Pain update

 Woke up this morning with pain in my knuckles.  Has been a thing for a while now, but somehow I keep thinking that a few days of noninflammatory food will fix it.  It's not - yet. It's mostly the middle knuckles on both hands.  

Toe hurts today too - it hurt more yesterday than it did the day before. 

Movement at work is busy.  Up to 9 miles a day on my feet.  Although I didn't do much active production yesterday so I was thinking that maybe that would be a noticeable contributor.  

Food eaten:  Cobb salad and then dinner was grilled chicken parm.  

No wheat, no sugars (other than maybe in the sauce)

MRI day

 Today was my MRI on my toe.  

Also day 3 of good eating.  I treated myself to an Avocado Cobb salad from Salad Works for lunch.  Yep... living large!

Productivity was better.  Paid the lawyer a grand.  Got Joce an appointment with her therapist.

Still need dental appointments for all, including me.  And need to set up payment plan with Tower Health. Need to gather the medical bills and get an invoice to Brian for payment. 

Finally have to print the email from the pool accountant so the girls can get their checks from the summer.

So much to do, but so tired after work.

Hands hurting, but surely it’s from use.  Dad mentioned it could be Lyme disease.  Going to look into that a bit.  A blood test can give you a positive for that and for RA. 

I think that this will help me stay organized.  Get out what I need to get out and keep me on track.

I can do this.  WHat is this?  LOL. Who knows! Health i guess. 

Am I thin yet?

 So far so good.  It’s been 2 days.  I have been eating well.   Monday was shake and tilapia.  Tuesday was eggs with ham and peppers and a Subway salad.  Each night I allowed myself two sugar free Russell stover chocolates.  So far so good. 

It’s hard to tell if I have any changes in the pain level in the morning and with the joints.   Work has been hectic and I filled my circles both days quickly. 

Elimination of inflammatory foods... but first...

 Binge.

Ew... I feel so gross today.  I "had to" finish my beer, so we went all in.  I had almost 6 Mango Wheat's, plus pizza, mint oreo's, cheese balls and my favorite, Dutch Apple Pie with vanilla bean.

Regret.  Mostly just my stomach is pissed.  My joints feel no better, no worse.

Today's focus:  Shake, simple lunch, lots of water.  Nothing inflammatory.  Simple.

I got this. 

Lunches, new foods and wheat free cake

I am really stuck on lunches.  How many days can the kids eat a cheese stick, a gogurt, an apple and a bag of rice cakes?  Eh... its going on a week and I am SICK OF PACKING lunches, but also sick of packing the SAME things.  My goal today is to find lunches that can be packed for them to bring to school.  I wish they had a microwave at school.  It would make my job SO much easier.

Anyone have any suggestions?

In other news...

I am so impressed that my kids are trying new foods.  These kids have been known to be quite picky.  It's not that they are ALL picky, but they all need to like what I serve.  When I prepare a meal, I shoot for 2 things that they all will definitely eat. Then I usually add 2 other things that are healthy, and they have to "try".

So lately, it's been snap peas, avocado, quinoa, among others (yeah, I can't remember right now! LOL)

Yesterday was J's birthday, so we HAD to have cake, right?  I purchased a Betty Crocker gluten-free cake mix - for just under $5.00.  I made chocolate frosting and J got to icing the cake.

Reviews?  "This is so good!"  "I think this is better than normal cake."   The cake is GONE.  :)

So, I would tell you that there are good options out there for those times when you still need to have processed grains, ie birthday cake.

The same day that I purchased the cake mix, I also picked up a baking mix that was wheat-free.  I decided to make a pizza crust with it.  I rolled it thin and the kids enjoyed it.  I rolled it thick for my pizza (which was mushroom, spinach and mozz cheese with no sauce.  My thicker crust was 'eh' and I felt like I ate a brick.  So, that'll need a little more work to be a success.

I've gotta tell you, the most important thing is to have foods you like on hand ALL THE TIME.  If there isn't anything you like, you'll get mad, then potentially you'll eat the wrong thing.

So buy MANY containers of yogurt, bigger amounts of fresh fruit, hard boil a dozen eggs ahead of time.  Then, when you need something quick, you have it.

Some of the thing we keep on hand?


This is one of my FAV's!!!                 Eggs. Enough said.                Great for parfaits!


So, get out of the center isles of the grocery store and find fresh fruits and veggies, dairy items and meats and cheeses.   Your body will thank you.

A Picture of the Grocery Cart

The contents of my grocery cart have changed dramatically...  long gone are the boxes of pasta, cereal and dried grains.. no more breads stacked at the top (at least 6 loaves per visit to Redners). 

So, how do I feel about this?  How do I like living this way?  What are the challenges of living wheat free?  There's one BIG one.


CHALLENGE:  Convenience removed!   Seriously.



When you removed wheat from your diet, you remove convenience.  As a busy mom of 4 hungry kids, eating in a pinch was a must.  It STILL is.  But in order to meet this task, I need to:

        Have the right choices available.

        Be thinking of the meals of the day first thing in the morning (ie planning meals)

        See times where hungry can come up when out of the house and plan for it. 


Easier said that done?  Maybe...   So far, we have been able to remove pretty much all wheat from the house.  Every time I offer something with wheat, the kids ask "Isn't this wheat?"  and "I bet I'll be hungry in an hour!"  ha ha   They are totally getting it. 

I have used the crock pot a lot lately, something that I usually don't do.  I don't make mixed dishes (a McFaddenland no-no), but I do cook the meats in there.  It really does save me time to focus on the time in takes to slice and dice, and prepare the other parts of our meal. 

Mmmmm..... BEEF!!!!

 

 

 

CHICKEN BREASTS

Gone are the quick grilled cheese dinners, pancakes, pbj's, mac and cheese, spaghetti, etc.  Those things are QUICK, CHEAP and EASY.   But they are also NUTRITIONALLY DEFICIENT. 

The fact of the matter is this:  I feel SO good about this decision that despite the extra time it takes to prepare and plan I consider this effort ESSENTIAL.  So, when you look at it THAT way, you can't argue with it. 

If you are NOT eating wheat-free, it's because you aren't really ready for what you think it the "fight of your life, when it comes to feeding your children".  If you are NOT eating wheat-free, it's because you don't want to give up those "gifts of time" - the nutritionally deficient quick foods.  If you are NOT eating wheat-free, it's because you are worried that you won't find things that are good to eat that everyone will enjoy. 

So, what are we eating?  What the heck is a crazy busy mother of four feeding those little athletes? 

            



My trip to BJ's was totally different than past trips.  It was quicker too. 

Meats - purchased large quantities of turkey burgers, ground beef, ground chicken and one large pork.  I divided this when home into meal portions and put them in the freezer.  The pork loin was about 2 1/2 feet long!  I cut up pork chops and bagged those and cut two longer pieces for a pork roast.  The enormous pork was only $18.00.  Thanks to my neighbor Linda for giving me the idea. 

Fruits - Large containers of strawberries, blueberries, grapes and apples.

Veggies - 4 avocado's, carrots, organic spinach (in the big plastic box) (I had others at home)

Dairy - 2 gallons of milk, large box of Danimals smoothies for lunches, cheese sticks - 36.

Snacks - BJ's has an excellent selection of wheat free snacks that come in BIG bags!  We got veggie chips, Fritto's corn chips *yum*, popcorn, popcorn chips,  and a few other things that were great gluten free choices.  Plus, they are crunchy and tasty and not terribly fattening. 

Buying in bulk can be tricky, but you can do it.  Get the freezer bags that you like and portion lots of things.  Did you know liquid egg white cartons are FREEZER FRIENDLY?  I had no idea!  The bulk prices aren't always cheaper - you have to be an educated consumer.  Sometimes  you can get generic items cheaper at grocery stores... but when you remove wheat from your diet, you aren't really buying those things anymore.

Breakfast still remains my personal challenge... and it will be THE challenge next week when the waffles are finally gone.  Eggo, I'm gonna miss you.  You're convenient and painless... but you are loaded with flour and that's not good for my kiddos.  I bet you'll see a decline in sales, that's how many we bought.  LOL





 

One week in... J's Story

My middle daughter.. J.

This blog entry is dedicated to her.  She is one of the reasons why I took this challenge, why we are doing this experiment.

Let me see if I can explain her a little.  For my friends in Delco, it's easy... she's A LOT like me.  Full of energy, always getting involved with things, chatty, hyper, dancey.  But she's also sweet and caring and has a genuine concern for others.  She is extroverted and loves to be surrounded by a group of girls.

However, J has always been a bit moody (not unlike me).  Her moods can be very HIGH and very LOW.  As a toddler, she was difficult to discipline because she couldn't, she wouldn't just sit there in time out.  Even if I sat with her, she would argue why she was or wasn't doing something, she would tell me all about all kinds of things. She wouldn't just stop, relax, realize she was wrong, take the punishment, apologize and move on... or ANY of those things.  EVER.  You just couldn't rationalize with her and you still can't.

She is unlike me in many ways as well. She is incredibly artistic, has an amazing memory and can has had terrible balance over the years.  It took her a long time to do things that my other kids had mastered much earlier... like using a computer mouse (she was 3), forward rolls (she was 5), cartwheels (age 7).   I always worried about her health, from the time I got pregnant with her.  She's the runt, my smallest child and she always was just a little bit more frail, more feeble, more vulnerable to illness than the others.  Note: she was delivered at 39 weeks, 7lbs 4oz., so she was not premature or low birth weight.

**Linda - I am not comparing my kids - I swear!  I am just noting development differences!** :)

During her preschool and kindergarten years (half day), it became very clear to me that J couldn't make it from snack at school to lunch fast enough.  I would get her at noon and she was a BEAST until I got food into her.  Crying, inconsolable, miserable, snappy and rude.  I actually starting packing a snack (banana and granola bar) so she would stabilize for the one block walk home. yeah, I said that... ONE block.  She couldn't make it ONE block.

Sometimes, I would notice after certain meals that she would get hyper.  So hyper and silly that she was not like herself at all.  She was like someone who was high, kinda.  I thought maybe it was sugar high, like after eating enormous bowls of ice cream with tons of toppings and Ne Ne's and Pop Pop's house.

All the while, I wondered if she was just crazy, or if this was normal and my other kids were abnormal, or if she had a medical issue.  It's been brought up in conversations at the pediatrician for years, but we never did anything about it because I didn't want my little peanut to go through needles and blood work.

It became really obvious at a weekend trip to the Poconos, when we were doing a lot of physical stuff and eating later than normal.  Dinner time was insane.  She couldn't wait.. she cried and whined and it was really obvious that she was "difficult"... or was she?  Was this maybe just a big discipline problem the whole time?  Was I enabling her to act this way because I hadn't really punished her for it?    It was very obvious to our hosts that I was really really trying to be patient with her and that what we were doing wasn't easy on either of us.

So many questions... so much confusion.  But for the most part, she's a doll. She's funny and loving and smart.  She's an excellent student and she's just beautiful.

So how could this child be sometimes like Jekyll and sometimes like Hyde?  Was it blood sugar?  Could she be diabetic?  Hypoglycemic?  I started going to the symptom checker and saw some "maybes" for those things.  Finally decided to get her blood work done.  Fasting, pins and pokes, but she did okay and we came home and ate.

Test results??





NORMAL.  

 I am going to ask the doctor for the actual results so I can view them, but they are all in the normal range.

Part of me was relieved and part of me was bothered because I was hoping for an answer.  Not that I wished illness on my child, but it would have helped me with how to help her.

Soooooo.....

During the interview that was mentioned in the first blog post, they discussed the effects of wheat on children.  So... what happens if we remove wheat from J's food?



Uh.. You might be surprised by the answer....










It wouldn't be fair to just say it bluntly, would it??









Okay, okay.
It's working.

There, I said it.  It's working. There has been a noticeable difference in her.  At dinner the other night, the other kids remarked at how well she was doing.  The remarked that she wasn't so moody, so crazy, so manic.  They were like, "Good job, J!"


So, could removing wheat have leveled out my J-bird?


The USDA recommends 6 servings of grains or whole grains DAILY.




Grains: Bread, cereal, rice, tortillas, and pasta. Whole-grain products such as whole-wheat bread, oatmeal, and brown rice are recommended because they have more fiber and help you feel full.

Picture and information from this site:  http://kidshealth.org/kid/


http://www.fns.usda.gov/tn/Resources/howmuch.pdf   --- says 6 oz. per day.  So, that's equivalent to 6 slices of bread or 3 cups of cooked pasta.

That's really not that hard to remove.  Yes, it changes our traditional vision of meals.

I have noticed that she is looking for other choices... like fruit and yogurt and hard boiled eggs.  It's so cool to walk down in the morning and catch your kid eating a hard boiled egg. :)  She seems to have noticed a difference and she seems to like that she isn't feeling so manic.

So for now?  We keep on 'keepin' on'.   It's been, well... nice.  :)  Way to go my little J-bird!