"Sounds efficient." Indeed.

forms in triplicate
same question answered ten times
lather rinse repeat

Backpacking menu.

Dinner, night one:
- reheated black eyed peas, zucchini with spices, salami

eaten with a spork, of course!

- Dagoba chocolate bar with Justin's peanut butter (so backpacker-friendly!)
- Pendleton whiskey in Mr Flask
- Bandit wine (so backpacker-friendly!)

Breakfast, day two:
- coffee
- oatmeal with Trader Joe's dried cranberries and vacuum fried bananas (which reconstitute nicely, turns out!)

Five-turned-ten hour hike snacking:
- Trader Joe's dried plantain chips
- aforementioned trail mix bars
- rice cakes with Justin's peanut butter
- Spanish mix from Whole Foods (our pantry is never without these days)
- Cost Plus mini sausages (really gross if you actually think about them, but so tasty)

Dinner, night two:
- see Dinner, night one

the usual suspects getting into the wine

- ginger tea


Breakfast, day three:
- see Breakfast, day two

All in all, not much prep work and plenty of sustenance for the three hour tour... I mean, 10 hour hike... on Saturday.  And no tummy issues.  Win win!

Want. Comfort. Food.

And thus begins the TMI portion of this post.

It seems inhumane that I should be denied gooey, warm, doughy pizza whilst enduring a sinus infection and the early signs of PMS.  But I guess this is my fate.  I've never been one for chocolate, really, but dark chocolate and peanut butter it is tonight.  Along with a screening of Julie and Julia.

And thus ends the TMI portion of this post.

So far so good, otherwise.  I've managed to stick to the foods I can eat, remember the separation of grain and dairy, and enjoy some delicious indulgences...

U-Pick berrypallooza

... a lovely raw meal at Blossoming Lotus on Sunday evening...

walnut pizza crust and cashew "cheese" - soooo delicious

followed by a wonderful tofu/quinoa dish and walnut falafel

and ending with me-friendly pecan pie

 
... and a delicious walnut banana pancake concoction on Sunday morning.  Must get that recipe.

I've also been inspired to make my own almond and coconut milk, since the store-bought variety contains Vitamin A Palmitate and various other bad-for-me things.  (Links are more complicated than the recipes I actually used - which just included soaking almonds/coconut overnight and blending with water, which turned out perfectly sweet on their own - but I'm dying to mix in cinnamon, vanilla and dates to see how that changes the flavor.)  And kale chips!  Six dollars at the farmer's market?  Pshhaw.

Who knew this could be so easy and so very delicious?  Well, I do and now you do. 

I have to say, between the whole milk, whole yogurt, whole cheese and all these nuts I will gain 874 pounds on this endeavor, but dammit, it will be worth it.

Kinda sorta like the Regal Beagle Larry. Only not at all.

I don't think I've mentioned Larry yet.

You may or may not know that about two years ago, I got hit by a taxi in Buenos Aires.  Nothing was broken but a lot of my left side was bruised and damaged from the incident.  When I got back to Portland I didn't have a job right away so I spent about $1000 of uninsured cash on acupuncture, and by the time I was insured I was still hurting but I found a wonderful chiropractor who healed me for a few weeks at a time.  At that point I was also suffering tension headaches from staring at a computer screen all day, and from sitting all day.

A few weeks ago my naturopath recommended that I get an appointment with Larry, teller of awful jokes.  Really awful jokes, she insisted.  Really, really awful - because he would hurt me so good, and telling really bad jokes was his way of distracting from the pain.  She alleged that Larry, who did not take my insurance, would fix me in one visit.  She also recommended another coworker of hers who would fix me and might take my insurance, but it would take a few visits. 

I resisted for a week.  I liked my chiropractor a lot, he seemed to get me, he got the issues I was having and he relieved them on a temporary basis.  But when I went back to my naturopath to have my food intolerance and other lab tests done, I'd been having chronic shoulder pain for a few months in addition to all the other back pain.  Larry had an opening the next day.  Which was, apparently, unheard of.  And I'd gotten to the point where I said to myself, "holy *&$% , you're 37, could you just accept a little help on this already?"

So I sucked up the cost and hopped on the chance.  I even went to my appointment prepared with a good bad joke from PIC to share with Larry - "a rabbi, a priest and a penguin go into a bar - the bartender says, 'what is this, a joke?'" ba dum bum.

Within 5 minutes of meeting Larry the next morning, I was dubious.  Whereas my naturopath spent about an hour with me on my first visit, questioning every single issue/habit/ritual/food I put into my body/family history, Larry literally watched me walk into his office and diagnosed me on the spot.  He didn't ask any questions.  ANY.  As far as I know he didn't even read my medical history to know about my taxi incident.  But he immediately knew that my entire left side was damaged, and he got to work.

An hour later I walked out feeling better but still dubious.  Larry had given me a great PT workout, stretching and working parts of me I didn't know needed stretching and working.  But when we were done, I asked about a follow up appointment or stretches or anything I should do to keep on with the healing.  He said, "just move."  Really.  That's all he said. I was seriously thinking I'd wasted my money.

The next day I barely felt any twinges of what had been plaguing me for months.

Three weeks later, after regular but small bouts of running and regularly hiking and walking whenever possible, I basically still feel no pain.

I will never doubt alternative medicine again.  It's not for everyone, and surely you've got to find your groove, but once you do, I doubt you will go back.

Gluten- and potato-free carb loading?

With this new low-carb-ish diet, one thing I do wonder about is exercise.  About a year ago I ran a half-marathon and was training to run Hood to Coast.  For the past few weeks I've barely been able to do a few laps around the local park without getting tired and out of breath.  A few miles into the 5-mile hike on July 4th, and my leg muscles were tired and achy.  This morning's 3-ish mile hike required a mid-afternoon nap.  (Granted, it's bloody hot in Portland right now, which isn't helping either.)

Bars and Gu and loads of pasta helped with all that running.  Obviously, that's not really an option now.

It's been pretty frustrating.  I know that my body is adjusting to the new food routine and that there are a myriad of other ways I can get carbs and find the energy to run.  We did try some delicious trail mix bars this morning on the hike (with dark chocolate instead of milk, of course), and Lundberg rice cakes with peanut butter are my new favorite snack. 

But with everything else I have to think about, that just feels like one more thing right now...  Patience patience patience.  

Belated Friday five.

Five foods I can eat!  In no particular order:

• Zucchini shredded into "pasta" strands with soy curls, ricotta cheese and arugula pesto
  
  
  
• Mashed, spiced strawberries and rice granola
  
  
  
• Hard boiled egg salad with toasted pecans, bacon and homemade bleu cheese dressing (subbing Vegenaise for mayo and strained plain yogurt for sour cream)
  
  
  
• Blackberry and basil smoothies
  
  
  
• Pear and pecan salad with bacon and the aforementioned homemade bleu cheese dressing, with ginger beer in celebratory champagne glasses - because, hey, why not?
  
  
  

One day I will get tired of bacon.  Today was not that day.

Not even close to Wednesday three.

Three questions I'm tired of answering in response to my food intolerance, in no particular order:

• "What's in it?"
• "Jeez, why are so many people gluten intolerant now?" 
•  "Aw, so no more cookies?"

(The last two would be totally valid questions if they weren't uttered in a disgusted, unsympathetic way.)

And my answers, respectively:

• This is a question I ask myself about almost everything I eat right now.  I am tired of hearing myself ask it, no matter how good I feel.  Because inevitably it's something I really want to eat but there is something in "it" that I shouldn't eat - case in point, peanut sauce yesterday at the sushi restaurant.  We didn't even ask, mainly because I wasn't too sure how accurate the answer would be, so I just enjoyed the veggie roll without delicious peanut sauce or soy sauce.  This too shall pass (patience patience patience).
• "Because there is no food in our food."  This is not some trendy Portland thing.  My general health over the last few weeks is testimony to that.  My theory on the increase in symptomatic people, after trolling the internet for the past few weeks for information and recipes, is that many people are intolerant to potato, gluten, corn, dairy, you name it... but modern medicine can't diagnose it.  A regular doctor might give a food allergy test but this wouldn't identify intolerance per se, just things that make you swell up and/or die if you eat them.  And why are we intolerant to all of these things?  Because we've spent a century eating processed crap and fast food.  I recently watched a documentary on diabetics who went on a 30 day raw diet and almost all of them were able to go off their insulin.  That's insane to me.  And the more people identify their food intolerances successfully through non-western means, the more other people go to naturopaths for relief. 
• "You want delicious cookies?  Learn how to bake."  I also got this question the last time I quit my job, and this was my answer then too.  In all seriousness though, there are yummy treats I can still eat, but I still love to bake and baking gluten-filled sugary goodness takes less effort (and cash) sometimes.  So yes, I will still bake. 

I suppose I shouldn't complain too much though.  Because this is still new to me, I initiate or instigate many of these conversations, so as soon as I get tired of talking about it I'll stop having to answer the questions.  Patience patience patience.

I need a modified V-chip.

Did I mention no grain + dairy within 4 hours?

D'oh.  Or duh.

Pretty sure the reason I felt crappy yesterday was the yogurt and me-friendly granola.  The reason I felt a little crappy this evening was the cheese and me-friendly crackers.

I'm trying not to feel defeated.  Really, I'm trying.  But I'm sad again.  I was so excited to find granola I could eat, crackers I could eat.  I forgot the combo part. 

But - beets and greens and walnuts and goat cheese?  Fine!  Pesto and turkey meatballs and spaghetti squash?  Fine!  (I {heart} spaghetti squash - I actually just did a little dance thinking about pesto and spaghetti squash.)  Strawberries and me-friendly granola?  Fine!

Until I get in the habit, though, if I could just get a short shock every time I think "me-friendly" means I can eat it with whatever, that would be great.  Can someone hook me up?

In the meantime I'll just keep eating lots and lots of bacon.

Whiskey is fine. Something else, not so fine.

Currently on day 7 of this adventure.  I can't believe how fine I've felt.  It's been a bit disorienting, actually, waking up in the morning really ready to face the day.  I'm trying not to be sad with all the time I've lost feeling crappy.

I've confirmed that whiskey is fine (hooray!), and trace amounts of iodized salt in peanut butter and Earth Balance butter are fine (double hooray!  or the other hooray around).  In the last few days PIC and I have spent lots of time in grocery stores reading labels.  It's both informational and time-consuming, and has led to several results that have made me very happy:

• actual rice cakes (that have no wheat or potato) and peanut butter as dinner on Friday
• Mary's Gone Crackers crackers that I can eat with whole milk cheese 
• quinoa pasta that was awesome with some leftover pesto
• and lots of obvious choices of fresh fruits, veggies, and whole milk dairy products

And several results that have made me sad:

• "natural flavors" are in EV. ERY. THING - do you know how hard it is to avoid "natural flavors"?  what the hell is a "natural flavor" anyway?
• yeast (that I should not consume) is in Bundaberg Ginger Beer, our staple in New Zealand that I was so excited to recently find in Portland
• and in general, I can't believe all the processed crap that's in the food I once ate

PIC and I have also spent lots of time reading recipes, and carefully following them, or carefully modifying them to not include wheat and potato, and up until today I have felt amazing.  So that's all good.


But today was the first day I felt crappy.  Really, utterly, like-before crappy.

I'm really not sure of the cause - we had very-me-friendly huevos rancheros (with allegedly me-friendly corn tortillas that I had with no problem yesterday) this morning, then yogurt/fruit/(allegedly) gluten-potato-free-granola for lunch, then greens and black eyed peas and bacon for dinner, with some me-friendly crackers and cheese in between.

But sometime between morning and lunch I started feeling crappy.  Perhaps it was something in the salsa with breakfast?  It seemed OK, other than the iodized salt and possible trace amounts of "natural flavors".  And then for some time after lunch I felt really crappy too.  Perhaps the granola wasn't as me-friendly as it claimed to be? 

I really don't know the cause.  I do know that after about 6 hours and a dinner of greens, black eyed peas and bacon, I feel much better.  I guess I'll just have to try the salsa and granola in silos and see what happens.

This is going to be a lot of work.  Mentally, physically and emotionally.  But after a week of feeling good, I'm up for it...  Thank goodness it's a short week.