After many months of extended online absense, I return. Here is the full story on why this Sunny Pup, who LOVES blogging and all-things-online, disappeared. It's long, so please bear with me and read it when you have a chance to get through the whole thing.
As you may have guessed from glacing at this blog, over the past five years I've been spending a lot of my spare time researching healthy diet in order to lose weight and gain energy. This need to educate myself arose out of a steady decline in energy -- so slow that I did not realize it was happening until I recognized that my normal state of being had been reduced to constant fatigue, weakness, and IBS. I lost strength and energy so slowly that I didn't realize it was happening. I thought I was being lazy and have been really hard on myself, but if I could get my weight and dietary health right (I thought), then I'd have the wherewithal to be more involved and get more done.
I thought right, but unfortunately the source of my problems constantly escaped me. As a result I have learned SO MUCH and tried so many different diets (none of them fads or dangerous - all based in research and alternative health) -- and sometimes I'd lose a significant amount of weight. Then, with no rhyme or reason, the diet would stop working and I'd gain it all back. My partner, The E.P., has been baffled for years - how could I be eating the same foods he was and yet be so much larger? And, especially over the last year, I grew weaker and weaker despite eating organic foods and exercising. It's a frustrating conundrum.
A couple months ago, just when I was becoming despondant in thinking that NOTHING would ever work and trying was pointless, Mom and I got an e-mail from one of my sisters. She wanted to let us know that she'd been diagnosed with celiac disease, and since it's hereditary, thought we should know.
Celiac disease is better known as gluten intolerance. Gluten is a protein found in wheat and wheat products (the protein that binds wheat together). When celiacs ingest gluten, it damages the microvilli in the intestines in such a way that nutrient absorption is severely impaired. Left undiagnosed, it can lead to a multitude of problems including (*=I have): thyroid issues, diabetes, miscarriages due to blighted ovum*, weakness*, fibromyalgia* (unexplained aches and pains), joint stiffness*, IBS*, an inability to gain weight, and an inability to lose weight*, among many others. Both weight maintenance issues are manifestations of malnutrition. Skinny celiacs eat and eat and eat and never gain. In my case, my body thinks I'm starving to death, and so every extra molecule I eat is stored as fat. No diet will work for an extended period of time if it contains any gluten -- which is pretty much every diet out there failed for me, no matter how organic or whole-grainy!!
Not everyone who has the gene gets celiac disease. Something must trigger it. It became obvious that my mom is a lifelong sufferer, never diagnosed. Looking back at her medical record now, we think she was 4 when it was triggered. Between ages 4 and 5 she didn't gain a pound and she spent much of her childhood in the hospital. She did not gain excessive weight until she came down with Hashimoto's disease, a form of hypothyroidism strongly linked to celiac disease. It's obvious to me now that the trigger for me was a course of strong antibiotics I took in 2002. At the time, it ravaged my gut, and I was limited to eating white rice and toast for 6 months on Doctor's orders. I had gotten pretty thin by then, but started gaining it back for no apparent reason.
I never felt that I fully recovered, but I had no idea how bad the damage was. Having a answer, finally, to what the hell's been happening to me, has been a truly freeing and hopeful experience! I've determined that as I slowly grew weaker and weaker, I redirected my available evergy to the two places I had to be functional: my work, and my family. For the last year and a half or so, work has had to come first, because money is a necessity. Thank God I am only working part time -- by 2008 I could no longer hold a full time job. I work, I come home and rest for the next time I work. The E.P. has had to take on more and more responsibility, and neither of us understood why this was happening. I felt awful for becoming withdrawn, but now I see that I simply did not have the energy to keep up with my friends and go out. Aside from the joy of getting a house, it's been a dark time for me.
Mom and I are doing more than going gluten-free, and so far, the results are amazing!!! We have been on a diet for intestinal health (the Specific Carbohydrate Diet) for the last 4 weeks (Mom for a couple weeks longer). We will be on this diet for at least a year, to give our digestive systems time to heal. The premise of the diet is to eliminate carbohydrates that have more than one sugar molecule in their molecular structure (i.e. all di- and poly-saccarides). We eat plenty of healthy carbs, but they come from honey, fruit, veggies, lentils, and nuts instead of grains, starch, lactose and sugar. A lot of chemicals are also eliminated due to their cellular structures. Monosaccharides can be directly digested by damaged systems, whereas other sugars connot be broken down by injured guts. This not only causes more damage but leads to bacterial overgrowth in the body, since bad bacteria feeds on sugar molecules that the body cannot.
I have done more during these last three weekends than I have in the last two months!!! My system is starting to right itself. Mom has already lost a fast 28 pounds. Both of us have a lot more energy, although there's a long road ahead. I feel like I've got my life back -- yet I still have to take it easy and make sure I don't accidentally burn out. But I'm still accomplishing far more than I have been, and I feel that I can start getting back on track with my friends and relationships!!!
And it also means I'll be able to start blogging regularly again. Woot! Blogosphere, How Sorely I Have Missed Thee!
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