Auntie Anne's, Pizza & Chocolate!

Based on the title of this post you may think that this weekend was a bust for my Paleo diet and for my Whole30... and - you'd be right!

Friday night when I got home from work I was, for some reason, food-needy. I wasn't particularly hungry but I was picking. I really didn't have anything in the house... I ended up eating half a box of raisins and half a bag of Enjoy Life Mini Chocolate chips. That was the sugar I was craving... but then I still had a "need" for something else. I really wanted pizza... but my experience with pizza in South Central PA has not be great. Really, when Pizza Hut is better pizza than most of the pizzerias in the area, you know you have a problem!

So I decided I'd head to the health food store instead of trying to sate my need. I somehow ended up talking myself out of the drive at rush hour (5pm) and went instead to WalMart! I got some sweet potatoes and cage free eggs and bananas. Big trip for WalMart, I know! But it also served as a car trip for my sweet doggie, Sadie. She loves to go in the car and since she was waiting in the car I didn't want to spend an hour in WalMart trying to see if they actually had anything healthy for me!

But... right at the end of the cash register was my next fail! Auntie Anne's Pretzels... I walked out of there with a cup of cinnamon sugar sticks and ate every one of them!

You'd think that I'd then be done with sabotaging myself... and you'd be wrong! On Saturday when I got up I intended things to be different for the day... but I still had that hankering for pizza. I hate having that need because of the aforementioned icky pizza in PA. If I'm going to go outside of my normal foods - the foods that are helping me to heal my body - then I want it to be damn good... not just good, but DAMN! good!

I was picking in the house all day - besides 4 eggs and pork sausage for breakfast, I had a whole avocado, I had a mango, I ate all 4 of the bananas I had bought between Friday night and Saturday afternoon (this is why I stopped buying bananas!), I had a turkey burger and I was even tempted to make a boxed mix of something that I happened to find in my cupboard just because it was sweet and I knew it would be satisfying... well, I believed it would be satisfying. Fortunately I was able to talk myself out of that nastiness! I should throw it away, but I hold on to it just in case I need to make something to take somewhere that non-Paleo folks will be eating. I did manage to make a cocoa pudding with coconut milk and raw cacao and a little honey... yup, fail on the sugar again!

I decided to take a drive - again to get away from the temptation of bad stuff and to take the dog for a drive! I went to a farm stand that I visit often... and I told the woman who runs it about my "need"... she suggested I just get a couple of slices - you see, I had shared my reasoning that if I order a pizza, I will eat the whole thing - if not for dinner the one night, but I would save it for the next day and a trespass on my diet is one thing for one day, but to carry it through to another day is just not acceptable! I contemplated a couple of slices... and I really didn't want Domino's or Pizza Hut! Ick! I contemplated Taco Bell as well! Boy do I love Taco Bell! But beans are so very very destructive to my skin. I just couldn't do that to myself. Tomatoes and dairy? Well, tomatoes I believe are a factor, not fully vetted. Dairy, I'm still checking this month... wheat... yeah, I believe so but not even proved like beans have been!

I did remember a pizzeria that I had seen tucked in and sort of hiding out of site in the next town over, Emigsville. Mamma's Pizza. Thank you Mamma's! I got 2 slices of pepperoni pizza and it was wonderful! They were HUGE slices and I probably could've gotten away with just one, but they were both excellent!

Now, you're probably thinking that I was so full after my pizza and satisified as well, that I couldn't want for more? Wrong. Later in the night, about 8:00pm or so, I got a hankering again... for something that I just couldn't pin my tastebuds on... so, the only thing I had that was healthy to make was coconut oil chocolate. So that's what I did... but I added brown rice syrup to it and so I failed on sugar again! I only had a taste of it before going to bed on Saturday night because I wanted it to harden a bit. I put it in the freezer so that I could just take a little every now and again - which is what I normally do with this treat... this morning, as soon as I got up I broke off a piece of that baby... and it was SO good! I ended up breaking it in half and eating a whole half of this chocolate! This was round the size of a salad plate! Now I feel sick. That was too much sweet and cacao and coconut oil!

Why is it that it takes me until I'm sick or stuffed or disgusted to break free of a frenzy? I don't know but I'm working on this. I am only human. I will not feel guilty nor hate myself for this failure. That only brings more stress which causes outbreak just as easily as if I had eaten a couple of bowls of bean soup!

What have I learned from this? The bottom line is that I am human. Food is tempting and there are times that I will be tempted and follow through. I cannot berate myself, or others, for liking the taste of certain foods. Our tastebuds and our upbringing have forged our wants and needs. It may take forever to change my eating 100% - and it still may not be perfect.

Now - let's see if a breakout is coming! I was already seeing a recurring lump in a highly private spot... and one under my left breast and at my underwear line - which, I have to say, was a determining factor with following through on my "needs"... if I had be free and clear, I would have had more determination to stay free of the foods that exacerbate this condition... knowing I had at least one BIG baby coming out and a couple of others as well... well, that sort of gave me license to break out of "good" eating habits... but, I'm my own boss... I can do what I want... I'm the one to pay the consequences and I'm the one to reap the benefits... I'm happy I had the pizza - it broke me out of the need to have pizza for a long time to come now!

Following the Whole30

Today starts day 7 of my Whole30. I believe you can get all the information you need from the website, but I love their book It Starts With Food. I've mentioned it before and I think it is worth a read even if, at the end, you don't think you can do it for 30 days (although, anyone can do anything for a set period of time).  Just think about it - if you set your mind to something for 30 days, how hard can it really be? If you say, "ugh, I have to do this forever", well, that's a whole other story. Forever is a long time and there's no end in sight... but when you say "this period of time" (whatever that is), you will know that there is an end in sight and the finish line is what you strive for... to make yourself a better, stronger person. That's how I do it. I take my 30 days as a challenge to make myself stronger. I know that I can give up certain things for a "short period" of time. Thirty days in the grand scheme of things... n o t h i n g! I've had this disease for 30 YEARS! I got this!

But, what I want to say here is I'm doing a happy dance! Truly. This morning I was shaving my legs... and girls, I know you know, shaving just past the knee, to about halfway up the thigh, is about all we can do. First of all, shaving over open sores is not a smart thing to do, but also, shaving over the scars and the pock marks and the "funny" skin isn't an easy task either...

I shaved all the way up to my underwear line!!

I won't say that just following the Whole30 did this for me, because I don't know. I've also been taking the CoQ10 every day as noted in a previous post and I've been massaging Alba Botanica Hawaiian Cocoa Butter Hand & Body Lotion onto the affected areas every night before bed. I've also been using African Black soap for 6 months, but that wouldn't have anything to do with this "success" right now... unless, of course, it is all related. One other thing that is different for these 7 days - although I've stated before that the nightshades test from last year didn't prove them to be complicit, I haven't had any nightshades. That's not by design - it has been completely by accident. My favorite spices are Mexican chili spices and I cook ahead. I have chicken thighs and legs that are already covered in Chili and Hot Mexican Chili and Frank's Hot Sauce and any other chili pepper spice that I might have in the house. My luck this week is that as I grab a frozen thigh or legs package from the freezer that the mix is upset and I've only been grabbing turmeric coated lunch"ables". The upcoming week probably won't be the same because I think I have more chili spiced chicken than turmeric spiced left in the freezer!

The take away from this is that how hard is it to change your eating habits for 30 days? This is not a blatant advertisement for the Whole30 folks - they will not make a penny if you are able to gather all the necessary information from their website. They will make some money if you buy the book, either in Kindle format or in hardcover, becaue they wrote it. If you can borrow it from your library, great for you! I bought it in Kindle format and I love it. I'm reading it for the second time right now. I just say this because I think it is a fantastic way to eliminate those things that could be causing issues for you and then learning how to slowly add those back into your diet so that you can be the judge as to how it affects your body.

If there is anyone that needs anything clarified about the Whole30, definitely ask, I'll do my best to help you. If you are working from the website only and you want to know the why behind some of it, again, I'll find it in the book for you if I can!

I hope week 2 of the Whole30 proves to be as wonderful for my skin as week 1 was!

Grass-fed Beef

I just got home from my first visit to my local beef farm.

I got to pet a 2 week old calf!

I also got to walk in the grassed pasture... and boy can cows poop! Land mines all over the place.

I was also followed by an emu and a dog and some cats and some chickens and a rooster! The emu was following me around in the pasture... stuck to me like glue! The cats and chickens were not in the pasture but they sure were hanging around outside! One of the two dogs did go in the pasture with us but he was just checking out the bulls and cows.

It was a nice place. The folks that live there were straight forward. Told me that they hadn't worked up a price for this year yet but because they give first preference to their customers from previous years I might be on a wait list. Understood.

It is nice to get to know the people who are raising your food. I wanted to make sure that the cows were happy, well-cared for, and had plenty of room to roam. All of this was a check in my book!

I now have to find someone local who wants to split a quarter with me. I really don't think, as a single person, that I can take a full quarter myself. Too much meat. I have some friends... even if I have to get 3 more of them involved because no one wants to split it halfsies... I'll get it done!

I'm so tired of paying $11.00 a pound for grass-fed steak from another country. Buy local, pay less. Do your homework and you'll get yourself involved with the right farm.

Now I just hope that beef is not a flare producer for me. Like I said in my last post, I've never considered meat as a probable cause so I've never paid attention to what meat I may have eaten when I do flare up. I eat mostly chicken... so you'd think that I could tell... but you'd be wrong. It could be anything... could be the spices I use on my chicken or on the steak... you never know... and that's what this whole journey is about.

Tomorrow I start a Whole30. I'm going the full Whole30 this time... no dairy! For me that means cutting out Greek yogurt and cream in coffee. That's okay. I cut out coffee a while ago and only recently started drinking it again (last week)... I'm fine with tea. Tea I can drink black... no sugar no cream. But the yogurt... well, that's where I get most of my fruit and flax. I normally get Fage 2% plain Greek yogurt, put honey and ground flax seed on it and then add fruit too. Yum! That's such a nice snack or breakfast on the go. I will not lament dairy. I will be strong and know that I am doing what I must do to rule dairy out so that I can continue to enjoy my Greek yogurt a few times a week!

I'm a week or so into the CoQ10 supplementation. No change in the HS at this point. A cluster on my left jawline did "deflate" a bit, but I've grown a new single, larger, breakout on my right jawline... so that's a draw. Most of my other areas are stage 1 to stage 2 right now... nothing huge... but that's not "better"... that's just everyday life with HS for me. Of course, I do have two that are new as of this weekend. They prevented me from going to a birthday party yesterday... I couldn't sit down... and they are still affecting me. I sometimes don't understand how the pain can be so excruciating!

What COULD be the culprit?

I found out this week that I still do not have an open mind when it comes to what could be the culprit for breakouts with HS. The answer, of course, is ANY thing.

Yep. Anything.

I was reading a blog post from someone I follow on Facebook and she mentioned that beef seems to lead to breakouts for her and she wanted to test with grass-fed to see if there was a difference.

BEEF? Really? I was dumbfounded. Seems I just have not put enough concentration into truly eliminating certain foods... getting myself to a control point and then adding them back in. But I don't think I would ever have eliminated a meat. My reasoning is that meats are not known Leaky Gut causative reactants. But the honest truth of the matter is that ANY food can be a disruption in your system... but more likely a food that is not a Leaky Gut reactant may just exacerbate an already poor digestive system and cause a breakout or the food you are eating could be marinated in something or dredged in something that IS known as a reactant.

Clean eating. Using a proven method to eliminate the most likely foods and then reintroduce those foods to your body while charting the results is the only way to know.

This method works for many illnesses and body conditions, not just Hidradenitis. If you're suffering from any ailment and you think (I know) that food could be the culprit and the cure, find the elimination program that you feel most comfortable with (I used Whole30) and ...

Let's get eating!