Here we go...Day 1

I woke up this morning with only a little dread at what I was starting today.  My attitude has improved over the last week in regards to making this change for my health.  Last week, another acupuncturist advised me that all my symptoms lead to Leaky Gut Syndrome and if I follow the new diet and plan, there is a chance I can feel like myself again.  Last Tuesday was the first time I envisioned myself healthy, happy, and living my life as I want to, not as my body dictates.  This was a huge step for me.

 Just a little history for you...
I began feeling very tired, run down, bloated and generally unhappy with my work life until it became so bad it affected all aspects of my life. I worked in a high stress environment (an emergency animal hospital) and had never learned any skills with how to cope with what I was doing everyday.  At that time I ate a TON of processed food, mostly cheese and crackers, frozen dinners and my most important emotional crutch of all- sugar.  I did not have much of a life outside of the hospital, therefore no outlets to release my pent-up emotions. I started having debilitating abdominal pain and bloating, anxiety, and digestive upsets daily.  I went to doctors, specialists, took tests, xrays, ultrasounds, even looking at my insides with cameras to get the same answer- there is nothing wrong with you. AARRGGGGHHH! So I realized it was going to be more difficult than I thought and I was the only one going to take any initiative to figure out what was wrong with me.  I left my job, starting seeing an acupuncturist, a counselor for my anxiety and making my health my full time job.  Since then I have learned more about myself than I learned my entire lifetime. I have endured a year of gluten-free, dairy free lifestyle with only a small change in symptoms. I've had good weeks and bad weeks, times when I thought I was getting better and times when I wanted to give up. More recently, December 2010 started with feeling o.k. so I began to experiment with adding gluten and cheese.  The holidays took their toll on me and when January arrived, I felt like a train wreck. So here I am...

My thoughts are to share with you my diet and daily happenings in hopes I won't feel so isolated, you won't feel so isolated, because there HAS to be others out there that are going through the same ordeal! Lets chat and I'd love to hear what you're going through as well.

Food Journal The journal is helpful for me to record trends and variety and also to think twice about what I put in my body. When no one else looked in my food journal, I would write down cookie when I should have written 4, now with you looking, I think it will help with the binge cookie habit.

Struggling with setting up my fridge and pantry, which will take days, here's where I started.
Breakfast: protein shake with carrot juice, cultured coconut milk
Snack: coconut yogurt
Lunch: blueberries, fruit bar, roasted pumpkin seeds (snuck into movie theater to watch True Grit)
Dinner: half sweet potato, half avocado, olive oil and red hawaiian sea salt (tastes like bacon bits to me)
13 supplements and powder drink twice a day. Swallowing all these pills gives me heartburn. Ugh.

This is good, now you are holding me accountable and I am less likely to cheat. I am human. It will happen. I haven't gotten to my sugar withdrawals yet, watch out!