Boy oh boy! It's been a long time since I've posted anything here. Sorry about that, dear internet.
I thought I'd give a bit of an update on my grain free/GAPS/paleo eating that I've been doing this year. I'm almost to the five month mark, as I started on January 17. I can count on less than one hand the number of times of "broken my diet/cheated". Once was with some plantain chips...that one was a brain fart. For some reason I thought they were legal, and then realized they were not. So at most a few bites of that. Another time was a slice of GF paska bread at Pascha. It was not nearly as amazing as I thought it would have been. And I put some soaked Quinoa (technically still grain free, but it is a starch food) in some meatloaf the other evening. I'll live.
So, cheats, but not CHEATS if you know what I mean.
Good results so far:
Less inflammation. My knees no longer hurt when I go up and down stairs.
My hunger/satiety signals seems to be healing, or something. Even just recently, my satiety signal, always elusive and not strong at all, has kicked in. It's like I KNOW, from one bite to the next when I've had enough. This is new. I think most overweight people probably share this experience: It is hard to know when the body has had enough. I watch my thin husband eat and he knows exactly when he needs to stop. The desire for food is no longer there. For me, over the years, it's been a struggle. How much should I eat? When do I stop? What rules to I follow about meal size, etc. I've tried every trick in the book and then some, but I have been living all along with this awareness that something's broken, here...why doesn't it work for me automatically the way it automatically works for him?
Well, for some reason or other, the "automatically" has been kicking in.
But I'm also dealing with RAGING food cravings. I want pasta. I want bread. I want nachos. I want DIET COKE, goshdarnit!!!
But I have not given in. I guzzle sour kombucha (lovely probiotic beverage, that) and that really helps the diet coke cravings. Yes, it's been since the New Year and I still crave that poison. I wonder if the craving will ever go away.
I have not lost much weight...five or six pounds perhaps. And my primary purpose isn't to lose, but oh, it would have been a nice side effect. My doctor does not think my body is "healed up enough" yet to lose weight. I'll try to be patient and not force anything. But my clothes are a bit looser, so I'll not complain.
I've been cutting down, way down, on the honey, and now dates are too sweet for me. And trying to minimize the nuts...but that leaves me hungry all the time. I'll keep trying, especially to lower the honey. I know it's not an ideal food.
But...
This week I made GAPS legal Vanilla ice cream, which is amazing and I really really needed to make it, because otherwise a trip to GRAETER'S and a mega cheat would have been close at hand.
3 cans of coconut milk
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup honey
1 T or more of homemade vodka vanilla flavor (the vodka helps the ice cream to stay scoopable)
2 droppers full of liquid stevia.
blend all in blender, and process as for ice cream in an ice cream maker. Let cure in freezer.
Yum.
I thought I'd give a bit of an update on my grain free/GAPS/paleo eating that I've been doing this year. I'm almost to the five month mark, as I started on January 17. I can count on less than one hand the number of times of "broken my diet/cheated". Once was with some plantain chips...that one was a brain fart. For some reason I thought they were legal, and then realized they were not. So at most a few bites of that. Another time was a slice of GF paska bread at Pascha. It was not nearly as amazing as I thought it would have been. And I put some soaked Quinoa (technically still grain free, but it is a starch food) in some meatloaf the other evening. I'll live.
So, cheats, but not CHEATS if you know what I mean.
Good results so far:
Less inflammation. My knees no longer hurt when I go up and down stairs.
My hunger/satiety signals seems to be healing, or something. Even just recently, my satiety signal, always elusive and not strong at all, has kicked in. It's like I KNOW, from one bite to the next when I've had enough. This is new. I think most overweight people probably share this experience: It is hard to know when the body has had enough. I watch my thin husband eat and he knows exactly when he needs to stop. The desire for food is no longer there. For me, over the years, it's been a struggle. How much should I eat? When do I stop? What rules to I follow about meal size, etc. I've tried every trick in the book and then some, but I have been living all along with this awareness that something's broken, here...why doesn't it work for me automatically the way it automatically works for him?
Well, for some reason or other, the "automatically" has been kicking in.
But I'm also dealing with RAGING food cravings. I want pasta. I want bread. I want nachos. I want DIET COKE, goshdarnit!!!
But I have not given in. I guzzle sour kombucha (lovely probiotic beverage, that) and that really helps the diet coke cravings. Yes, it's been since the New Year and I still crave that poison. I wonder if the craving will ever go away.
I have not lost much weight...five or six pounds perhaps. And my primary purpose isn't to lose, but oh, it would have been a nice side effect. My doctor does not think my body is "healed up enough" yet to lose weight. I'll try to be patient and not force anything. But my clothes are a bit looser, so I'll not complain.
I've been cutting down, way down, on the honey, and now dates are too sweet for me. And trying to minimize the nuts...but that leaves me hungry all the time. I'll keep trying, especially to lower the honey. I know it's not an ideal food.
But...
This week I made GAPS legal Vanilla ice cream, which is amazing and I really really needed to make it, because otherwise a trip to GRAETER'S and a mega cheat would have been close at hand.
3 cans of coconut milk
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup honey
1 T or more of homemade vodka vanilla flavor (the vodka helps the ice cream to stay scoopable)
2 droppers full of liquid stevia.
blend all in blender, and process as for ice cream in an ice cream maker. Let cure in freezer.
Yum.
Comments
-Rebecca
I stumbled along your blog while doing an internet search for eating disorders and Orthodox Christianity. It actually the second search result! I'm so excited to find another Orthodox Christian eating the GAPS way.
I'm so amazed that you tackle so many health issues (you and your children). Congratulations on your new house with the combined bedrooms and your garden harvest. Glory to God!
Is there a way to connect directly with you, if you would even have time and energy? I hope we can sometime.
Blessings, Eleni