My Year in Weight Loss

On December 16, 2021, my husband and I began calorie counting for weight loss. He had been losing weight without it to that point, but to get to the next level of his weight loss journey, more was required. I didn't necessarily need to lose weight, but I wanted to see if I could. And I wanted to see what my body might be like if I lost ten pounds. 

I've never been able to lose weight on any diet I've tried throughout the years. At 5 foot 4, I was around 150 pounds throughout high school and only ever got as low as 145 in college. With very little muscle mass, because my main hobbies were reading books, playing the flute and watching TV (sports were a thing to be avoided at all costs). In the years following college, I stopped weighing myself, but I continued to be sedentary and ate a typical American diet consisting largely of fast food. 

When I first started to run, in my late 20's, I did lose some weight. But that only lasted when I was running 6 days out of 7 most weeks. Once I got a new job, the running schedule changed and I started trying other forms of exercise at the gym I got access to via that job. My weight, once I started measuring it again, was once again fluctuating between 145 and 155. CrossFit likewise didn't have much impact on my weight - except the year that I was training for a Spartan Race - I bulked up to 160, but I didn't care because I kicked that Spartan Race's butt. 

I did get down close to 140 during a CrossFit nutrition challenge, but I don't really count that, because it was a month of low carb and the weight just came back. So, I didn't really expect calorie counting to work for me. I had a deeply ingrained belief that my body just didn't want to lose weight so it didn't. 

We used the internet to find sources that would estimate our calorie expenditure based on activity level, and each picked a target daily calorie total. I ended up with 1500 calories per day, which I expanded to 1800 to 2000 if I did CrossFit or ran. I got Ambrose signed up to take a resting metabolic rate test to determine scientifically how many calories he should be eating each day to go into a deficit for weight loss. He found the experience so enlightening that he insisted that I sign up as well. My results lined up well with the totals I'd chosen, so I stuck with that, but added more protein into my CrossFit routine on the advice of the test administrator. 

At first, there wasn't a lot of movement on the scale. I even gained weight, though I've learned over the years that I tend to gain about 5 pounds while I'm on my period, which then goes away with as little effort as it came. But slowly, slowly, the numbers trended down. I hit 145, and I kept expecting a plateau. Although there were runs of higher weights on occasion, again and again, the lows kept getting lower. And the highs kept getting lower! 

On December 16, 2021, I weighed in at 149.4 pounds. 

On December 16, 2022, I weighed in at 133.6 pounds. 

I lost 15.8 pounds in a year, and I'm ecstatic. It was slow, but I feel like that just makes it more likely that it will stay off. I'm not done yet. I'm curious where I'll end up staying with this calorie regime (definitely not planning on lowering it no matter what). I'm kind of looking forward to trying to add muscle at some point, regaining a bit of weight for more strength. 

My diet is now largely defined by trying to accommodate my IBS, but I think the exclusions I ended up making over the course of the year helped me with this weight loss. I tried to eat foods with pronounceable ingredients and to avoid "natural flavoring" in ingredients lists. Part way through the year, I stopped eating yeast, which meant no more bread (no more toast!). And then I stopped eating yogurt, because it can have yeast. I miss both bread and yogurt, but the yeast exclusion makes me feel better. 

In addition, Ambrose and I stopped eating fast food and drastically reduced our consumption of any restaurant food. We no longer drink alcohol, another big calorie source. We did have cheat days, here and there, and we also ate much more while backpacking. Pretty much all rules were off for backpacking, and the first full meal after the trip. That means an at home, eat as much as you want meal, not a snack in the car on the drive home (nor a restaurant, because we avoid those largely due to sodium concerns). 

I'm amazed that this worked. That I fit in a size 4 dress in September. It gives me confidence that I can get my first bar muscle up at the age of 40. Yesterday, I hung from a bar by my hands for 2 minutes, unbroken, and then did 2 sets of 4 pullups. CrossFit and running both played a role in my weight loss as well. I'll admit, I was also sometimes motivated to work out because I wanted to be able to eat more. I don't know that calorie counting would have worked at any other point in my life. This was the right time for me, and I'm so glad I tried. 

Omelets and Other Breakfasts

It's been a while since I've last posted an omelet picture, and what better time than when I've got a rip-roaring headache? 

This omelet was an experiment requested by my husband. He wanted me to have chicken sausage in the body of the omelet as well as inside. I wasn't sure that it would work, but I gave it a try, slicing the sausage super fine so that it would blend well with the eggs. I like how it turned out. 

The sausage visible on top is incorporated with the eggs.

Of course, I presented it with a bit more style with smears of queso and decorative sausage slices. 

The other breakfast that I'll mention is one I did not get a picture of, though I really should have. Another special request, for cream cheese and thinly sliced pickled jalapeno to be covered by 2 eggs over easy and a blanket of grits. I constructed this one by layers which could have been neat to document. Alas, you'll have to settle for my description and trust my report of Ambrose's rave reviews. 

Yeast Experiments

I've discovered that for my particular eating issues, eliminating the yeast in bread appears to be the most important part. Soy sauce has also been a culprit, but not hard cheese or grapes. I have been eating cheeses in my backpacking food without issue, and I ate some grapes when I took my niece camping. Neither of those affected me like eating some meatloaf with breadcrumbs did. 

I avoided eating the dinner roll that came with that meal, but the main course was meatloaf. And I knew that meatloaf would have breadcrumbs and that those breadcrumbs would be leavened with yeast. I ate it as a test, and the answer came back: nope. My body doesn't want to deal with yeast. 

The real question is why this was never brought up as a possibility. An uncommon food sensitivity, for sure, but when I continually expressed that I was not doing well, why would my doctors not suggest something less common? I've been considering what to tell my GP when I go in for an annual exam in the fall. Part of me wants to say nothing to her, just go and do the minimum, no complaints. I've been managing my symptoms without the use of laxatives for months - now that I have stopped eating yeast! 

It just feels so absurd that with all the foods they told me to avoid, they never brought this one up. 

But I'm figuring it out, and I'm doing better. I'm eating more foods than I was before, and I don't actually miss bread as much as I thought I would. I'm eating fruits and vegetables again, which makes me feel better overall. I really like fruits and, sure, even some veggies. I'm hoping that I'll be able to eat beans again - that experiment will definitely be coming soon! 

Tomato

I have been avoiding eating most vegetables and fruits in their whole, raw form for a while now. I believed that fiber would be bad for my digestion, because that was literally the only real answer I'd gotten from numerous gastroenterologists. But I decided to try getting my body and digestive system into better shape. I've been slowly adding more fiber, in gentle forms like Cheerios, and peeled apples. 

But Monday, I decided to really go for it with one of my favorites. I decided to eat a tomato, lovely and ripe. It was a generous size, a large handful for me, and I ate it like an apple. Skin and seeds and all. 

I chewed thoroughly and savored every bite. I half expected an immediate protest from my stomach, but none came. It went down fine, and I felt fine the rest of the day. I'm still kind of waiting for something to happen, for some rejection of that delicious treat, but it hasn't come yet. 

I'm still going to take it slow, but I'm feeling more confident now. Slowly, slowly, I'm going to get vegetables back. 

Re-evaluating My IBS

I believe that one of the hardest things to tell people is that they are making themselves sick. 

It's an implication of responsibility where most of us want none. 

It's a condemnation that gets our monsters riled and defensive.

It feels like victim blaming. 

But sometimes, we are making ourselves sick. 

Consider my husband. He was told by several doctors and medical professionals that he would have to be on medication for high blood pressure for the rest of his life. That is only the reality if he didn't stop making himself sick. He has spent the last several years working on reducing his body weight, and he has succeeded in going from 4 medications to one half of one medication. He changed HIMSELF rather than continuing to make himself sick and be dependent on those drugs.

For years, I was told that I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and the doctors liked to do a little dance around the fact that I was making myself sick. They never outright said it, but there were lots of questions about my mental health, how much I was exercising, whether I was getting enough sunshine. Those don't seem super relevant to a digestive issue, do they? I always felt they were implying the whole thing was psychosomatic. 

Now, I'm not sure if I have IBS, but there is no definitive test for IBS. There is no way to prove that I have it or don't. So I'm going with a new theory, that the way I was eating was no longer sustainable for my body. 

My weight has been relatively steady, but my cholesterol has been on a steady march upward. What I didn't want to consider was that the food I was eating, the food I most enjoyed eating (because it's designed to be enjoyable), could be part of what was making me sick. And by choosing those foods, I would thus be making myself sick. 

There might also have been an undiscovered food intolerance in there, but I believe the main thing that's helping me regain some control over my digestion is cutting out the literal crap I used to eat. I love Cheetos. They are my favorite chip. And I miss their taste, and licking the damn cheese powder off my fingers. But I haven't eaten them in over a year. (Funnily enough, I might have discovered the food intolerance by trying to find a healthier substitute for Cheetos; I tried a vegan cheese puff and the reaction convinced me to try cutting out yeast.)

I've eaten fast food once in the last year, and even my restaurant trips have declined precipitously to no more than once a month. 

The Food/Industrial Complex is about profit. The only way to profit off of food for people is to make food that is so unsatiating that people don't ever really feel full eating it, and so delicious that people don't notice how much of it you eat. There's no profit in providing proper nutrition in proper quantities. No, they have to make bigger containers (larger people). They have to manipulate flavor and texture so that food becomes as close as possible to addictive. 

And it's all free choice, right? Americans just choose to eat the most aggressively advertised foods, which are chock full of sodium and fat. Freedom! To become a growing waste disposal unit. To end up on a dozen medications for high blood pressure and heart disease and diabetes. To be unable to move functionally. That's freedom. 

I don't always choose the right foods, but I'm making a conscious effort to make those better choices. To improve my eating with more fiber, including what fruits and vegetables I can tolerate. I've even started eating Cheerios, which, while highly processed, are my baby-step towards eating more whole grains. I'm hoping to switch to oatmeal at some point, but I'm still experimenting. 

I'm making a choice to actively try and change how my digestive system functions by eating better food, instead of trying to medicate my way out of a syndrome I might not even have. So far, I've made more progress in 30 days than I had in the last 6+ years since the original IBS diagnosis. I'm going to stay the course and see where these choices lead me. 

Cutting Caffeine

I enjoy coffee. I especially enjoy a nice, strong, black coffee. But I had to start using creamer so my tummy wouldn't complain about the acidity so much. 

And then, my husband noticed my hands were trembling one day. I told him it was likely due to caffeine, because that's the simplest explanation. But I also figured it might be time for a caffeine break, just to see if the trembling persisted.

It wasn't too difficult this time, because I haven't been drinking coffee every day, instead switching between green tea and coffee. So I did one week where I just drank the green tea and then stopped caffeine completely. 

That technique allowed me to avoid the caffeine withdrawal headaches that I typically go through when stopping caffeine. I'll be sure to use it in the future. 

I've now been without caffeine for about two weeks. I haven't noticed trembling continuing, but I'll have to defer to my husband since he pays a lot of attention to things I sometimes don't notice. 

It's always strange when I get off caffeine and realize I don't really need it to wake up. But then, once I start drinking it again, I have that need for my wake up coffee. I'll enjoy being off of it while I'm off, but I also enjoy that flavor. 

And, no, decaf just isn't the same for me. 

Variations on an Omelet

Every Sunday, I cook breakfast. Ambrose cooks pretty much every other meal that we share, so that's my one meal a week. I have two things that I cook: grits & eggs and omelets. This past Sunday was an omelet day, and, as we typically do, on Saturday night we discussed what I might put in his omelet. 

He brought up the idea of chopping up some apple and putting that in the omelet. I thought that a fresh apple would probably be too juicy for an omelet, so I countered with apple butter. And he agreed, as a kind of wild experiment. 

And so on Sunday, I made him an omelet with some chicken sausage, apple butter and queso cheese. 

You might be wondering, do those flavors even go together? Could they possibly work? In an omelet? 

In a word, yes. 

Absolutely. 

I forgot to take a picture before I gave it to him, and after I could only get one that was slightly blurred by the fact that he wanted to eat, thank you very much, not have a picture taken of his food. The apple butter in question was actually apple walnut butter, so I like to consider that it's the omelet version of a chicken apple salad. Fancy! 

Ambrose rated the omelet as "amazing." Next time, he'd like some pickled jalapeno added, and maybe some cream cheese as well. We'll see. 

Best Use of Leftover Fries

When my husband and I were driving back from the Oregon coast, we needed to stop somewhere and get dinner. Usually, we manage to stop at this Thai place in Pendleton that's really good (Thai Crystal), but we ended up hungry before we passed that town this time. 

So we ended up going to a burger joint drive thru type of place instead. We both ordered fish n chips, but after we received the order, it was clear we should have ordered one to share. This was a big pile of food - not something either of us were prepared to fully consume. The fish portion was generous, but it was the fries that really overwhelmed me. 

They were shoestring fries, basically a big ol' ball of them, a huge tangled nest of fries. They weren't easy for Ambrose to eat while driving, because if you pull on one fry, you get 50 more clinging to it. I had to break them up so he could actually eat. 

We got close to finishing the first order of fries, but we didn't touch the second. However, I had an idea about what might be done with them, and I convinced Ambrose we shouldn't just throw them out as soon as we got home. 

Instead, I let them sit overnight and then I made an omelet with them. 

French fries, cheese and a little ketchup in the omelet. 

It was a little trickier to roll than my typical omelets. I had to be careful not to let the egg break as I folded those fries. But it turned out pretty nice on the plate, with a dusting of shredded Dubliner cheese.  

After I took the picture, Ambrose also requested some hot sauce on his omelet, which I was happy to accommodate. I had some on mine as well. 

I did not reheat the fries before putting them on the omelet; instead, I let the omelet warm them up as part of my process. I use an omelet process that I got from YouTube; basically, you treat the eggs like scrambled until they are almost done being liquid, then you turn off the burner, smoosh the eggs flat, and add any other ingredients that need warming. Then I cover it with a pan lid to help warm up the toppings (and melt the cheese!), which get less heat than the eggs since they are not touching the cast iron pan. 

So the fries were warmed by the residual heat from cooking the omelet, but not actually re-cooked themselves. While they didn't taste like fresh fries, they tasted really good in the omelet. I don't think this would have worked so well if the fries were thicker. If I had thicker cut fries, I'd probably go ahead and chop them into smaller, thinner pieces before putting it in the omelet. Otherwise, I'd end up with cold chunks, yuck. 

If I ever have leftover fries again, I know exactly what I'm doing with them. 

Omelet Experiment

The last time I made omelets, I didn't have a meat handy. Sure, I could have cooked up some sausage, or maybe even tried experimenting with something like a sardine omelet, but I looked around the kitchen and made a different decision. 

On our kitchen counter, situated so that they can be grabbed while heading out the door, is a box of mini Slim Jims. I mostly don't eat those unless I'm out on a backpacking trip these days, but the first omelet of the morning isn't for me, it's for Ambrose. If I made mine first, I wouldn't want to make another until I'd eaten it! 

So I grabbed a Slim Jim, scored the outer layer and then peeled off the casing. Then I smooshed it up into little pieces. That was the base, but I wanted more. A quick trip to the fridge provided cream cheese and marinated garlic. I mixed up all three in a small bowl and then started on the eggs. 

I've figured out, through trial and error, that my best tactic is to melt the butter on medium heat (so it doesn't burn or brown), and then, when I'm ready to pour the eggs in, I turn the heat up just below the hottest setting and count to 20. THEN I pour in the eggs. The 20 count wait, I've found, makes it so the eggs don't stick to the pan very much at all. 

Once the eggs have been mostly cooked, I add the filling and then cover to allow it to finish cooking and for the heat to melt the cream cheese mix. 

After the omelet finished cooking, I roll it off the pan and onto the plate, then finish with a bit of the Slim Jim, cream cheese, and marinated garlic mix on top. At no point did I tell Ambrose what was in his omelet; I just gave it to him and waited for the reaction. 

Turns out, I make a fine Slim Jim omelet. 

Applesauce

I've been using applesauce as a part of my low fiber diet for a while now. They've supplanted bananas as my go-to fruit. I can eat fresh apples, but only if I peel them, which is more of an investment than I usually want to make to eat a single apple. 

But when I visited my brother, he offered me a revelation! 

I can make my own applesauce. He demonstrated for me (twice) while I was there, and that applesauce was the most delicious I could remember eating. I was inspired to make my own once I got home. 

That inspiration was a bit delayed by my being sick upon arriving home, but when Ambrose and I made it out to Old Fashioned Fruit & Veg, I picked up 4 apples (2 gala and 2 cosmic crisp). While my brother, who is a chef (executive chef, technically), peeled his apples with a knife, I went with the veg peeler. It worked for my needs (and allowed me to peel while sitting on the couch instead of standing at the counter). 

When I was young, we had some family friends who would put on an apple themed fundraiser every fall, and one of the games was trying to peel an entire apple without the strip breaking. I was horrible at it. But Ambrose finally got the proper method to stick in my brain, and I'm getting much closer to peeling a whole apple in one strip. 

So, you peel the apples, chop them up, put them in a pot and start cooking at medium-ish heat. Salt is optional, sugar (if you're crazy because apples are so sweet naturally), cinnamon... I've been thinking about getting some ginger and letting it cook with the apples. Once the apples are cooked, let them cool a bit and then into the blender! I read online that one can also use a potato smasher, but I like the blender better for applesauce. You can choose your texture that way. 

My first batch was a bit on the sweet side, and ran out too soon, so for batch 2 I went with 6 apples (2 cosmic crisp, 2 honey crisp, 2 granny smith). From this batch, I've learned that a little granny smith goes a long way, and I need to be a little less heavy handed with the cinnamon. It's delicious, and tastes like apple pie filling, but I want it to be a little less pie-like. 

So... I'm having a lot of fun so far experimenting with my applesauce stylings, and I plan to continue. 

Batch 1

Best. Omelet. Yet.

Last Sunday I prepared an omelet for my husband that was so delicious the first thing he told me after taking a bite was: "I'd pay for this. I would pay money for this omelet." 

Now, I've been making omelets for my husband for a while now, and I haven't before received that level of praise for one. I'm going to bet here that a good part of it is that I catered to his tastes by using mushrooms. Although, I have cooked mushroom omelets before and not gotten that compliment - even with morels that we gathered ourselves!

This omelet may also have benefited from a change of eggs. We recently started buying local "backyard" eggs. They vary quite a bit in size, but seem more vibrant in color and flavor. I don't love them very much for my boiled eggs, because they don't peel very well, but in omelets, they do very well. 

In fact, the omelet I made had almost all the ingredients coming from the same place - Old Fashioned Fruit and Veg on Broadway. The eggs came from there, as well as the smoked mozzarella-style cheese, and, the star ingredient, marinated mushrooms. It was just the butter that did not come from there. 

And the omelet pan, of course. 

My idea was to make a mushroom pizza omelet, and I started by dicing up some marinated mushrooms - reserving a few slices for the garnish. I also shredded some of the cheese, because my style of omelet cooking requires everything is prepped beforehand. Ambrose suggested I let the mushrooms sit on paper towels so that they wouldn't be soggy and ruin the omelet. 

Mushrooms getting dry and cheese, ready to go.

I prep the eggs by giving them a whirl in the Ninja blender with a dash of salt and potassium salt. The omelet pan gets a pat of butter and medium heat until it melts. Then, and I only discovered this recently, when I'm ready to start cooking, raise the temp to high and wait about 20 seconds - then add the eggs. Allowing the pan more time to heat really impacts how much egg ends up sticking in the pan after. 

Once the eggs are cooked, time for the filling! 

Filling? Perhaps, in this case, I mean toppings. 

I cover the omelet pan with a pot top to allow the residual heat from the turned off burner to melt the cheese. 

Nice and melty!

Then it's time to roll the omelet up and slide it out of the pan and onto the plate. This one rolled really nicely. Then some more cheese, the garnish mushroom slices, and a hit with the torch to melt the cheese just right. 

The cheese looks like it should be on a pizza! 

So I've set a new bar for omelets. 

Challenge accepted!

Omelet Practice

I made an accidental cooking discovery on Sunday. I've been cooking omelets with a nice, fancy omelet pan for a while now. I've got it down to a science, pretty much. Butter into pan, rub against the sides, heat pan on medium to melt butter, then raise temp and pour in beaten eggs. 

That's how it usually goes, and I usually get a fair amount of egg sticking to the pan. Not so much that I can't do my omelet; just enough that it makes cleaning the pan between omelets a pain. This time, I got distracted between when I turned the heat up and when I poured the eggs in. Therefore the pan was hotter than usual when I poured the eggs in. 

Turns out, that's a good thing. There was almost no egg stuck to the pan when I rolled that bad boy out. 

Bacon, pepper cheddar cheese, and guacamole omelet for my husband. 

Just to be sure, I did my omelet the same old way, and, sure enough, the egg stuck to the pan like usual. Next time, I'm going to do the higher heat trick with both and see if I can get to the nearly non-stick perfection on purpose. 

Just Relaxative

I feel shame at the idea of taking laxatives. Laxatives are "gross" and "yucky" and taken by bulimics and I'm not that. I'm not gross or yucky and I certainly don't have an eating disorder, as my gastro was happy to write in my chart that I'm overweight and therefore can't be sick. 

Ahem. That's why I resisted taking them for so long. Along with a convenient belief that taking laxatives regularly can make you dependent on them. That, apparently, is NOT a thing. At least, not for folks already diagnosed with IBS. After all, my bowels are already "lazy". If I'm already constipated all the time, I don't see how laxatives could break me more. 

Which leaves me with only the flimsy "gross" excuse. But what is worse? Feeling like I'm gross for taking laxatives or being in constant pain from constipation? 

Turns out, being in constant constipation pain is worse than taking laxatives regularly to prevent such pains. Shocking!

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what dosage will help me stay comfortable and flowing. One per day of a softener helped, but I felt like I could use more help. So, I tried two a day, spaced out. One in the morning and one before bed. 

But I'm not liking how that's working. Or rather, it doesn't appear to be working the way I was hoping. So I'll be changing things up to try two doses at night, together, and see if that makes me feel better. 

I'm trying to avoid the stimulant laxatives on a regular basis, because they can work almost too well. I actually took one of those when I first started this experiment and I ended up waking up in the middle of the night with an urgent need to visit the bathroom, and stay there, for several hours. I'd rather keep things less stimulated than that. 

If the softeners don't work sufficiently, maybe I'll try the stimulant route, but I'm not there yet. The main thing is that I'm now working on trying to get my bowels to be happy bowels instead of bloated, constipated bowels. 

The other aspect I'm working on with my IBS is diet. For a long time, I tried various diets, from low-fodmap to low fiber, and lately, I've been trying to limit my food to simple foods that I can read all the ingredients for. I'm not saying that I'll avoid ingredients that I can't pronounce or are more than a set number of syllables. No, I'm trying to avoid foods that don't list their ingredients explicitly, on the theory that those unnamed additives could be contributing to my issues, and how can I know what affects me if I don't know what is in what I eat? 

Therefore, if an ingredient list includes such phrases as "natural flavors" or "artificial flavors", I'm either avoiding it or making it a very rare part of my diet. Since there's no way for me to know what those ingredients are, or if they change, it just makes sense to me that I should avoid them while I'm trying to reach an equilibrium with my IBS. A state where I can, with some vigilance, mostly forget that I have it. 

Presenting

What happens when one sends home baked goods to a sibling who is also a chef? 

That is the question that I accidentally answered this Christmas, when I decided to send some home baked kolaches to my brother. I hadn't ever sent them to him before, because I was of the opinion that the cookies were so easily available to him in Chicago that it would be silly to send him any. 

But it as Christmas and there were no parties due to covid. So, rather than cancel kolaches altogether this year, I decided to make a batch and send them off to my brother (and dad and one other lucky person). That would allow me to then eat some myself! 

After all, the whole reason I started making them was so that I could eat them. If I were in Chicago, then I would never have tried to bake them, because I would have just gone to the grocery store and bought them whenever I wanted them. 

The cookies themselves are not super hard to make. Involved, yes. A little complicated, but not that difficult. I hoped that the strawberry habenero jelly that I used would at least provide something a little different, a sweet heat treat. 

What I got was an immediate demand for recipe from my brother's girlfriend. A subsequent urgent demand from my brother for the recipe. Then lots of pictures of him trying the recipe. He became (his word) obsessed. 

So while I didn't explicitly give my brother a Christmas gift this year, I now feel like I accidentally gave him a cookie to bake. 

Tummy Troubles

I didn't want to see someone new for my annual wellness exam, but my regular person was out on leave when I was supposed to get it done. So, new person to explain my diet to, knowing that they won't be able to help anymore than anyone else. I've reached a point of just experimenting with foods slowly and I know I'm not getting enough vegetables in my life, but the fiber still triggers gastroparesis pains/issues. 

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. This new person wasn't all that interested in me, and I didn't have to explain too much. Just that I'm doing the best that I can and exercising a lot and I'll just have to wait and see if my numbers are looking okay from the bloodwork. At this point, I'm assuming that they do look okay, because I have not been called back for a follow up, and they're usually pretty quick about that. 

I've been in a bit of an IBS flare for a couple weeks now. I can't seem to get out of it. My bowels are still moving, but I'm getting mucous coming out and hard stools. Plus nausea and gas and general tummy pain. The usual. 

I know that anxiety over the state of the world is contributing to the tummy issues. I need to figure out a way not to let that stress affect my tummy. Because I don't want anxiety to make my tummy hurt, which then makes me more anxious, which then makes my tummy hurt more etc... 

Maybe retreating to a cave for the next ten years would do the trick...

Since I can't do that (yet), I'm going to focus on what I can control. I will get my solo book written and published. I will exercise: CrossFit goal is 5 times a week, running goal is 3 times a week (1 can be a run/walk as long as there's elevation gain), and I decided to do Power Abs again for the month of November. I will do my job at work and keep getting paid. I might even write another book that's been percolating in my head since August - but solo first. Only got about 1000 words over last weekend. This weekend needs to be better. 

And it will be. 

A Collection of Omelets

 I've got way more work at work than I can fit into my days, so please enjoy this collection of omelets. 

This cute little omelet pan made most of the omelets pictured below. It's a joy to use.

Three cheese omelet smothered in guacamole.

Morel omelet for Ambrose.

Sausage omelet with cheese and guacamole.

Bacon topped omelet!

I use a lot of guac it turns out.

And yet more guac ;)

Pico de gallo omelet. 

The Ugly Chicken

My husband and I were not the types to leave the house often before quarantine. We have our regular shopping trips, and, in the before times, we'd occasionally go out to eat. Well, I mean, I did leave the house for work every day and that's been a substantial change, but as far as going out, it wasn't a big thing for us.

We went to Costco on 4/30, which was the day that the Governor of Idaho confirmed that we would be starting phase 1 of re-opening post-COVID-19 on May 1. Although Costco had already put plans into place to require that shoppers wear masks as of 5/4, I figured that most people in Boise would be more lax. And, it seemed to me, that they were. There seemed to be a larger proportion of people in the store than 2 weeks prior, and a significant chunk were not wearing masks.

At Costco, and in most shopping places, it's all about trying to do your best. You can't control the actions of others around you, and you can't predict that the six feet of space you're trying to give the person in front of you is blocking off traffic behind you. That's actually been the worst part of Costco; we try to wait and give people space and we end up becoming a roadblock as others just go around us instead of waiting and giving space.

So we do our best. We get frustrated. We move on.

One thing that hasn't changed in these times is that my husband and I try to get a Costco roasted chicken to eat for dinner on shopping nights. One week, earlier in the pandemic, there were none. That was sad, but we survived.

So when we got to the area of Costco where the roast chickens are kept, I was at first alarmed to see a group of people around it. Then I saw they were all just standing there, chatting (mostly without masks, tsk tsk), while one solitary roast chicken sat in the case, untouched.

I rushed over to rescue the chicken from their indifference, and when I got close enough I could see why no one else had taken it.

It was, to be blunt, an ugly chicken.

The roasted skin had pulled off of the breast, revealing a rather torn expanse of breast, with little parts burned where the meat had gotten roasted a tad too much. And I almost left it right there, but I wanted normal. And normal meant a gosh-darned Costco chicken, so I took it.

Reader, let me tell you, that was one of the best roast chickens that I've ever gotten from Costco. It was extremely juicy and my husband used the large quantity of aspic in a curry on Sunday night. Sure, it was no looker, but we weren't buying it to look at now, were we? I almost - almost - feel bad about those people who ignored the ugly chicken, and thereby allowed us to enjoy it. But really, they made their own bed when they chose to ignore a food based on its appearance.

Food Testing - Complete Cookie

Since I was not able to complete my planned hike last year due, in part, to my food choices, this year I'm doing something a little different. During this off-season time of year, I'm going to be testing out bars on a weekly basis. I'm spacing them out so that one "bad" bar doesn't impact how I feel about the other bars.

I started yesterday with Lenny and Larry's Complete Cookie, Snickerdoodle flavor. And my initial impressions were good, though not enthusiastic. Within an hour of eating it, I'd written up my thoughts: The cookie is easy to eat. It is soft and does not require a lot of chewing or a lot of water, though some water is good because it can get a little dry. I felt some tummy upset while eating it, so I don't think I'll be eating it again. I think the culprit is a bit too much fiber (10g).

Yeah, I should have heeded what my body was trying to tell me as I ate that cookie. By lunch time, my tune had changed from a mild review to a vehement hell no.

Turns out my instincts while eating it were correct. It does have too much fiber for my particular needs. That fiber created a conga line of gas bubbles in my intestines that tormented me all afternoon and into the evening. I got very bloated and passed gas far too many times for being in an office (thank goodness I'm not in a cubicle right now, but I had to hope that no one came to my desk to ask for something that would involve them sitting hear me). It seems to have triggered a small IBS flare up, involving pain along with the bloating and gas, as well as some constipation. I'm really hoping this passes quickly, but I might have to resort to liquid diet to clear myself up.

It's good to be able to cross something off the list, and I'm glad that it wasn't something that I bought a whole box of. So far, there's only one of those, and I already had Ambrose try one so if I can't eat them, he'll be able to. Next week, I'll be trying something else, and I really hope that even if it doesn't work for me that it doesn't trigger anything like this one did.

Diet Confusion

After my solo hike revealed that the bars I bought to have more fiber in my diet made me pretty sick when I abruptly started eating them again, I kind of started to toss my whole diet plan out the window.

What do I mean by kind of? Well, I'm not actively seeking out more fiber in my diet. But I have tossed some of the rules out the window. For example, Ambrose bought some black beans and coconut rice dehydrated meals for our Queens River trip. And I hadn't eaten beans for months because of the whole fiber elimination. But I did alright with them on that trip.

So I decided that I could have myself some blueberries from the farm stand. And I haven't been quite so strict with certain foods. I have found that fresh and frozen pineapple does not sit well with me, though the kind that comes on pizza seemed to do okay. And beer hasn't been giving me stomach problems either.

I am going to move forward with trying to have moderate fiber intake and see how my body does. If I find a food that doesn't sit well, I'll take note and avoid it. I didn't find that the low fiber diet was actually helping all that much. It seems more like I have to work on moderation and pay attention to what I ate recently when I have stomach trouble.

Overall, I feel a lot more in control when it comes to my stomach pain, even though I stopped tracking my food and bowel movements when I went on my solo trip and never really started back up. I'm pooping regularly enough and while I could probably be eating more healthily, I'm not overly concerned at this point with tracking. The tracking itself becomes a stressor and I'm going to try and avoid those as much as I can as the backpacking season has wound down and my opportunities to destress in nature become more limited.

Too Much of a Good Thing

I've been feeling much better since focusing on a low residue diet. I'm not able to eat whatever I want, but I do have a lot of options for what I can eat. Most of it is of the less healthy variety, because of the whole low fiber thing, but my weight has been fairly steady so I'm not too worried about that. I do miss nuts though. And beans.

I was happy that not all fruits were off the table. I can eat apples if I peel them. Cantaloupe is allowed. And watermelon!

The problem is that I still need to keep below a certain level of fiber at a time. I can have some watermelon, some cantaloupe, some peeled apples or applesauce. A banana. But having a lot of any of those, singly or in combination, well, it turns out that's not so great on my stomach.

Last Saturday, after doing the obstacle course race class and the obstacle course boot camp, I indulgently bought a large quantity of pre-cut watermelon. Now, I did share this bounty with my husband, but I also ate a lot of it myself. And while I avoided eating seeds, turns out I ate plenty of fiber.

The rest of the evening, I was bloated and cranky. The sick feeling carried on a bit into the next day, but it wasn't too bad. But it kind of got worse in the following days. For the first time in a long time, my sleep was interrupted when I woke up at quarter to four on Tuesday morning and couldn't fall back to sleep. It felt like I needed to have a bowel movement, but nothing was moving. And when I was back in bed trying to sleep, I had this awful burning sensation in my tummy no matter which way I turned.

While I'm glad I only woke up 45 minutes before my alarm was going to go off, I'm disappointed with the lingering effects a single over-indulgence carries. I've got an increase in tummy aching going on and pooping is not feeling quite right.

On the other hand, at least I know now what that kind of thing can do. In the future, I can make different choices and be more moderate when it comes to fruits. And maybe, someday, I might be able to eat strawberries and blueberries again, because forget the beans, those are what I really miss.