SUR

My mood runs parallel with what goes into my stomach. Actually, I'm pretty sure most moods do, but so many people don't pay such close attention to the connection between diet and wellbeing, let along diet and mood. Anyway, remember way back in February when I had that freakish stomach flu? Well, the doctors insisted that I go in for a colonoscopy (ew, ew, EW!) and pretty much wouldn't take no for an answer (I declined at first, and then was called back by the doctor with a pleading request for me to do the procedure.) So, yeah, I'm all scheduled to go in on Wednesday but I've been on an extremely restrictive diet this past week.

What I'm about to talk about is Class A under the list of first world problems, and I don't mean to sound like a whiney, spoiled foodie, because food is food...But seriously, I'm a bit miserable. Let me make it very clear that I do occasionally eat meat, and though fish and dairy regularly weave through my diet, but they really reside at the top of the food pyramid when it comes to my intake. I eat mostly plants; vegetables and fruits, and then nuts and seeds, followed by whole-grains and then that animal-product top-of-the-triangle (except for yogurt which falls pretty far down with the nuts and seeds.) I really try to avoid white flour, and refined grains and sugars, and satisfy my sweet tooth with fruits and honey. But this week has been gastronomically tortuous.

The foods I'm not allowed to eat follow:

whole grains

 whole grain bread

oats, müsli, etc. 

seeds and nuts

berries

grapes

plums

 kiwi

passionfruit

pineapple

mango

peppers

tomatoes

mushrooms  

asparagus 

lettuce

greens 

onions 

celery

cucumbers

zucchini

eggplant

corn

cabbage

Clearly nothing fibrous, seedy, stringy, woodsy, grainy, or at all to be found in the produce department.

etc, etc, etc, etc.....

So WHAT the heck can I eat?

eggs

meat

fish

yogurt

cheese

milk

butter

cottage cheese

white bread

white rice

pasta

bananas

potatoes without skins

olive oil

Things I'm not sure about but eating anyway:

avocado

cooked carrots

cooked beets

peeled apples 

oranges 

(probably, most definitely not allowed to eat those, but NOBODY will take my oranges away from me)

COME ON! I'm dying! My body feels so acidic from a week of vegetable neglect. I have no interest in eating this way anymore. I love yogurt but I'm getting so sick of it. I can't eat another plate of eggs for the life of me and something really funky is gonna start happening to my gut flora. I've been drinking vegetable juice, lemon water and base-balance tea to get a bit of alkalinity back into my life... but it's not enough. My mood is as sour as my stomach and I'm thinking of ditching food altogether and just fasting for the rest of the week. It's almost not worth the deprivation of certain things, I might as well just go all out. This will be quite hard with work though, especially since I need the energy when taking care of kids, so I don't know if I should do it. Fasting while working with kids who are always sick sounds like a terrible idea. I don't think my immune system could handle that at the moment. Not that my immune system is so fond of this acidic diet anyway, but at least there's enough energy being produced to keep my defenses somewhat up. My skin is probably going to freak out from all the dairy I've been eating, and clearly the hypochondriac in me gets unleashed when I can't eat the way I want to.

On top of it all, I'm not allowed to exercise for another week because of my tattoo so I'm going crazy. My body is so unhappy right now. I'm unhappy right now. The weather is totally blah and gray, but it's not even raining. Rain would be fine, because the plants need it, but it's only gray. I don't want to go outside or stay inside. Siiiiiiiigh I'm just sour....it's my stomach talking, not me. Well, actually my gut. Did you know that 95% of our serotonin is produced in the gut? Yup... there's plenty of tryptophan circulating around in my intestines, but probably no good bacteria to put it to use, and definitely no healthy complex carbohydrates to take it to where it needs to go. No, I don't feel like I'm producing much serotonin, and if I am, I have no access to it, because I'm just a grumpy, cranky sour bag of unhappy intestines right now...

Who knows, this weeks' weirdo diet is probably going to make me sicker than if they'd just let that stupid stomach flu go...