Week #2

Monday 5/16
Breakfast: Tuna, Cucumber Slices, Banana
Lunch: Salad with Bacon and vinegar/oil, Sweet Potato
Snack: 1 cup Beef Bone Broth
Dinner: Chicken Breast, Coconut Oil Roasted Beets, Sweet Potato
Dessert: 1/4 melon

Tuesday 5/17
Breakfast: Tuna, Cucumber Slices, 1/4 melon
Lunch: Salad with Bacon and vinegar/oil, Sweet Potato
Snack: 1 cup Beef Bone Broth
Dinner: Chicken Breast, Coconut Oil Roasted Beets, Sweet Potato
Dessert: 1/4 melon

Wednesday 5/18
Breakfast: Breakfast Soup
Lunch: Salad, Pork Chop, Sweet Potato
Snack: 1/4 melon
Dinner: Turkey burgers over lettuce with avocado, sweet potato, Coconut Oil Roasted Beets
Dessert: Mango-Lime Ice Cream

Thursday 5/19
Breakfast: Breakfast Soup
Lunch: Salad, Pork Chop, Sweet Potato
Snack: Zucchini Pasta with Bacon Pesto
Dinner: Turkey burgers over lettuce with avocado, sweet potato, Coconut Oil Roasted Beets
Dessert: Mango-Lime Ice Cream



Just a note about desserts - I'm a sugar addict.  I'm trying to recover from not only an illness, but also an addiction to the sugar brought on by the standard American diet.  I am using desserts as a way to keep my mind from wanting to cheat - if I limit my fruit intake throughout the day, I can indulge in something sweet at the end of the day.  Usually fruit, but sometimes something rather sweet - like ice cream :)

I had a rough bout of brain fog this weekend.  It kept me from being even half as productive as I'd hoped.  So... I still have to figure out the rest of the week.  These are the very symptoms of my autoimmune disease that I'm hoping to combat through my food.  This is what will keep me going.

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Highlights From the First Week

I've been following AIP for six days.  Tomorrow is day seven and I'm excited to embark on another week.  As I sit down and meal plan each Saturday for the upcoming week, it will be nice to also reflect on the past week.

Some highlights:
a) turning down Nutella cookies at work... because Nutella is probably the greatest thing ever invented.
b) Coconut Milk Green Tea Latte - still doing research on whether the coconut milk at Starbucks is sweetened, but even if it was, it was considerably less sweet than the soy I'm used to ordering.  Even if it wasn't compliant, it was a healthy change.
c) No fast food.  On Friday night, I was really hungry.  Like really, really hungry (I had taken my lunch to work that day, but hadn't had time to eat it).  There's a McDonalds around the corner from my home and I stop there at least once a week.  Not this week.  Not even once.  This is probably my most impressing feat of the week.
d) AIP delivery - I am now aware of a restaurant who will deliver AIP compliant meals.  Better Gourmet Kitchen has long been a favorite of ours, but we've always ordered cheese and breads and rice.  Our new order?  Bison burgers sans bun and tomato, on a bed of lettuce with added avocado, baked sweet potato fries and smoothies.  Delicious!
e) Liver - Eaic and I were out grocery shopping and banking when we needed lunch.  Eaic was craving gyros, so we went to his favorite place right now: Ciragan Palace.  Not much was AIP, but I could order pan fried calf liver (requested only oil for frying) and a Shepard's salad (without tomato).  Not bad.
f) Ox tail. Compliant bratwurst.  Bone broth.  All these things are going to be experienced in week 2.  I might also try my hand at some zucchini noodles.  We'll see.

For now, I'm menu planning for week two.  Then I'll do one more shopping run for tomorrow's batch cooking extravaganza.

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The Beginning

April 9th, 2016 - Mr. and Mrs. Collins

This seems like an appropriate place to start.

This is me and my husband, Eaic.  This picture represents so much to us.  It represents our union as one and our vows to each other.  It also represents both the beginning and an end to journeys - the beginning of wedded bliss (oh, but the sarcasm is here is silent as you are reading and not listening) and the end to 4 years of dating, 9 months of planning and 6 months of engagement.

So much of our life can be separated into little journeys.  I journeyed to work this morning.  I'm on a journey through graduate school right now.  We are on a journey as an interracial and biracial family which is indeed an interesting journey at times.  He is on a journey trying to become a corrections officer and a personal trainer and a physical therapist (he has many high goals and aspirations and watch out, world, for he is determined).  More recently, I began on a journey of life with autoimmune disorders.

On September 25th, 2015, Eaic didn't get down on one knee, but he did give me an engagement ring.  We announced to the world that we'd been planning our wedding.  Less than two weeks later, I almost died.  I was hospitalized in early October for multiple pulmonary embolisms.  Thankfully, the urgent care doctor knew exactly what to do and sent me to the ER and I was well cared for and introduced to a world of medical teams that would soon become my journey.

Following months of testing, I as diagnosed with antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (also known as APS).  In some other blog, I'll put into my own words what that means.  For now, just know it means that my body hates me.. or as some put it, it loves me too much and is overprotective to a fault.

There have been a lot of tears and a lot of anger.  There really hasn't been much hope.  And so... I'm trying to change that.



One month later - May 9th, 2016

This seems like an appropriate place to start a new journey.

When I was first diagnosed with APS, a dear friend added me to a Facebook support page regarding AIP.  I had no idea what this was and didn't even look at it except when the notifications alerted me that she'd posted there.  It was a strict diet and it seemed silly that people were eating paleo to combat blood diseases.  While I'm overweight (read: severely obese, but let's not admit that), this disease has nothing to do with my weight.  Several months ago, I was under the impression that eating correlates to weight and only that.  Forget the fact that I work in the world of nutrition.  Forget the fact that I know better.  But for me, my food intake should only be changed for weight purposes... and even then, if I go to the gym, I could still eat whatever I want.

Then the symptoms started to get worse.  I'll get into those at another time, but for now, it's enough to know that they got to a point that I knew I needed to do something.  With a wedding in the near future, though, I knew I couldn't take on one more stressful journey.  As that came to a close and as we adjusted to life as Mr. and Mrs., I set a goal date of May 1st for the transition to AIP.

Obviously that didn't happen and I'll discuss that at another time, but today... today it happened.
AIP is AutoImmune Protocol.  It's a very strict paleolithic diet which resets the body - detoxing it of all the crap we've stockpiled in it.  Then slowly, very slowly, foods are reintroduced to see what symptoms they trigger.  It's no dairy, no gluten, no sugar, no nightshades, no processed foods.  It's going to be really hard, but my hope is that it will be worth it.

And so, here we are.  Day 1.

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