Omnomnomnivore

Oh, hi.

I know I haven’t posted in a while.  I’m sorry.  It’s not you, it’s me.

I’ve been busy, and my health has needed more tweaking, and I have been lazy about my diet and haven’t been making as many things from scratch.  I’ll try to do better!

Right now I just really wanted to share this recipe from Primally Inspired.  Even though St. Patrick’s Day was on Sunday, and it’s sort of irrelevant at this point.

I didn’t even bother taking a decent picture of it, so here is one from my iPhone with a terrible vintage filter:

I made this for dinner last night, because I had a huge carb-heavy lunch and I was too lazy to make a real dinner after pilates.  And it was awesome.  So:

Paleo-ish Shamrock Shake – Single Serving Edition

• 3/4 cup unsweetened Coconut Dream
• 1/2 avocado
• 1 1/2 Tbsp raw honey
• 1/2 cup ice cubes
• 1/2 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/3 tsp peppermint extract

Blend.

Notes:

The original recipe called for a can of coconut milk.  I didn’t want anything that heavy, so I used Coconut Dream.  Real coconut milk would be creamier.  I also toned down the peppermint extract because I thought it was too strong, but if you’re into that sort of thing then use 1/2 tsp.

I got in an internet discussion a few weeks ago about the alternative medicine joke:

Q. What do you call alternative medicine that works?

A. Medicine.

There seems to be a misconception that alternative medicine is everything from healing crystals to all-juice diets, and “real” medicine is stuff that works.  One person said, “if a treatment were proven, my doctor would do it.  If he doesn’t, then it’s bullshit.”

Unfortunately, I have learned that thyroid treatment is a perfect example of why it is a lot more complicated than that, and how there is a massive gray area between “proven” and “BS”.

I was reminded of that discussion after The Coalition for Better Thyroid Care posted a link to this article today, which addresses the problems a lot of thyroid patients face in their medical treatment.  Most notably:

“The lag between the discovery of more effective forms of treatment and their incorporation into routine patient care averages 17 years.”  

17 years.  Seventeen years for something that is “proven” to make its way into routine patient care.  That’s an entire human being who has gone through puberty and acquired a drivers’ license.

It took me five tries to find my current thyroid doctor, and his clinic is considered an “alternative” clinic.  This is because he does things like:

• more thorough testing, because he knows the TSH test is not a sole indicator of thyroid function, and that the TSH reference range is outdated;
• recommends patients try a gluten-free diet, as well as other dietary changes, strongly advocating the importance of gut health; and
• uses natural dessicated thyroid hormone and knows that there is no one-medication-fits-all solution for all his patients.

Nothing he does is unsupported by science, and he’s happy to point to medical studies and literature for his patients to read.  One could argue that other doctors are aware of the debates about thyroid treatment and have simply made an informed decision that there isn’t enough compelling evidence to support them.  However, that hasn’t been my personal experience.

From of the four doctors I saw before my current doctor, questions were met with “I haven’t heard about that” or worse, “it doesn’t matter what new research says, because this is the gold standard for thyroid treatment”.  I have relatives whose doctors have never heard of dessicated thyroid medication, which has been used successfully in thyroid treatment since 1891.

All four doctors used the “whatever it says on the lab results page is correct” treatment method (if the lab says your TSH is too high, increase Synthroid dosage, if the lab says your TSH is too low, decrease Synthroid dosage, and if the lab says your TSH is in the normal range, you’re fine and your symptoms are in your imagination).

So what does this mean for patients?

It’s our responsibility to advocate for our own health.  Read and research (not to be confused with looking at WebMD and self-diagnosing every ache and pain as cancer), and learn how to have a conversation with your doctor as an active participant in your health care, and not be told what’s right for you.  Respect your doctor’s expertise, but still understand that you know if something isn’t right, and dismissing it is not an option.  And if you need to?  Find a new doctor.

Hopefully, the things listed above will be the gold standard for thyroid treatment sooner than 2030.

I’m still Christmas-ing at my mom’s house.  The Christmas hasn’t stopped since December 23rd!  And neither has the eating.  It’s like a disease: if there is food in front of me, I will shove it into my face.  Unless it contains gluten.  Which worked pretty well while I was visiting family in Ottawa and couldn’t eat most of the cookies, but hasn’t worked so well at my mom’s house where there are 6+ tins of gluten-free goodies sitting in front of me at all times.  It’s amazing how bad sugar and carbs make me feel, and it’s equally amazing how I keep stuffing them in my cake hole anyway.  ’Tis the season!

I was trying to look back and see if I made any New Year’s resolutions this year, and I didn’t really, but I did achieve my one goal of eating my way to feeling healthy again.  Aside from this last week.  I’ve never enjoyed food as much in my whole life as I do now that I added meat back into my diet – and I haven’t felt this good in years.  I also lost 30lbs this year and am wearing a size 6.

So I suppose my New Year’s resolutions for 2013 are:

• Keep eating delicious awesome foods.
  • Improve on planning meals in advance and going to the grocery store, so I don’t let it get to 6pm before I try to figure out what to eat for dinner, find I have no food, and end up eating pizza for dinner.
  • Try out more recipes and new things.
  • Learn how to use the crock pot.
  • Try fish.
• Keep going to yoga and Pilates 5-6 times a week.
  • I’d like to work towards yoga teacher training this year.  I’m not sure I’m ready yet, but I want to start planning for it and deciding where to do it.
  • Learn how to do wheel, crane, and plow poses.
• Do some more cardio, like running.
• Do more outdoorsy activities, like hiking.
• Spend more time with family.
• Work hard.
• Get haircuts more often.  Just ’cause.

Cinnamon Swirl Breakfast Cake (Grain/Gluten/Dairy/Soy Free) from Real Sustenance

This is where I will keep track of recipes and things I want to try, and share them in case you do too.

Home-Brewed Kombucha from Balanced Bites

Homemade Peppermint Marshmallows from Brown Eyed Baker
(Or a paleo version.)

Cauliflower-Feta Fritters with Pomegranate from Smitten Kitchen
(With a gluten-free flour.)

Cranberry Rosemary Spritzers from shutterbean

Roasted Sweet Potato Risotto from How Sweet It Is

Well, I’m 0 for 2 with cookies this week.

Which is too bad, because I really wanted to make a post about paleo chocolate chip cookies.

It was my own stupid fault, because I’ve made these cookies many times with great success, but today I am hungover and when the timer beeped I just went “urghlhggglhnnnnnn,” until my boyfriend announced: “I smell burning.”

So I’m not going to post about my paleo chocolate chip cookies.  But I am going to link you to this really awesome chocolate chip cookie recipe from my friend Free.  She made a batch for me for my birthday, and they were glorious.

There’s nothing I enjoy more than spending a bunch of time and using a ton of expensive ingredients, only to end up with a shameful embarrassment of a food.  I have decided to post these failures more often, because if the internet can’t laugh at me, who will?

This past weekend, I was invited to a “cookie party” and decided to bake grain free gingerbread cookies.  The recipe? Paleo Gingerbread Cookies by Bill Staley and Hayley Mason from The Food Lovers Kitchen. If you haven’t seen their cookbook, Make it Paleo, you should check it out, because it’s a great book full of amazing photography.

These are their gingerbread cookies:

© The Food Lovers Kitchen

Cute, right?

My first mistake was probably using blackstrap molasses.  The batter was very dark and sticky, and it was almost impossible to cut out shapes.

Not chocolate.

I had to keep it in the fridge for much longer than the recipe said, but the batter was still warming up too fast when I rolled it out, so I could only get 1 or 2 hilariously deformed shapes out of it before it turned into the mush pictured above.

My boyfriend had the brilliant idea of covering the rolled out batter with ice packs, and only uncovering small parts at a time to cut shapes.  It worked very well, and I was able to get several disfigured men into the oven.

Then I burnt them.

I mean, seriously, what is this?

“SOMEBODY LOVE ME.”

One of my friends pointed out that this is basically the botched Ecce Homo painting of gingerbread cookies.  Although, it did taste like it probably would have tasted good if it weren’t burnt.  (That’s right, I ate it.)

In summary, let’s compare:

ORIGINAL.

MINE.

I’m basically Martha Stewart you guys.

As you may have noticed, I changed my blog name and domain! Formerly lifeiwant.com.

The old name was always meant to be temporary until I thought of something I actually liked, it just took me over a year to think of something.

This name came up several months ago when someone congratulated me on relinquishing my vegetarianism and becoming an omnivore, and I just replied “omnomnomnivore”, which I then realized was stupid but hilarious and perfectly fitting for my blog.  I found out later that it’s already the name of a Threadless t-shirt, but oh well.

Whoop-dee-doo.

A post on Stop the Thyroid Madness led me to this woman’s blog post about how well she feels taking natural thyroid hormone vs. levothyroxine (Synthroid).  I thought it might be a good time to review how I’ve been feeling.

When I started this blog, I was feeling pretty awful.  I had been taking Synthroid for about 8 months, and my doctor told me that my TSH was normal, so any symptoms I might be experiencing weren’t actually symptoms, they were psychological problems.  Here are a few of the biggest symptoms I was experiencing:

• Extreme fatigue (at its worst, I was sleeping about 18+ hours a day)
• Serious depression, mood swings, anxiety, and general crankiness
• Choking feeling / pressure and occasional pain in my neck
• All-over soreness like I did the hardest workout of my life the day before, and constantly aching joints
• Heart palpitations
• Inability to exercise (as soon as my heart rate went up, I would get dizzy and feel like I was going to pass out, or my hands would go numb)
• Inability to do my job (as a photographer, I didn’t have enough energy or strength to be on my feet for hours at a time, and I couldn’t book things in advance because I didn’t know how I would feel)
• Weakness, especially in the upper body
• Weight gain and a complete inability to lose weight no matter how hard I tried
• Getting a cold/flu every few weeks
• Daily headaches and frequent migraines
• Dry skin, hair, and nails; nails that break like they’re made of paper and a ton of hair loss

It took four doctors to find someone amazing, several months of playing around with my dose of Thyroid, cutting gluten 100% out of my life, and then following a primal diet, to finally get my list of symptoms down to this:

• Occasional fatigue or general “blah” feeling
• Occasional mild depression/irritability

Both of those things usually happen after I eat something I’m not supposed to eat (like grains or sugar).

There might be a few other little things, but overall I feel amazing, and I’m so grateful I finally found a solution.

Last year on my 27th birthday, I said: “I bet by next year I will be feeling the healthiest I’ve ever felt!”  And it was true.  High five, past self.

Last time I really posted, I talked a little bit about struggling with eating meat again, and my doctor recommending that I try a primal/paleo diet.  That was in July, almost 4 months ago.

I’m happy to report that I had the best summer in as long as I can remember.  Here are a few positive changes since I begrudgingly started eating meat again:

- I’ve lost about 20lbs since that post in July.  I’m now within my ideal weight range.  The best part is, it has been virtually effortless.  I can’t tell you how many things I’ve tried over the last 6 or 7 years that promised the weight would “just melt off,” and I was left despising food, hating myself, and feeling like a failure.  It feels good to eat whatever I want and lose weight.

- I have never enjoyed food as much as I do now.  I enforce a strict policy of never feeling guilty about anything I eat, and that has changed my entire perspective on food.  Food is not an enemy, it’s not my nemesis, it’s delicious and amazing and I’m going to enjoy every bite.  Food makes me happy.

- I have more energy in one day than the last several years put together.  Not only do I not need my daily 4 hour afternoon nap anymore, I virtually can’t nap even when I try.

- I’m happy and I feel healthy.  Most of my hypothyroidism symptoms are gone.  No more depression and mood swings (mostly).

- Last but not least, jeggings.  6 months ago, this word made me cringe and unleash a barrage of mockery.  Truth is, I was too self-conscious to wear tight clothes, and now I live in them because they’re the most comfortable pants in the world.  Where have you been all my life?

I recommend this to everyone, especially if you have been struggling with chronic health and mental health issues.  Give the 21-day challenge a try.