Ippalily

After three months on SCD, here is what I'm eating. Everything marked with an asterisk is new or modified this month.

Meats:
All meats and proteins can be eaten freely.

• eggs
  
• beef
  
• chicken
  
• turkey
  
• pork
  
• tuna
  
• salmon
  

Fruits and other Sweets:
1 serving of cooked (for
30 minutes) fruit or fruit juice every day. I try to stick to low sugar fruits. Fruits I have tried (anything else should be used with
caution):

• apples (I have apples the most)
• raspberry
• lemon
• lime
  
• blackberries
• pineapple juice*
  
• dried fruits occasionally*
  
• Honey is okay now!*

Veggies:
As many low and medium carb veggies as I want. Veggies I have tried (anything else should be used with caution):

• asparagus
• broccoli
• cucumber
• lettuce
• tomato
• avocado
• onions
  
• garlic
• cauliflower*
• bell pepper*
• green beans*
• mushrooms*
  

Other stuff:

• olive oil, coconut oil and butter can be used freely.
• 1 serving a day of the following: almond flour, coconut flour, pecan butter or almond butter.
• dry curd cottage cheese can be used freely
  
• 1 serving a day of the following cheeses: medium or mild cheddar* cheese, havarti or provolone.
• 1 serving a week of the following cheeses: parmesan, sharp cheddar cheese*.
  
• cider vinegar, white vinegar*
  

Spices:
Most spices are okay as long as they
don't have any illegals in them to make them "free flowing", usually
silicon dioxide is the culprit and it's almost never listed on the
ingredients list. Here is what I have tried (anything else should be
used with caution):

• homemade garlic powder (not store bought)
• fresh garlic
• basil
• parsley
• nutmeg
• all-spice
• cayenne
• paprika
• cinnamon
• sage
• cloves
• oregano
• homemade chili powder (not store bought)
• cumin
• tumeric
• salt
• pepper
• pure vanilla extract (no additives, just vanilla and alcohol)
• red pepper flakes*
• celery salt*
  

It's been over a week since I've posted, which might lead some of you to wonder "where the heck is she!?" Well, despite not having a job, or any other regular commitments, I've been keeping myself quite busy.

First, and least important, is that I have been playing more World of Warcraft lately. I think this satisfies some innate need I have to be short term goal oriented. At this time in my life the only goals I have are the ones I set myself, and that's kind of a big list of large items. WoW gives me small daily goals to achieve and gives me a sense of accomplishment on a daily basis.

A more long term goal I have been working on (and the reason for the attached picture) is learning C++. C++ is the computer programming language that was used at the game companies I've worked at. In the last 7 years or so I've picked up tid-bits about programming and scripting languages here and there, and even edited a few programs. In the grand scheme of things that's so little experience with programming, I could never say I know such-and-such a language. So I thought while I'm unemployed I could learn C++ and get a better idea of what the teams I manage are actually doing. As a far distant dream, I'd love to be able to write a small game of my own, but that's much further down the line.

Last, and probably least, I've been tracking my daily walks with Sadie. They are getting longer and longer everyday. Hopefully I'll be in shape in time for our late June backpacking trip.

Drew and I took a short hike at Baylands today. It's my first hike of the year and the first since getting sick. It was mostly flat, only an overall elevation change of 28 feet. While we walked I was picking up rocks and putting them in my backpack -- I'm going to use them for irrigation in my garden pots -- so there was some physical challenge in it. It went pretty well.
The graph above is from a program I used to track our walk on my iPhone. You can see the full spectrum of data logged on the RunKeeper website. It's a pretty nice program, but there are a lot of programs for the iPhone that track your walking/running/hiking activities. I might try a few others out this summer too.

I'm pretty happy with where I am on the variety of foods I have. There are certain foods that I would love to work in because they are amazing, but if I had to eat only the foods I'm eating, they way that I'm eating them, right now for the rest of my life I think I could handle that. Except for one draw back.... Backpacking. In my mind, it's imperative that I be able to have dried fruits, dried meats, and nuts in order to have well rounded meals for backpacking.

What's really stopping me from having these things right now is the inflammation and damage in my ileum, partially due to the bacterial infection that I had in December and January. I had a suspicion that I was having too many things that were hard to digest because when I would eat too much nut flour in one day I noticed my belly getting noticeably fat. Food just wasn't being processed as quickly as it should. These last two weeks I've been eating much softer and easier foods to digest, cutting back on nut flour baked goodies and the like and have noticed a difference. But yesterday I was out of the house around lunch time and needed some food, I found a place that served me some steamed veggies, but they were hardly steamed and still very crunchy. I ate them anyway because I needed food and didn't have any. I had a really hard and painful night while my ileum tired to deal with digesting the almost raw veggies. This really sealed the deal for me that, yes, I need to eat soft foods.

This also really put in perspective for me that it's going to be hard to backpack this summer, even if I do get my strength back. I am planning a trip that will take place in one month, and I'm just not sure I'm going to be able to bring the foods I need. It's an exciting challenge that I hope I can work out by then. Expect lots of dehydrated recipes to be showing this blog over the summer while I experiment.

Before I got sick and went on SCD, the freshest produce you would likely find in my house was jarred garlic (hardly fresh!) I was very bad about cooking fresh, good food. Now, this pile of veggies on my kitchen table is just the veggies for this week! What a life change this has been. Sadly, I have to cook all of these veggies to mush before I can eat them, but after I heal I'll be able to eat fresh crisp veggies. That's not something I ever thought I would look forward to as much as do right now.

As for my health on SCD, it's still steadily going in the right direction! I have plenty of energy now, and am sleeping my usual 8 hours a night again. I'm still carrying around pain in my ileum, and don't often feel like going for a jog. But I am doing some pilates and walking the dog a lot more. I have to make sure not to over eat too much, since that causes unpleasant side effects, but I'm consistently getting a normal amount of food. I've held a steady 93.5 pounds every morning for almost two weeks (98-100 is my target weight). And, I've been able to successfully work some fruits and honey back into my diet. I really hope my future health updates keep getting more boring!