Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Weight Loss Update

This month, for the first time in my adult life, my weight was under 140 pounds. And while I only had a few days in the 130's before my period started and I bumped back into the 140's, I'm still pretty excited at this proof that the calorie counting that I'm doing is working. The weight loss has been slow, and definitely not in a straight line, but I've got a downward trendline. 

It's kind of great that I'm "only" at 143 during my period. I mean, I'd rather not have seen the scale go back to the 140s, but 6 months ago, my period would put me around 155 instead. That's great! 

I've been incorporating more vegetables and fruits into my diet, and my digestive system has been tolerating them well. My main issue used to be constipation. It was bad enough that I was managing it with daily laxatives. And now I'm not on any laxatives, and my output is regular. I don't know that the calorie counting has anything to do with it, but I do think that watching what I eat very closely has been helping my digestion. 

I haven't yet tried another yeast-adjacent food after the yogurt. The next one up will definitely be soy sauce, because I would love to be able to eat sushi in the manner to which I am accustomed. But I probably won't try it until after the traditional Memorial Day backpacking trip this weekend! 

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

BansOffOurBodies

On Saturday I did something that I don't normally do these days. I went to downtown Boise. I felt it was important to show up, in Boise, Idaho, for women's right to necessary healthcare, including abortion. 

I don't really like going out in crowds, but I wanted to be there. 

Hard to get out the door, but when I arrived, I was glad I had taken those steps and biked myself downtown. There were more people than I expected, and I kind of wandered around the perimeter to try and find a good place to take a picture of the stage from. 

I made it to a spot on the grass and turned around, totally focused on getting a picture of the speaker at the podium instead of just a bunch of the backs of people's heads. Then I heard my name. 

I don't know a lot of people in Boise, but I had just happened to plant myself right next to one that I did know, and I completely didn't see her when I walked by. I think I was generally avoiding eye contact. A smug looking white guy walking around with a sign reading "Planned Parenthood Is Black Genocide" gave me an early case of the creeps. 

So I ended up staying at that spot with my acquaintance during the remainder of the rally. Then when we went on the march, I stuck with them and we hung out talking for a while after. Mingling with the crowds from a distance. 

I'm glad I went, in part because it was good to see so many people come out - the estimate I found on the news was 5000. And it was very interesting to run into someone that I knew, in a nearly literal sense. I mean, I almost stepped on her toes. 

I read that there was a rally in support of banning abortion at the Capitol later that afternoon, but it must not have been well attended, because I can't find any mention of how many people showed up, or even anything about that rally other than it existed. That's also heartening. 

And yet, it doesn't really matter. Because the women (and men) who showed up to support abortion access are not in charge in the state of Idaho. We can be loud and we can show up, but it does feel like we'll just be ignored by those whose interest lies in preventing women from being fully endowed with rights. 

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

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. 

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Goodbye Yogurt

I've been doing very well, digestively speaking, with the elimination of yeast from my diet. I was surprised at just how much food is excluded in a yeast exclusion diet. No soy sauce, nothing fermented, and no yogurt. I'm a big yogurt consumer, always have been. For a long time, I thought I was lactose intolerant, but I'd still eat yogurt, because the probiotics were supposed to be good for me. 

When I got the IBS diagnosis, yogurt was one food that I never considered eliminating. I was no longer eating a lot of yogurt in yogurt form, but for a long time I've been using Chobani yogurt drinks as my pre-workout fuel for 5 am CrossFit classes. I don't like working out in a fasted state, and I don't want to get up early enough to eat a full breakfast before working out, so the yogurt drinks were a perfect compromise. I got some calories, but not so much food that my body couldn't handle it before a hard workout. 

I went a bit over 30 days with complete yeast exclusion, and then I reintroduced the Chobani yogurt drinks for my pre workout and post workout. (I'd received some advice to do protein before and after working out, and I've been doing 2 yogurt drinks for a few months around my CrossFit classes.) 

Now, to be fair, a few days after I restarted the yogurt drinks, I also started my period. And I know that my period has an effect on my digestion. So I gave the yogurt drinks a full two weeks of testing to make sure not to judge them because of the period. But even from the first day that I started drinking them again, I just knew. 

I could feel how they were affecting my digestion from the increase in burbling noises and feelings, but I hoped that maybe that was just from the good probiotics. But further use caused my digestion to head back towards constipation, culminating in a no-fun-at-all episode of vomiting a little less than 2 weeks after I'd reintroduced yogurt. 

It's possible that the vomiting was unrelated to the yogurt. It's possible that my period's influence on my digestive processes impacted the yogurt's effects. But for now, I'm calling it. No more yogurt. 

I'm going to work at getting my digestion back in order, and then I'll try adding soy sauce back into my diet and see what that does. I'm crossing my fingers that I can tolerate soy sauce, because I love my husband's chicken adobo.