Operation Move It- Week 2

I took "before" pictures last night. I am still traumatized. I think I may have looked better before my "before"- if that makes sense. Deflating quickly isn't the most flattering thing when you're going to show some skin.

I already said this on Facebook, but hey, I am gonna say it again. Measurements are the way to go. The scale- particularly when you bump up exercise- can pretty much be a lying ho. 

I weigh myself daily, but only count the result I get on Monday AM. So for the week, results are as follows:

Down 1 lb.  Lost an inch in my hips, ribcage, and bust, and 1.5 inches in my waist. Woohoo! Also down 1/2 inch each on upper arms, biceps, and thighs. That's...well, pretty phenomenal.

I told my acupuncturist, and he said it was probably just water loss, and then I punched him in the face stuck my tongue out at him. And he said my tongue looks better, which in acupuncture speak, is good, but coming from him, means I am practically one step away from immortality, because the most I have ever been able to get out of him is a grudging, "not bad".

Anyway. I am trying to follow the exercise schedule detailed by Mark. I am dialed in with sprints, I am dialed in with "fun" (Zumba! Walking! Bike rides! etc.) But weight training is, and I suspect will always be, my Achilles heel. It does not help that I belong to Gold's Gym, and there are always huge sweaty guys on the weight machines.  And I am not so secretly afraid of looking stupid. Our home is tiny, with zero backyard. So that nullifies a lot of options.

I looked up Mark's list of W.O.W.'s. There are a couple that are in my realm of possibility. Most of them are pretty "manly" though. For example, one involves pushing a car around- I think I would rupture something if I tried to push anything other than a SmartCar! I also threw some stuff onto Pinterest to look at later- convict conditioning (ie, body weight exercises) and Shovelglove stuff. I actually have my own sledge (named Towanda) around here somewhere. And I downloaded a book,  You Are Your Own Gym, which is highly recommended on Amazon- more body weight exercises, AND apps for both Android and iPhone if you choose to do that.

According to my schedule, tomorrow is a "Lift Heavy Things" day. So I had better figure things out fast! Today was already not "perfect". I was supposed to go to the gym and get back on the elliptical, but I ran out of time (since I am now trying to religiously eat breakfast) and realized I wouldn't be able to get a good session in between finishing my meal and the acupuncture appointment. And I am not supposed to exercise for 6-8 hours after the appointment. So I ended up with 40 minutes before I had to leave- I was already in my gym clothes, so I set out to run/walk intervals through the marsh behind our house. While it wasn't what I wanted to do, it was still hard work!

The whole "No 'Poo" experiment is still going strong. I am really happy with it, and am getting into a routine. I also decided to try cassia, which is like clear henna: it's a natural, monthly hair treatment. I smooshed it into my hair tonight and let it sit for an hour, and I am really pleased with the results! Lots of body and shine. It also seems to have defined the waves in my hair quite a bit.

Coasting

I admit, my focus hasn't been where it should be. The rest of this month may or may not be the same. Essentially, here is what is going on:

If you read my story at MDA, you know that SG and I have wanted to have children- basically from the beginning. 10 years later, we still don't have any. A huge part of our reasoning to moving to the Bay Area was that some of the best fertility specialists in the world are here, and SG would be in a position to make more money. So we would be able to afford any necessary, expensive, not covered by insurance procedures that would arise.

Three years later, we have enough savings to dive in and do this. And I totally panicked.

Ironically, now that I am more careful about what food I consume, I was now a LOT more leery about shooting myself full of chemicals.  Wanting to become a healthy parent was the main reason I began eating Paleo. I felt like going to a reproductive endocrinologist was "giving up", in a sense- going backwards. It's against just about everything I believe. My acupuncturist felt certain that I would be able to get pregnant without intervention, and over two years I have watched my window of opportunity shrink more and more, until I finally did preliminary testing a few months ago, and realized the horrible truth: if I wanted a conventional pregnancy, with my own DNA, I couldn't afford to wait any longer- and may have waited too long as it was. 

Using science to get pregnant, as it turns out, requires a lot more thought than just drinking too many margaritas and forgetting to take a pill- at least in my case. I've been poked, prodded, given up samples of just about any bodily fluid they could come up with, screened for pretty much everything under the sun, and spent enough time in the stirrups to potentially qualify as a cowgirl. Yeehaw!

I don't even want to talk about the stress. Money and emotions and stress are a REALLY crappy mix. Your self-image takes a horrible beating. In dark moments, you wonder if you even qualify as a woman.

People say amazingly awful things to you. I mean yeah: we could adopt. But the truth of the matter is, people typically have the need to want to reproduce. They want to further THEIR genes. It's a trait we share with pretty much every other species on this Earth, and logic has little or nothing to do with it. Otherwise, emperor penguins would not be huddling on a glacier in a blizzard, balancing an egg on their feet while losing half their body weight, and getting eaten by seals. They'd be all, "SCREW this, I am going to Starbucks!"

So anyway. I wanted to keep this separate, (and I will spare you the gory details) but I can't seem to focus on anything else. If you want the deets, they are on my other blog (I mentioned it a few posts ago. :)

 This is a huge part of my life right now, and I am actually shocked at how much it ties in. Because 5 years ago, I followed the same drug protocol. And it made me CRAZY.  Like suicidally, unable to get out of bed, can only eat cookies, screaming at my husband over the inferior way he folded the underwear, crying incessantly CRAZY. It also made me gain tons and tons of weight- which yes, may have had something to do with the cookies, but also probably the fact that my hormones were completely out of control, and I was injecting even more of them into myself daily. At one point, I developed so much cystic acne under my jawline and chin that I was in unbelievable pain- to the point that I didn't want to leave the house, and just sat around with an ice pack under my chin. Sound super-attractive? Oh yeah. 

Now imagine that you are married to that person. And that it is taking all your disposable income to make this happen, for something that has a 30% chance (or lower) of working. So not only do you have the emotional stress of infertility, you have financial stress as well.  And it all turned out not to work. That's a lot of hell to go through- for nothing.

Understandably, I was not anxious to do that again. Neither was SG. But we decided the risk was worth it- and that if we didn't take it, we would have the rest of our lives to regret it.

So here we are. I am pleased to say that my current experience has been immeasurably better- my doctor and his crew are awesome- not the case last time. AND I am emotionally stable- occasional highs and lows, but nothing like last time on the emo front. SG is happy to confirm this- I have been somewhat irritable and weepy, but not too crazy- and while I have moments, they are only temporary. Thank God (and Paleo!) for that.

So: if you're wondering what happened to all the shiny-happy posts about bicycling and making iced tea, that's what's going on. Hopefully I will be back to my old self and focused enough to write about something else soon. I am squirreling away pics of my culinary exploits and book and product reviews, so I'll have material- as soon as I get my head above water!

Forage

One stop shopping- acupuncture, and wild blackberries!

My hometown is generally known (ironically for me) as "The Bread Basket of California."  The Central Valley is known for its fresh produce, particularly grapes and raisins. When I got to farmer's markets in the Bay Area, many times, the produce has been ferried over from my hometown or surrounding area.

I have always been fascinated by the concept of growing my own food. It wasn't something that I ever did. All the trees in our backyard were ornamental. The only digging I ever really did was in the sandbox. I occasionally wonder if it has anything to do with how my parents were raised- Dad by a thrifty woman who was an avid gardener, and Mom grew up on a working ranch- not the cattle kind, they grew grapes and walnuts and a few other things. I heard a lot of stories about chickens, but they were gone by the time I came along. I suspect that they didn't miss stringing the beans and snapping beans- and come to think of it, I remember the story about the chickens because it had a predictably traumatic ending.

Once again, when we would go to visit Grandmas, there was always something growing. Still grapes and walnuts, etc. in the case of Grandma Marge. Grandma Ruby had a smaller space, and a more typical "Kitchen garden".  She let me plant parsley seeds, and go through the strawberry bed, and there were sugar snap peas on the trellis and tomato plants in wine barrels, every summer. I seem to recall that she had a "volunteer" avocado tree as well, so tall that climbing on the roof was part of the avocado harvesting process.

It always seemed so exotic to me. Maybe because I was obsessed with the Little House On the Prairie series?

Unfortunately, I didn't really think to try growing my own food until we were here, in the Bay Area. My "yard" is pots on a deck. So I have been experimenting with herbs, a lot of dwarf fruit trees and bushes, and occasionally, vegetables. The veggies are the most sensitive, and invariably, they die a lingering death. (One exception: green onions. I chopped up the greens from my CSA box, planted the bottom bulbs, and a month later, they are about 6 inches high!)  The herbs, berries and fruit trees seem to be more resilient. My blueberry bush has so far produced 5 berries, and they were all delicious. There are three more out there now, just waiting to be harvested. The blackberries are also ripening- it looks like my total number will be 6.

This is only the first year, but still- depressing. I admit, I am not the most patient person, but that's a lot of work for 15 berries! Particularly, when I see what Mother Nature can do on her own, with no other coddling but occasional water and sunshine.

Because, of course, food grows wild everywhere around here. I got an app a few weeks ago: Wild Edibles (Android). And since I have gotten invested in growing stuff, I have begun to recognize edible STUFF, just about everywhere.

For example, this is what I saw when I went to the acupuncturist today, and peered over the walkway adjacent to the parking lot.

For the record, that is just the top of the bush. Which I would estimate is at least 8 feet high, with thousands and thousands of blackberries on it- not to mention, bees. I wonder if anyone will pick them? Or if I am intrigued/ghetto/brave enough to go out there and pick some myself? The brave part comes in because I took a pretty close look this afternoon, and those things have (along with bees)some wicked thorns.
Anyway. it makes my sad little potted blackberry bush and its six berries look pretty pathetic.

At this point, I am pretty good at identifying standard fruit and nut trees, wild fennel, miners lettuce, dandelion...stuff like that. And I can't wait to have access to an actual yard again, so I can grow stuff!

In the meantime, I am trying to get some good ideas about how to landscape with edible plants. I know one of the "lands" in Disneyland does that, but can't for the life of me remember which one! (I had to look it up: it's Tomorrowland!!)  Closer to home, there's the Trader Joe's shopping center next door, which has date palms, citrus trees, a grape arbor, what I knew produced nuts, but just identified as a "linden tree" (Thanks, Wild Edibles!) and of course, a ubiquitous rosemary hedge. If all heck breaks loose, I guess I know which direction to head in. 6 berries and some green onions won't tie us over for long!

Hold on, I have to visit my virtual grass-fed cattle ranch

I've been doing quite a bit of research today, and I am realizing that the stuff that I wanted to talk about really needs- well, more research. And well-reasoned thought. And as someone who is being pulled in many different directions, I don't know that I am capable of doing justice to these things tonight. Hey, I need time for my latest obsession: Wii: Walk It Out.(Wasn't that an excellent segue?)

I love this game. It's fairly simple, but motivating. I enjoy building my virtual island and marching around to music that I would probably never voluntarily listen to. At least this is one hour in front of the TV that is active, as opposed to passive time. I typically burn about 400 calories, and get around 10,000 steps in. Do I wish I could do more bad-ass exercise? Heck yeah, I do. But I am informed, by reliable and medical-type sources, that if I want to be a mom, I have to go easy on my body, get things into "balance" somehow, and stick with just walking.

The creepy thing is, that if you know what you are looking for, your body will in fact let you know what it likes, or doesn't like. I disregarded these instructions about a year ago, and signed up with my local CrossFit Box- now known as The Cave. I loved that place. Except for the occasional humiliation of not being able to do a handstand. Or the time my coach asked a really hot tall muscley SHIRTLESS guy to lift me up while I struggled to do a pull-up. (Ahhhhhh! Noooooooo! *Cue panic attack*) But I did find out that I am stronger than I look. My favorite moment was when my coach asked to take a look at my running, and started cackling and rubbing my hands together with glee. "You're FAST! You are gonna shock the heck out of some people!"

However, after two weeks of it, my acupuncturist looked at my temperature charts, and shook his head.
Now, when I originally started going to acupuncture, I was a mess. (I've been assured that I am still "slightly messy, but almost normal".) One of the freakiest things were my morning temps. That's what you do when you are trying to get pregnant- you chart. Typically, you just print out one of the millions of examples found all over the internet, and fill in the boxes.

I had to make my own in Excel, because my temps were so low. I would dip into the 95's sometimes. I had asked my ob-gyn at the time about it, and she shrugged it off. "No big deal, you run a little cool." But in acupuncture, your temps are an indicator of how your body is responding to treatment. My temps had started coming up a little bit, but as soon as Crossfit started, they dropped like a rock.I had to confess my crime, meekly put my Crossfit membership on hold, and went back to walking (it out). And I am now firmly entrenched in the 97's and 98's on my chart, which is where I should be.

Obviously, this game was meant for me. Pink trees? Check. Rainbow sparklies? Check. They definitely don't have those in Crossfit. The Black Eyed Peas song is just a bonus. And if we are really being honest, I freaking hate burpees AND double-unders.

6,415 and Counting...

My Fitbit needs a name: perhaps Francine?

I survived.
After Day One, the cleanse was relatively painless. I did have sudden nausea on Day Three, and ended up yacking into the kitchen sink. This is unusual behavior for me, as I usually have the sort of stomach described as "iron clad". Love is someone who comes running when they hear you retching uncontrollably from the other end of the house, and makes sure to hold your hair (and jewelry!) back out of the way. Mad Props to SG. 

The good news: my sugar cravings are still happily gone, and while I didn't lose weight, I didn't lose ground either. I was very happy to get on with the regularly scheduled program yesterday morning. I swear, when I saw my morning eggs and chicken 50grams of protein breakfast and took the first bite: I felt crazy strength and happiness flood my body.

If I need any further corroboration to know I am doing the right thing: I remember looking at my tongue on Tuesday night, and it was a horrible grayish shade. A few hours after breakfast on Wednesday, I checked in the mirror again, and it was normal around the edges, but still gray in the middle. My acupuncturist pronounced it "gross." and I concur. After peeking again today, it's back to a much more human-looking all-over pink. Hooray!!!


I should also say that I finally found a "real" doctor, and had my first consult with her. What a positive experience that was! She looked me over, agreed that I needed to keep eating right and working on my weight, gently suggested that I maybe bump up the exercise, but pretty much said I seem "ridiculously healthy." Obviously, she is a genius. ;) She wants me to do more labs, and I explained the situation, so I will have three months for my body to acclimate, then I will retest.

Speaking of genius:   I love my standing workstation. For some reason (probably my dismal steps on the Fitbit) I had a brainwave: maybe I could put my tiny elliptical stepper in front of my workstation? And it works like a charm. I do stop occasionally, and I cannot type while on it, but otherwise, I am happy as a clam, reading MDA and the Hairpin and checking Facebook, while doggedly stepping away.

Screeching Halt

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

 

This pretty much sums up how I feel about my visit to the naturopath today. And it sounds a lot better than just a long stream of profanity. Thanks, Charles Dickens!!

 

After processing all the info, this is what I got out of it: summed up in excerpts from the email I sent to the acupuncturist.

"Well: not so good.  I will send you the labs once I get them scanned but this is the Reader’s Digest version.

First, my cholesterol is 309.  HDL: 83, LDL 202. (Holy crap!) That's a 100 point rise since I was tested in 2010. Trigs at least, are normal at 121.

I have a zinc deficiency, and something major is amiss with my liver. Uric Acid and GGT are both off the charts.- The range on Uric acid ends at 7, and mine is 7.9. GGT should be between 3 and 50, and mine is 80. This may explain why I occasionally levitate when you hit that Liver point around my feet/ankles. It’s not stress, it’s my super-angry liver. 

Free T3 is on the low end of normal.  I am also slightly anemic, which I expected.  Some good news: my immune system seems to be iron-clad. All my blood ratios look good, except for iron.

While I know you say FSH is only valuable in Day 3, mine was at 43.1, which (per the lab sheet) puts me in the “post menopausal” range. As someone who is only 37 and would like to eventually have children, this is...disappointing. Also, my blood glucose was high.  

So, the good news:  We were right about my thyroid being juuust a bit wonky.  He has given me (piggy) thyroid pills to try, at a dosage of ½ grain a day. He says those work more naturally with the body than synthesized T3. I am supposed to start taking those after a 5 day liver cleanse.  I’ll send those sheets over too. Looking over it, I’ll be drinking herbal tea and taking a tincture, as well as eating a lot of organic fruit, fresh squeezed juice, and veggies.  Oh, and taking a laxative (so not happy about this!) in order to help kick out toxins. He says that the imbalance in my liver would affect my hormones and everything else, and the resultant inflammation may be the reason my cholesterol is so high. He also said that my blood glucose levels indicate that my body doesn’t utilize sugar/carbs well- which is one of the reasons I gain weight so easily. My body is a "hoarder".

The consensus was that this is all fixable, and we’ll be testing at intervals to make sure that we are getting things right. He gave me a B-12 shot and all my little bottles and sent me on my way.  

Thoughts?  I am experiencing a strange mix of relief (I am not crazy) and frustration (this better freaking work, dammit), but I would like your input on this."

When I got home, I laid it all out for SG, and he helped me to see the bright side of the situation, which is that it IS fixable, and that we should take the opportunity to go out and get burgers with sweet potato fries at The Counter. I had a few sips of PB shake too, and it was sweet in a horrible way, so evidently, I have kicked sugar for good. I will take comfort that eating this way for a week for cleansing purposes will just be like Grok had a bad 5 days of hunting. (And I am sure SG is dreaming of the inevitable pizzas he will order while I am on my fruit, veggie, root, and bark "liver cleanse".)

I have to admit, there was a moment when my naturopath was explaining this plan to me, and announced, "And people often lose quite a bit of weight doing this!" and I made a very unattractive snorting noise. He looked affronted. I was surprised by how UPSET I was to derail the way I have been eating, and how scared I am to do it. I did finally lose the last of my "Christmas weight", and I credit my discipline thus far with helping me to do that. It's still Primal: not necessarily low carb, but 5 days is certainly not going to kill me. Right?

The Infamous LCF

LCF= Low Carb Flu.

I am realizing now just how much sugar: in the form of fruit and heavy cream and chocolate/grain-free desserts must have been slipping through the cracks.

Because initially, I felt great. And then I got my blood drawn on Thursday, and when I got home, I was actually giddy. I suspect that this was the last gasp of my system, trying to run on sugar fumes. On Friday, I came to a screeching halt. I was starving, we are talking ravenously hungry, but nothing "allowed" sounded good. My joints and muscles ached. I kept clenching my jaw. And I had the mother of all headaches. This continued through Monday, when I refused to cop out and take Excedrin Migraine, and I had accidentally skipped my coffee- suddenly it was late at night, and if I wanted to sleep, caffeine would be a bad idea. So I toughed it out, until the unpleasant throbbing in my head turned into that distinctive migraine pain: which for me, feels like being shanked in the eye by an icepick. (So lucky!)

I tried taking Excedrin PM. Luckily the PM part worked, and I actually managed to go to sleep...but the migraine was still there when I woke up on Tuesday. Sir Grok took one look at me and brought me two migraine pills and water in bed, and commanded me to go back to sleep. When I finally woke back up, I felt like a million bucks. Here's hoping I am through the worst of it!

The naturopath called today: My test results are in, so I will be going in tomorrow to discuss those. Acupuncture was interesting today: cutting out sugar and dairy (except butter and occasional cheese) seems to be doing: well, something. My body is doing weird things: My temps are up, and seem to be evening out, and per my acupuncturist, "Your tongue looks almost normal."  And my wrist pulses are evidently "better" this week, too. Looking around, I see other people alluding to the sudden feeling of warmth or flushing that I have been getting since I started the Leptin Reset. My guess is that my body has finally started to adjust. Thank goodness! 

The Letter

I go in for a blood draw today. I am excited to compare my previous labs from two years ago to current data! I also got a pleasant surprise when I stepped on the scale this morning, and saw that three out of 5 of my Christmas pounds are gone. Wooohooo!

Man, yesterday was a big day, in the world of me. I had my appointments, got my first blog comment (yay!) and also the Amazon shipment containing my FitBit showed up! So I am enjoying trying that out.

I posted something about my multiple appointments to the acupuncturist and the naturopath on Facebook yesterday. One of my friends asked about why I wasn't just seeking out conventional medicine, and I wrote a novel: one that ties in pretty well over here, I think, so I will share. :)
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The short answer-

It's been my experience that alternative medicine practitioners do a lot more listening, and are a lot less cookie cutter with their approach to health. They seem to do better at discovering the cause of my problem, rather than just treating the symptoms.  I love the knowledge that the ultimate answer is that I can work with my body and do my best to help it heal, as opposed to just throwing stuff to the wall (in some cases you can substitute "huge amounts of money" for the word "stuff") to see what sticks. It's been gradual, and there is no "pill" I can take, but I can tell that it's working, because I feel better and better every day. I now feel like a rational human being, instead of a human guinea pig.


Here's the(really really long) lowdown: Since you lived with me way back when, you may remember that I always struggled with my weight and my skin (among other things.) I was constantly sick in the winter, with horrible sinus infections- and had pretty much been that way since childhood- although back then, it was also recurrent bladder/ear infections. And I was the world's heaviest sleeper- I snored, even as a kid. I'd sleep through my alarm and miss class all the time.

Over the years, things just seemed to snowball and get worse. I went to a bunch of the usual specialists, they ran a bunch of tests, and always said something like, "Well, it sounds like thyroid, but your labs are fine, so we don't know WHY you have this problem- but since we obviously need to deal with it, here's a ton of antibiotics/Accutane/maybe it's all in your head, but you should go on a diet, and also exercise more- couldn't hurt." And it was generally a solution that was ineffective, or in some cases, actually made me sicker. And I guess I just assumed that it was the way I was: I had always been a heavy sleeper, and low energy, and I always had breakout-prone and super oily skin and got my weird colds in the winter, etc.

And then there was a point where my husband and I started trying to get pregnant, and just...couldn't. Once again specialists, who all fixated on my weight- but admitted that it was just a guess, as there was nothing technically "wrong" with my husband, or with me. We went through the whole gamut, with no luck. There was no explanation they could come up with as to why it all failed.

So I went with the only thing I had control over. I started desperately trying to lose weight, and it worked- briefly. But inevitably, even with tracking my exercise and activity, and every calorie that went into my mouth, I'd not only stall, I would start to regain. And then, when I would freak out and tell the doctor, "Something isn't right, look at the math!", the doctor would tell me that stress is another factor in infertility, and I just needed to be patient. I finally elected to take a break from pursuing it: We were both emotionally bankrupt after a few rounds of it, our savings account was a wreck, and I was desperately sick of being a crazy hormonal diva monster with all the pills and shots!

So. When we moved up here, it was (at least in part) because of the proximity to the fertility specialists in the Bay Area (there was ONE GUY in my hometown) and also because the change in earning potential- we would be able to do IVF without it being a horrible financial strain.

I was desperately trying to stay in control of my health, and failing. I'd added a ton of whole grains into my diet, since they're supposed to be good for you! But I just got sicker. I developed rosacea, my hair was falling out, I was getting debilitating migraines two or three times a week, and once again, nobody knew why. My new doctor advised me to quit my job and lose a bunch of weight- once again, she cited "stress".

Luckily, (but misguidedly) I decided that if I wasn't working, we should start focusing on the baby thing again. I decided to start seeing an acupuncturist. He basically looked me over, asked a bunch of questions, and said, "You're too sick to have a baby, and you're almost too sick to function on your own.You have no business pumping yourself full of drugs like this, your hormones are all messed up, you're just making the damage worse." He's the first person who ever looked at my charted temps in the morning, which were consistently below 97 degrees, and said, "You're way too cold- this isn't normal, and we need to fix it." That's the way my temperature has always been, but nobody had said anything about it until now, even when I had tried to bring it up in the past!

He suggested I try an elimination diet. By this point, I was willing to try anything. Coincidentally, I had recently read about a diet that meant you cut out all grains, sugar, and dairy. I had dismissed it as "Low carb dressed up in a caveman suit," but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made, and I decided to try it for a week. And well, here I am!

It's been about two years: skin problems started to disappear in the first week. I will occasionally get a pimple (Thanks, PMS). Recurrent sinus infections and UTI's- gone. Migraines: I'll occasionally get one if I get off track with my eating: otherwise, they're gone. Seasonal depression- gone. Brain fog- gone. My eyes aren't bloodshot all the time. I actually wake up in the morning before my alarm goes off! I haven't lost a lot of weight, but I am not as "puffy" and I can maintain, which is amazing. My teemperatures seem to be slowly stabilizing and climbing. And my hair lady says my hair is healthier- growing back in thicker and stronger.

Confession time-I do occasionally cheat. I had some gluten-free treats over the holidays, and I am not always good about avoiding sugar. I learned the hard way that it is definitely gluten my body has a problem with. We had cream puffs leftover from a party last Christmas, and I ate some- you'd think they were poison. It was like the world's worst hangover and flu combined. I was horribly sick for a week.

My goodness, I wrote a novel- my apologies! I know my zeal sounds a little crazy, like I ran off and joined the Hari Krishnas or something. But it really has been life-changing- on par with going off to college or getting married for me. I can't stop thinking about what it would be like if I had never figured this out. So, if my story can help anyone, I am happy to tell it.
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