Don't Be So Sensitive! Part 3
Past blog posts about the Everlywell project: Part One, Part Two
Also on the caffeine front, I received my shipment of MUD/WTR on Friday afternoon, so I tried it out on Saturday morning for the first time. Mixing it just with water wasn't my favorite thing (the chai spices were really prevalent, almost overly so), but I'm still playing around with this. More in Week 3 on this part of the project...
As I've covered in the past few weeks of blogs, in late March, I purchased the Everlywell Food Sensitivity Test, and in early April, I received my results and started a 30 day elimination diet, focusing on cow's milk (and all of the delicious things that come from it - cakes, cookies, pancakes, cheese, butter - you know, many of the things that make life worth living), coffee, lamb, and yogurt.
Here's how it's been going:
Week 1: Monday, 4/11 - Sunday, 4/17
I'm not gonna lie to you guys - Week 1 was ROUGH, mostly due to caffeine withdrawal. While I don't drink a lot of caffeine compared to some folks, I was starting each morning with 3/4 of a cup of coffee mixed with one scoop of my Trader Joe's chai mix, and 1/2 cup of hot water. That's apparently enough to make a significant difference to my body, which I noticed when I abruptly stopped ingesting it. My morning chai/coffee mix was also a good way for me to break my overnight fast; it was about 120 calories, which was enough to put into my stomach and buy me a few more hours before I needed to eat some sort of real breakfast (I've found that eating breakfast around 8am allows me to make it to 11:30 or noon before I start really jonesing for lunch).
I tried doing a cup of hot or iced tea to start my morning on a few days, but getting that caffeine that early without additional calories made me need to eat something right away (or risky becoming kinda barfy - that's been a thing for me as long as I can remember). I also tried just sipping on water until I ate breakfast at 8am, which worked nausea-wise, but had me just about to pass out at my desk around 10am from fatigue. In very closely related news, I was able to do a normal workout on Monday (upper body strength training and a half hour on the bike); however, on Tuesday, I got about 4 minutes into an easy run when my body begged me to stop (my legs felt like dead weight), and I decided to take it easy for the next few days, to allow my body to adjust. Oh yeah, breaking this habit also brought on all sorts of enjoyable "lack of caffeine" headaches - super fun.
At the end of Week 1, I was still trying to figure this part of things out. I know I could easily pick up a box of non-dairy chai concentrate (like the Tazo brand, which Starbucks uses) and mix it with almond, soy, or oat milk, but cutting this habit altogether would result in a sizeable net benefit for me. Not only would it save me calories (which I could use on actual food) and a TON of sugar, but as I've learned this week, caffeine truly is a drug, at least judging from the delightful withdrawal symptoms I've been experiencing (the caffeine DTs are real, and I got 'em). When Chris returned from his recent hiking trip, he mentioned one of the guys in the group used a product called MUD/WTR, which is a tea blend made of chai spices and mushrooms; it's low calorie (but not no calorie), totally organic, and has just a bit of caffeine. The gentleman in question is a doctor and used to mainline coffee all day long, and since he's moved to this, he feels a jillion times better. I ordered a sample, so we'll see how that goes.
Not actually made of mud,
I think.
I hope.
Also complicating Week 1 was that, in my search for recipes to make that didn't include a dairy component, I found a "40 garlic clove chicken stew," which I made in the slow cooker on Thursday night. It was excellent, but all that garlic caused my acid reflux to flare up something terrible, and I had to take Friday off work to recover (and visit the doctor, the blood sample station, the x-ray place, etc - they get a bit excited whenever I have chest pain, given my history with pericarditis). It finally calmed down by Sunday evening, with the help of some regularly applied Pepcid AC and a few days of chicken noodle soup and Saltine crackers.
Eating out has actually been easier than I initially feared. On Tuesday night, when I picked Chris up from his hiking trip, we ordered takeout from Pita Jungle, one of our favorite local chains. PJ is super health focused anyway, but they publish an easy to read allergen menu on their website, so I was able to quickly verify that the dish I love the most (the standard hummus with grilled chicken) would be fine for me to eat. We grabbed lunch one day at La Grande Orange, another local spot, and while they didn't have a specific allergen menu online, I was able to do some research ahead of time to ensure I could find something that wouldn't have dairy, which was pretty easy. This process has led me to a lot of Googling to double check my knowledge of how food is made and what goes into what; for example, I've eaten a lot of mayo in my life - I've even made my own - so I'm pretty aware of how it's created, but it was one I double checked on the interwebs, just to be sure (no dairy, check! Side note - I know that some folks consider eggs to fall into the "dairy" category, but for my purposes, they do not - if you have trouble with eggs, please don't take my comments here as the go-ahead to have things like mayo). I've also eaten a few absolutely delicious vegan pastries from two local coffee shops, and from LGO itself; I'm committed to sampling more, too (so much for leftover calories from not drinking chai tea lattes, right?).
On Friday afternoon, Chris made use of the vegan butter I bought at Sprouts to whip up some dairy-free snickerdoodles (they weren't totally vegan, as we used real eggs), and they were darn good!
Let's see what this stuff looks like...
Me: It's kinda white and weird.
Chris: It's plant lard.
The cookies rolled into little balls,
just like normal.
The resulting cookies were delicious -
light and airy with the proper moisture content.
On Easter Sunday, we attended brunch at a hotel downtown, and although I didn't have access to a comprehensive allergen or preparation menu, they did send over a list of what they planned to serve; by reading through that and closely examining each station, I was able to make informed decisions, ask some questions, and still find plenty of good food to eat (Chris offered to taste test anything as well, if needed - he's such a giver). The only bummer was that the gorgeous dessert station didn't have anything that worked, but when I asked a manager on duty if any desserts were dairy-free or vegan, he asked the chef to put something together for me. The resulting strawberry sorbet was awesome, and I really appreciated the staff being so accommodating. Ten points to the Renaissance downtown!
All in all, it was quite the week. Symptom-wise, I haven't noticed a massive change yet, but that's probably to be expected after only one week. I feel a little less bloated/gassy in general, which is nice, and I think the migraines have calmed down somewhat; while I've still been having headaches, they're pretty clearly related to caffeine withdrawal than something else (I have a few sips of tea, and they vanish).
On to Week 2!
Week 2: Monday, 4/18 - Sunday, 4/24
Thankfully, the caffeine withdrawal mostly sorted itself out in Week 2. After the experimentation with morning beverages mentioned above, I settled on having a small glass of iced tea each morning 30-60 minutes after I wake up, along with a small snack, if needed (earlier in the week, it was leftover dairy-free snickerdoodles, but I should probably find a healthier option here); that allowed me to make it to 8am for my standard breakfast without getting nauseated. The small shot of caffeine helped wake me up and stopped any headaches from occurring, and I mixed my daily dose of Benefiber into the iced tea, to ensure everything stayed okay, fiber-wise.
The acid reflux also calmed itself down substantially in Week 2, although I'm still taking an acid reducer pill each evening and probably will continue for another few weeks, just to be safe (those were the doctor's orders back in September when it flared up, so I figured that should work now, too). Between having my energy back and not feeling a consistent burning in my chest, I was able to start working out like normal again, which was more than overdue; the temperature also spiked down over the weekend, so we were able to get out and hike on South Mountain one more time before the triple digits hit (ugh, too soon).
For eating out/takeout this week, we did sushi at our local spot and noodles at another favorite. Asian or Asian-inspired food (particularly Chinese and Japanese) seems to be a good fit for my current diet, since it doesn't use a lot of dairy overall; I could probably branch out further into Thai or Vietnamese as well, since most of their "dairy" options are often made with coconut milk/water (although I don't like the taste of coconut, so that often rules it out for me).
We also attended one of the final Arizona Coyotes hockey games of the regular season (and of the very last ones in Glendale - they're relocating to Tempe next year), which was a lot of fun. Prior to going to the game, we dined at the Yard House, which had a very comprehensive and easy to read allergen menu; again, our picks ended up being mostly Asian-inspired (the Poke Nachos, the Cali Roll Stack, and the Grilled Korean Beef Tacos), which were all delicious.
Game time!
The arena was...not crowded,
as the Coyotes are...not good.
Overall, my symptoms don't seem to be changing an awful lot, but I think things do feel a bit better. My post-big-night-dinner migraines seem to have gone away (and we each had a few beers before the hockey game, so if the migraines were due solely to alcohol consumption, that likely wouldn't have changed), which is delightful, and as I've mentioned previously, I feel a bit less gassy in general. I still have the little pudge I've developed under my belly button area, but that may be caused more by being over 40 and not really caring about calorie counting (and all those dairy-free snickerdoodles) than by food reactivity - however, I still have two weeks to go on the diet (look for those updates on a future blog entry!), so we'll see if things shift further.
PS - As I mentioned in the prior posts about this, if you want to try Everlywell out on your own, here's my referral link. You get a 15% discount and I get an Amazon gift card. Win, win!
Later!
Amy
Comments
Post a Comment