Happy Anniversary

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Today is my 1 year anniversary of being gluten-free.  It’s also the 1-year anniversary of this blog!

Day 1
1 Week
1 Month
6 Months

Things have improved a lot in the last year.  I have a new doctor who doesn’t treat me like a hypochondriac, I’m able to exercise and work again, I’m not sleeping 18 hours a day.  But I still don’t feel great.  I know that getting better is a process, and it takes time.  My doctor has been doing a lot for me, but I’m also looking for things I can do on my own.

That’s why I’ve decided to start eating meat again.

I became a vegetarian on Christmas day, 2005, though my mom would tell you I was born a vegetarian.  I’ve always hated meat.  As a kid, I would go to great lengths to avoid the meat on my plate.  I could tolerate chicken (but really, I think I just liked BBQ sauce) and turkey, but steak and fish grossed me out.  My parents told me I could stop eating meat when I did the research into what I needed to eat to be a healthy vegetarian.  Finally, in university, I decided it was time and I haven’t had meat since.

For the last year, I’ve been a gluten-free vegetarian.  It’s not so bad when I’m at home, but it’s hard to travel or eat at restaurants since most of the gluten-free options are meat based.  Lately I’ve been reading about the effect of soy on people with thyroid disorders.  Many doctors recommend thyroid patients cut soy out of their diets, and I actually had an ALCAT test tell me I’m intolerant to soy.  But while it’s hard being a gluten-free vegetarian, it’s even harder being a gluten-free soy-free vegetarian, so I haven’t stopped eating it.

I still believe that a vegetarian diet is fine for a normal, healthy person.  I am not a normal, healthy person.  If eating meat will help improve my situation, I’m going to try it.  Even if thinking about eating meat makes me make this face:

Tomorrow I’m headed to the UK for 12 days.  After that… meat time?  (That doesn’t sound right.)

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I did it!

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I finished my very first CN Tower Climb!

I “woke up” at 5am (I barely slept all night because I was excited), made a smoothie, and then headed down to the CN Tower.  It was dark, cold, and raining – not the best morning for wandering around outside looking for registration.

By the time I got to the registration line, it was 6am (registration was open from 6am-10am) and there was already quite a lineup:

Nevertheless, it went very smoothly and I was checked in and ready to go by 6:20am.  I walked back to the CN Tower and had to go through multiple security checkpoints.  After about 10 people checked my wristband (why?!) and I got hassled about my FitBit (the security guys thought it was a security tag, like I was wearing stolen pants!), they stamped my time card and I was off!

The staircase is neat.  It’s wide enough for 2 people and there is a landing every 12 steps (big enough for 3-4 people to stop and rest).  There is also a caged area to the side that’s open all the way to the bottom, so it doesn’t feel claustrophobic at all.

Because the stairs are really boring to look at, they put up paintings from kids.  A lot of them had inspirational sayings or amusing and adorable phallic drawings of the CN Tower.  There was a paramedic about every 12 flights; most of them were doing sudoku or reading but a few of them said encouraging things as I went by.

I made the mistake of starting out running.  I don’t know why I did it; I made a point of telling myself NOT to go fast – to ignore other people and go slow and steady the whole way.  For some reason I just got really excited and decided to ignore my only rule.   Big surprise, by the 10th floor I was already really tired and had to slow down a lot to conserve my remaining energy.

I stopped about every 10 floors (and after ~80, every 5-8 floors).  When I was stopped on floor 100, a huge personal trainer guy wearing a t-shirt that said “I LOVE BURPEES” came by and said “THIS ISN’T TOUGH, IT’S A WAKE UP CALL!”  Then he made everyone who was resting on the landing fist bump him.  I could hear him yelling cheesy motivational things for a while and it made me laugh and gave me a bit of extra energy towards the end.  I could also hear a ton of footsteps below; it sounded like a stampede coming towards me and gave me a good push at the end.

The worst part was at the end – you think you’re done and they stamp your time card, but then you have to walk up another 10 or so flights of stairs!  Gaaaah!

After I exited the stairs (finally), there was a lineup of volunteers and spectators cheering, which was fun.  I walked around and noticed that there was a HUUUUUGE lineup for the West elevators and no one waiting for the East elevators.  I asked a volunteer if we were allowed to take the East elevators and he said yes, so I got in line with 2 other guys.  The 3 of us went down the elevator alone while everyone was waiting in line on the other side.

I ended up with a time of 35:43.

I was initially disappointed, because when I saw my time card I did some weird 7am math and thought I finished in just under 30 mins.  But I still beat my goal of “finish it”, so I’m happy enough.

I had fun!  I’d do it again.

Next time:
- I’ll aim for a better time.
- I would not go any later than 6am for registration.  By the time I got back to the registration area to pick up my t-shirt, it was about 7:20am and totally packed.  I liked that the stairs weren’t busy. 6am was a perfect time to go.

PS
Props to my boyfriend for getting out of bed at 5:30am to come to the CN Tower with me, holding my purse while I was climbing the stairs, and then buying me breakfast afterwards!

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CN Tower Climb

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Remember how I impulsively decided to do the CN Tower Climb?  Well, it’s tomorrow.

I was mostly training in my building, which is only 7 stories and I had to walk down in between.  It got boring after a while, so last week I decided to try my mom’s building, which is 25 stories.

By the time I got to the top, my throat and my chest were so sore I was having trouble breathing – and this was after taking multiple breaks.  I felt like I was going to throw up and my lungs were burning.  I was really disappointed.  I thought, “how could I be this out of shape?”  I had a talk with my mom and pretty much decided that I wouldn’t do the climb.  And then I avoided my blog because I didn’t want to admit I was going to back out.

Then… I started to cough.  And I kept coughing for about 2 days.  Maybe I was just sick!  So last weekend, I tried again.  I did 70 flights (1120 steps), and while it wasn’t bad, I still wasn’t sure.

Then I realized that while the CN Tower Climb says it’s 144 flights of stairs, 1776 steps / 144 flights =  12 steps per flight.  My building and my mom’s building are an average of 16 steps per flight.  Since I’ve been counting flights and not steps, I’ve actually been closer to reaching my goal than I thought.

With that in mind, I headed over to my mom’s building on Tuesday for another try.  My goal was to go up 3 times – a total of 75 flights (1200 steps).  However, I felt so good that I ended up doing 5 rounds – 125 flights (2000 steps).  224 steps more than the CN Tower!

So I feel like I can do it.  I’m definitely going to need breaks, and I won’t be bragging about my time, but I’ll feel pretty satisfied just completing it.

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I’m the worst blogger ever.

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I haven’t updated since February, and it’s almost April!  Oops.

Here are some things that happened this month:

- I became hypothyroid again, which came with some fun depression and fatigue.  My doctor adjusted my medication accordingly.  Right after this happened, Miss Lizzy blogged about the “seasonal thyroid drop” – apparently needing to increase your thyroid meds is common this time of year.  I feel much better now that I’ve added an additional 30mg/day.

- I have been working a lot, which goes against my “take it easy” plan, but I’ve been doing very well.

- I started kickboxing last week with a friend.  Terrifying.  I’m going to continue, but I need to buy my own gloves.  I smelled the smell of the shared class boxing gloves and I will never look at life the same way.

- I started planting!  I’m doing much more research this year, so I won’t be quite so terrible at gardening. I did go a little crazy at Urban Harvest.  Here’s what I have planned:

  • Cherry Tomatoes (Black, Chadwick, Gold Nugget)
  • Roma Tomatoes
  • Beans (Tendergreen, Royalty Purple – THEY’RE PURPLE! PURPLE BEANS!!!)
  • Cucumber (Homemade Pickles, Lemon – it looks like a lemon but tastes like a cucumber!!!)
  • Hot Peppers (Chinese 5 Colour, which I literally only bought because they looked cool and the description said “rare” and I’m a sucker)
  • A bunch of greens, including kale, spinach, and some lettuces
I ALSO bought a bunch of lavender plants from Richters, to see what I can keep alive.
I should have started planting seeds earlier, but here’s what I’ve got so far.  I even bought a lamp (TERTIAL from IKEA, with an OttLite plant bulb).

I hope things turn out this year.

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I Might Be Insane

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I just committed to walking up 1,776 steps in April.  That’s 144 flights of stairs.  Not only am I walking up 144 flights of stairs, I’m doing it at 6 o’freaking clock on a Saturday morning.

This is for the WWF’s CN Tower Climb.  If you feel like sponsoring this insanity, you can visit my sponsor page.

“WHY”, you ask?  Yesterday evening, I was supposed to go to Muay Thai kickboxing for the first time with a friend, but she was sick.  I was terrified to go alone, so I decided to check out the new 7pm Intro to Pilates class at my yoga studio.  When I arrived, I was told that the class required pre-registration and had been cancelled due to lack of interest (likely because their website mentioned nothing about pre-registration).  I decided I would go to the gym in my building and run on the treadmill, but all of the treadmills were taken and had at least 30+ minutes left on the timer.  Feeling frustrated and a little depressed, I went home.  As I was walking up the stairs, I impulsively skipped my floor and walked up to the top of the building (7 floors).  I went back down and did it again, 4 more times, for a total of 35 flights of stairs.

Stairs are freaking hard.  My friend Susan has been writing about her amazing stairs progress on the Thousand Steps Beach in California, so as I was trying to catch my breath after my 35th flight of stairs and thinking about sliding back down to my apartment on my butt because my legs were so shaky, I started wondering if there was a cool place in Toronto where I could go to walk up stairs.  You know, for fun.  Because feeling my legs get all wobbly and my calves get all crampy is what I consider a jolly good time.

I started googling, and found the CN Tower Climb.  The CN Tower is 1,815.4 ft high, and has 1,776 steps (or 144 flights of stairs) to the top.  ”I just did 35 flights of stairs and I only almost died,” I thought.  CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.  Now I have to do it; they have my 25 bucks, I’ve blogged about it, there’s no going back now!

Overall, I’ve been doing really well.  I’m on Week 6 of my Fitbit training plan (which is basically just, “do more stuff”).  In fact, I’ve been killing it:

Here’s my chart from last week:

Wait, what?

ENHANCE!

If you recall, when I started out, just 6 weeks ago, I was in the 14.7th percentile.  It told me I was sedentary.  Now I’m considered active, and only 5% of female FitBit users in my age group are more active than me.

Considering that just 2 months ago, I couldn’t stay awake for an entire day, I needed naps every time I got off the couch to do something, and I was irritable and depressed and unmotivated, I feel pretty amazing.

Amazing enough to walk up 144 flights of stairs?  I guess we’ll see.

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Busy Bee

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Let me tell you internet, my life has kind of exploded in the last few weeks.  In a good way.

I started working again a few weeks ago, for the first time since last June.  (I’m a photographer.)  I was only going to do one assignment, and then another one came up, and another one, and another one.  I also acquired my new studio on February 1st, and decided to have a workshop this past Saturday with 11 other photographers, 3 models, and 2 makeup artists.  So I was very busy organizing that nonsense, and I have been recovering ever since!

Health-wise, I am still continuing to feel better every day.  I’ve been increasing my activity levels every week.  I do need more naps than when I was sitting around doing nothing, but only on my Ease into 5K running days (just finishing week 2!), or on days where I’m working on my feet all day.  However, I can get through a workout or a work day with minimal problems (as long as I keep to my routine and eat regularly), and that’s pretty awesome.

I made a yummy smoothie this morning with some frozen açaí pulp I found at Whole Foods.

Valentine’s Day Açaí Smoothie

1/2 cup apple juice (not from concentrate)
3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/2 banana
1 package Sambazon frozen açaí

Blend!

I wanted to do some Valentine’s Day baking, but I’ve been too busy.  Excuses, excuses.  One day this will be one of those blogs where I post the amazing things I bake all the time.

We don’t usually do anything on Valentine’s Day, but tonight we’re going to my favourite restaurant to eat pizza.  I hope everyone has had an awesome day, and:

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Sorry

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I’m sorry if you came to my website in the last few days and saw a malware warning.  All of my websites were hacked, but everything has been cleaned up, passwords have been changed, etc.

During this adventure, I have discovered that two of the top 10 search terms people use to find my website are “today I’m sad” and… drumroll… “vanilla ice penis“.   I… what?  I don’t think I’ve even said the word “penis” on this blog before.  Until now!  Vanilla ice penis searchers, welcome!  I hope you find what you’re looking for!

For the sad people, I offer this:

 

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“You’re Too Young”

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Someone posted in a local community asking for a referral to a doctor who could treat adrenal exhaustion.  I recommended mine.  The poster replied to thank me, telling me that other doctors have ignored her and let her continue being sick because she’s “too young” to have issues.

This makes me so angry I want to smash my keyboard into a million pieces.

I’ve heard the same thing many times from medical professionals.  It infuriates me to think about how much of people’s lives are wasted being sick solely because no one will listen.

I started having chronic pain when I was about 18-19 years old.  I didn’t have the surgery I needed until I was 22.  In fact, the very first thing I heard when I woke up after the procedure was from a nurse who was reading my chart:  ”honey, you’re too young to have had this kind of surgery!”

The only reason I was able to have the surgery at all was because I kept arguing, researching, and seeing new doctors until I found the amazing man who actually listened and treated me like a human being.  He was the 10th doctor on my journey, including an expensive trip to the Mayo Clinic, where one of the best doctors in the world told me I was in pain because I’d been sexually abused and forgot (because “I’ve never been sexually abused” didn’t fit the diagnosis, you see).  I’ll post this whole story one day.

This was all before my thyroid issues.  This time it only took 4 doctors to find one who would help me.

How can our medical system be like this?  How is it acceptable for a doctor to turn away a sick girl with documented symptoms and irregular blood tests, because she’s “too young” to have symptoms?  And why does this happen so often?  Why are so many doctors okay with their patients being sick?

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Health Update + FitBit

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I thought this would be a good time to post a health update.  I’ve been seeing my new awesome doctor since October.  He has me taking so many things, it’s hard to keep track.  But they’re working!  Here are some of the things that have helped me with my thyroid and adrenal issues:

  • Multivitamin – People with thyroid disease often have trouble absorbing vitamins, so it’s hard to get everything you need from diet alone.
  • Fish oil supplement - My doctor really advocates fish oil, especially for women.  I’m a vegetarian, so I avoided this for a while, but I decided my health is more important.
  • Advanced B-complex - This is another thing he strongly advocates for women who are taking birth control.
  • Magnesium - This made my heart palpitations go away!
  • Vitamin D3 - 3000 IUs before bed and I have had no seasonal depression this year!
  • Seriphos – My adrenal tests showed that while I produce the correct amount of cortisol during the day on average, my cortisol is way too high at night (making it hard to fall asleep), and way too low in the morning (making it hard to get out of bed).  This is supposed to “reset” that.  So far, it seems to be working – I’ve been getting up earlier and taking less time to fall asleep.
  • Pregnenolone – A steroid hormone that is the precursor to many other hormones in your body.  My hormone levels are all out of whack, and this has really helped with my energy levels.
  • DHEA – This hormone is produced by your adrenal glands.  My levels were very, very low.  I was scared to take this after reading other people’s experiences, because “hair loss” seems to be a recurring theme.  Luckily, that hasn’t been the case for me, and I felt better almost immediately after taking it.
  • Progesterone Cream – This has nothing to do with thyroid/adrenal issues, but my doctor met a gynecologist at a seminar who said she prescribes it to all of her patients who are taking birth control.  I agreed to try it out, and magically it has made ALL of my PMS symptoms go away.

COOL LIST, RIGHT?

This is how I’ve been feeling over the past few weeks:

  • I can stay awake for an entire day without needing a nap!
  • I can even exercise a little!
  • My fingernails aren’t breaking like they’re made of paper!
  • My hair is shiny and is actually growing!
  • My moods aren’t going up and down like a crazy vomit inducing roller coaster!
  • I have been able to work, pretty much for the first time in 6 months!

I’m really happy that I’m starting to feel almost like a normal human being again.  The main thing I want to focus on right now is fitness.  I need to gradually increase my activity level.

Dan got me a Fitbit for Christmas, which is a little device that you clip to your pocket (or your bra).

It’s basically a fancy pedometer that you also wear while sleeping, so it can tell you what a terrible night’s sleep you had.

This was the night my favourite neighbour decided to start practicing guitar below my bedroom window at 3:30am.

It gives you a picture of how active you are throughout the day.  For instance, this was yesterday:

I upgraded my account and activated the “Fitbit Trainer”.  It told me I’m sedentary and that I’m in the 14.7th percentile, meaning that 85.3% of FitBit users are more active than me. Way to make me feel like a lazy asshole!

It then recommended a goal for the number of calories I need to burn per week.  It slowly increases every week until April, where I will officially be considered “lightly active” instead of “sedentary”.

I’m a huge dork for charts and graphs, and this has actually helped me in two ways:  as motivation to increase my activity levels, and as a reminder not to do too much.  I might be feeling a lot better, but when I overdo it, it takes a long time to recover.  I have been totally kicking my chart’s ass this week:

Except today. But it's only 4:30pm.

On Monday, I walked on the treadmill for 25 minutes.  Tuesday, I walked to and from the optometrist’s office.  Wednesday, yoga.  Yesterday, 90 minutes of beginner’s tennis lessons.

I plan on starting the Couch to 5k program soon, in an effort to be able to play soccer when the season rolls around.  Last year, I missed most of the season because of fatigue, heart palpitations, irregular heartbeat, dizziness, and all sorts of other fun hypothyroid symptoms.

Other things I’d like to try this year:  hiking, completing the Ride for Heart again, possibly registering for my first race since high school.

I’m feeling really positive about 2012!

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Donuts 2.0

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Everyone likes my Gluten-Free Baked Sprinkle Donuts, especially my gluten-eating friends (who once requested that I bake them while drunk at a party, which I did, and they were glorious).

However, I feel like since I stopped eating gluten, I’ve been relying too heavily on Silvana‘s All-Purpose Flour mix from Cooking for Isaiah.  It’s an awesome mix, but I’ve been really wanting to experiment with different flours, and to try ones that are higher in protein and fiber than rice flour.

Especially since I have accumulated a ridiculous amount of flours:

Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Baked Donuts
Yield: 10 donuts

1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour/starch
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 cup golden cane sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup original almond milk (or other milk substitute)
1 egg
4 Tbsp Earth Balance soy-free buttery spread
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

  1. Preheat oven to 350F.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together flours, xanthan gum, sugar, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
  3. In a small saucepan on low heat, whisk together almond milk, egg, Earth Balance, vinegar, and vanilla. Mix until it is well blended and feels warm to the touch (do not overheat).
  4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix just until combined.
  5. Put the batter into donut pans.  (I use my finger; some people prefer to pipe the batter into the pans.)
  6. Bake for about 12-15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out dry and just before the donuts start browning.
  7. Cool and decorate!

Topping

1/2 cup icing sugar
2 Tbsp almond milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Shredded coconut

  1. Mix icing sugar, milk, and vanilla extract into a paste.  Dip donuts in glaze.  Cover with coconut.
I also made some with red sugar, which was a terrible idea because the sugar just melted and now I think the donuts are too sweet.  But oh well.

I was really happy with how the donuts turned out.  They are very moist and delicious!  I definitely want to start using coconut flour in more things.

 

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