Thursday, September 10, 2009

To Salad, you bastard



Since July I have been on the Raw Food De.tox Diet. Uh, yeah. It IS as good as it sounds. This has been my breakfast now for two and half months--kale, celery, apple, lemon and ginger juice. Then I am allowed to eat fruit later in the morning. At lunch, I can have a salad, usually I put in spinach or arugula, onion, tomato, mushroom, olives, and maybe an egg or three. Olive oil and a splash of vinegar. Dinner is the same, except maybe a piece of fish, or a half cup of rice. FOR TWO MONTHS.

I feel like a monk. Or someone with an eating disorder. Except I am still fat.

The entire reason I kicked off this detoxification thing is that I hadn't lost weight since February, even though my calorie count wouldn't exceed 1200/day. This all seems crazy, I know, but it is true. I even factored in my wine(s) into my food journal. And sometimes Sam would read my diary and say, "Uh, you do realize your wine calorie count is equal to your food intake calorie count?"
"Hey, calories are calories, jackass. I have to count them." And really, seeing my drinking habits in numbers in a little green book was disturbing. So, I stopped the wine, and still, no weight loss.

Let's be fair, okay. I lost my appetite when Lucy died. I went with it.

So, when that didn't help my weight loss either, giving up the wine. It all felt so cruel. Dead baby and a postpartum shape. So, I began suspecting a food allergy. I was feeling kind of crappy in my GI system, and wanted to get the wine residue out of my system. My friend had been doing this raw food thing, and so I bought the book. I began eliminating all allergens--dairy, wheat, barley, gluten, soy. It left me the above diet. And in July I lost twelve pounds.

Finally, momentum.

I cannot tell you how fucking bored I am with eating. I mean, I subscribe to F00d and W.ine. Slack-jawed, mouth watering, saucer-like eyes, I would throw it across the room and just shriek. But I felt better, you know, a ton better physically. Slept better. Woke better. But, I would see a bowl of green, and just sigh. I'm not even hungry anymore. If I eat another leaf of spinach, I might turn into some fucking maenad and attack the wild animals in the woods, tearing them apart with my veggie-dulled incisors. And because of my ennui with it all, I decided I need some allergy testing. I needed to start bringing some things back into my diet, especially as my weight loss stymied again. I might as well eat something. I was becoming a raging nasty woman. I chased a squirrel up a tree one morning.

Yesterday, I finally got my results, and I am not allergic to anything. Nothing. I do have an underactive thyroid though, despite the fact that I was tested after Lucy died.

It explains so much. SO much.

I ate three pieces of pizza last night. Guilt-free splurge. It was heaven. I mean, I am still planning on the counting calorie, eating mostly raw, but I wanted to celebrate my newly-cleared-of-allergies body. But then, dinner conversation was mostly dominated with the real diagnosis. Hypothyroidism. It makes me feel less crazy. I was beginning to suspect that I was one of those sleep walking bingers. Sam felt vindication for me. "You even lost weight with this insane thyroid number." But then it sunk in, what does this diagnosis mean for pregnancy? For the rest of my life? Will I always battle about my weight, sleep, energy? Will I always be adjusting my medication? It is all so confusing and swirling. I am just trying to breathe, hit the library and remain happy that I have a diagnosis of something.

For now, I can say in all earnestness, "Salad, you can suck it for a while."

20 comments:

  1. Oh Angie, thanks for getting some much needed laughs out of me. Not laughing at you though, but maybe just a little bit at you chasing a squirrel up a tree. And maybe I even laughed so much, I snorted.
    I'm glad you have answers now, and I hope you can work through this with good medical advice and medication. I also hope that was some damn fine pizza. Man do you deserve that! Yes salad, you can suck it. You know what they (The Simpsons) say "you don't win friends with salad!"

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  2. Hey, Angie, I'll email you some stuff I've been reading about this. Much love!

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  3. nice, angie! oh how i hear you. pizza = good.

    this pregnancy and loss has killed my relationship to food. i am actually a trained holistic nutrition counselor and i never want to see another salad. mostly i just want either thomas or hubert keller to cook me some foie gras. i weigh exactly what i weighed when i gave birth to her. some days i eat, some days i don't. i am having my thyroid checked next week.

    there's quite a lot they can do for thyroid these days, i think. homeopathic, herbal, and medical stuff. here's hoping you'll find something helpful! xo

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  4. You must have insane willpower, Ang.

    This was very funny, Ava kept asking me why I was laughing!

    xx

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  5. Funny, funny girl. Like Sally - I actually laughed out loud. Thanks for that!

    I hope you can continue to find some answers.

    xo

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  6. I was so go to write

    "You don't make friends with salad"

    Thanks Sal for stealing my line!

    Enjoy the pizza Angie.

    Coming from a women who is allergic to just about everything... ENJOY THE PIZZA!

    xxxx

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  7. This is brilliant. I'm glad you treated your veggie-dulled incisors to some pizza, and I hope it was the best pizza ever.

    It seemed to take forever for my postpartum thyroid to stabilize, which my doc assured me wasn't uncommon. I hope yours is easily treated.

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  8. Ange, you have so much more will power than me! Calorie counting or not, I hope you can lose the raw food thing...it sounds terrible. But then again, I'm a closet foodie too.

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  9. Hang on just a cotton pickin' minute. You have been doing this since JULY! JULY?!? You have been drinking kale, celery juicy thingy for breakfast all this time and you have never once complained or vented about it. Let alone all the other meals.

    I admired you before but now I am in awe and could possibly found a new religion worshipping your self restraint. Geesh.

    Glad that there is at least some sort of explanation. I'm afraid I don't know anything about hypothyroidism but please, please have more pizza and wine tonight. Or anything you like. Just not salad. xo

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  11. Screw salad! Hooooray. :)

    Icecream. Angie needs icecream.

    Or maybe that's just me. ;)

    And I'm with Catherine - the crazy willpower it would take to adhere to that kinda diet? I bow down to the all powerful Angie!

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  12. I went vegan for a while a few years ago and I will admit to feeling healthier than I had ever felt before but cheese cravings got the better of me. I dreamed about the damned stuff!

    I'm glad you have a solution... and a brilliant sense of humour.

    xxx

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  13. I'm in awe that you made it two whole months, Ang. I have given up more times than i can count. sometimes food and alcohol seem like the only solace. I'm glad you found out what was wrong now and can move onto improving the situation. Hugs to you.

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  14. If those were my only food choices, I suspect that I would give up eating all together and subsist on resentment-scented air. The fact that you were eating all this while Sam and Bea were eating nonmonk food makes it all the more remarkable. I'm glad you have an answer. I'm glad that answer included pizza. I'm so very glad you're Angie.

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  15. Pizza, cookies, cakes, go crazy girl! As a fellow hypo, I can only share my story- that it's been very easy to manage with levothyroxine. My mom's been hypo for almost 40 years and hers is well-managed too. I can't describe the difference I felt once I started on medication three years ago, the fatigue and general blah-ness fell off rather quickly and I felt like a new person. Pregnancy and birth can cause major fluctuations in your TSH, so I'm not surprised it didn't show up right after Lucy's birth.

    Coconut oil is also supposed to be great for hypothyroidism, if you're looking for a natural remedy.

    Buh-bye salad. Hello food! xo

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  16. oh angie, you really do have so much will power. i am still 20 pounds over the most i ever weighed before i was pregnant. i lost my appetite for a few days tops. but i think i'm just so into comfort food. i am proud of you for losing 12 pounds and sticking to that monk diet and also for having three pieces of pizza. so glad you got a diagnosis and can eat real food again!

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  17. "Uh, you do realize your wine calorie count is equal to your food intake calorie count?"

    Bah! That kind of commentary is not necessary!

    I'm so glad that you have a diagnosis! And as for how hypothyroidism will impact future pregnancies and the rest of your life, it may be difficult but you will be able to manage it.

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  18. I'm glad you found out the problem, even if it wasn't a good answer. I hope you find an easy fix for this one. :)

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  19. Thanks for all your loving support, everyone. I wish I had a willpower of steel. But truthfully, believing that these foods were making me ill was a large impetus to not eat them. Now, I seem to have no discernible ability to say no to any food presented to me.

    And Jenni, Yum. I have Thomas Keller's cookbooks from French Laundry. Seriously that is my porn.

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  20. wow 2 months! impressive. i did ww for about 2 weeks and totally gave that up. i hated it. i hate my belly more, but i am not willing to make myself crazier counting points.

    pizza = yum!

    with a side salad of course :)

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