresher and feel less painful.My semester ended on a high note.  So what, you may ask, is the problem?

Put simply, I do not do injuries well.  When you take away my exercise, you are taking away my soul.  I feel as though I am being sucked into some dark vortex every so slowly.  I need meds for the pain, I need meds to sleep.  I cannot walk with out pain.  I cannot shop with out pain.  I need this to be over.  I want to storm in to the orthopedic surgeons office next week and tell hem to fix me, no matter what.  No more of this conservative stuff.  It isn’t working.  It is time to pull out the sharp knife and get me fixed up once and for all.

Weekend Roundup

The weekend has been and gone.  A bottle of wine, 2 days of migraine, 2 Zomigs and 2 Lortabs later, I would say that I made poor choices this weekend.  Although I did not drink excessively, I should have known I was exposed to enough triggers to set off the head.  Hormones and thunderstorms.  Doesn’t get much better than that.  I guess Friday night was almost to excess, but Saturday night was one glass (or perhaps 1.5 because it was a fairly large glass!).  At any rate, on Saturday morning I just took the Zomig.  No worries.  Unfortunately, the virus that invaded the day before was kicking my butt for most of the day.  I finally got my kids off to sleep when the younger one woke up crying hard.  Turns out that he had vomited all over his bed 😦  And he had a fever.  Poor little fellow. So, cut a long story short, spent and hour or so in the middle of the night bathing child and doing laundry.  Since the little guy refused to sleep anywhere other than his bed, I had to work pretty hard to get that horrible vomit smell out.  I don’t know what it is about vomit but I think it is the nastiest smell ever!

I didn’t end up getting much sleep Saturday night and much to my dismay, awoke with another migraine.  This one was worse than the previous day’s so I hit it up with both a Zomig and two Lortabs.  Did the job.  We all went shopping together (McD’s, B&N, PetCo and grocery).  Spent afternoon finishing some housework and finally, managed to get out into the yard to see if my lavender had survived the winter.  I had planted three different varieties and one of them didn’t make it.  I think the other two have but it is still a bit early to tell.

A boring post from me tonight.  I am feeling rather uninspired!  Probably the lack of sleep and the NyQuil!  Goodnight bloggers.