Wow.  I had my appointment with the Naturopath today.  It took an hour and a half and I’m overwhelmed.  I don’t even know where to start.

I guess I’ll start with my blood work and what’s not normal.  I don’t feel comfortable sharing the numbers but I will share what is either high or low.Are you ready for this?

Blood Test Results:

Glucose, Serum=Low
Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN)=Low-evidence of malabsorption in digestive tract
Creatinine, Serum=Little Low
Calcium, Serum=Low
Phosphorus, Serum=Low
Protein, Total, Serum=Low
Albumin, Serum=Low
Globulin, Total=High
A/G Ratio=Low (evidence of anemia)
GGT=Low
Total Cholesterol=Low (I didn’t even know that was possible)
Triglycerides=Extremely Low
Thyroid, TSH=Slightly High
Thyroxine (T4)=Low
Triiodothyrine (T3)=Low
Vitamin D, 25-Hydroxy=Extremely Low
White Blood Cells=Low
Hemoglobin=Low
Hematocrit=Low
MCV=High
MCH=High
RDW=High
Neutrophils=Low
Lymphs=High
Monocytes=High
Neutrophils (Absolute)=Low

Diagnosis:

So yeah, there’s a reason I’m not feeling well.  She thinks that I’m having malabsorption issues-meaning I’m not getting the nutrients from my food.  The low protein is really evidence of this since I’m eating more than enough protein.  There are also issues with my thyroid, glucose, and issues with vitamin B and vitamin D deficiencies.  I have anemia but not in the way that you usually think of anemia, my iron is fine but my hemoglobin isn’t.   

She mentioned the possibility of Hashimoto’s Disease, which is a type of hypothyroidism that I’m almost 100% positive that my Mom has.  She also thinks that I may have a parasite.  I’m taking samples (oh JOY) for the parasite and this test will also tell us if I do in fact have an allergy to milk, gluten, soy, or eggs. 

It’s alot to take in.  The good news?  There are things that can be done to help.

Treatment:

-Diet-GLUTEN-FREE (sad face) Anti-Inflammatory Diet. 

• No restriction on the amount of food I can eat but I should try to compose my meals of 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% healthy fats.
• Vegetables need to be steamed (except lettuce) and NO tomatoes (sad face) or potatoes.  Artichokes, parsnips, green peas, squash, carrot, and yam should be eaten on a limited basis since they are high in carbohydrates.  I should eat something green everyday.
• Grains:eat 1-2 cups of cooked grains per day (excluding gluten and corn)
• Legumes: eat a variety of legumes but make sure to soak them for 48-72 hours, changing the water frequently
• Fish:deep-sea ocean fish are okay (no farmed). NO SHELLFISH.
• Poultry:free-range organic and do not eat the skin.
• Red Meat: 100% free-range, grass-fed including lamb, buffalo, venison, elk, and beef
• NO PORK 🙁
• Fruit:1-2 servings per day and try to eat them steamed or baked. Limit apples, blueberries, cherries, grapes, mango, pear, pineapple, pomegranate, bananas, figs, and prunes as they are high in carbohydrates.
• Sweeteners: Use maple syrup, rice syrup, barley syrup, raw honey or stevia-ONLY with meals.  Absolutely no sugar, NutraSweet, AGAVE NECTAR, or other chemical sweetener is allowed.
• Seeds and Nuts: Grind flax, pumpkin, sesame, or sunflower seeds to add to food (more on this later).  Nut and seed butter such as almond, brazil, cashew, sesame, etc is good.  NO PEANUT BUTTER (it’s not actually a nut rather a legume)
• Oil: Use butter mixed with extra virgin olive oil, just extra virgin olive oil, or coconut oil.
• Spices: whatever floats my boat
• Nut milks: use sparingly and only on cooked grains or in cooking.
• Foods to avoid: all animal milks, all animal cheeses, all corn products, commercial eggs (organic okay), potatoes-red or white, tomatoes, citrus fruits, all fruit juices, all dried fruits, peanuts/peanut butter, any processed foods, fried foods, pork, caffeine, alcohol, GLUTEN.

In addition to the food, there are supplements and things.

-Add 1-2 tsp of organic apple cider vinegar to 6-8 ounces of water and drink 15-30 minutes before meals to help with absorption. Minimum 2x/day

-Add 2 TBSP fresh ground organic flax to meals 1x/day, Day1-Day 14 of cycle

-1 TBSP EFA liquid (fish oil), 1x/day, Day1-Day14 of cycle

-2 TBSP fresh ground organic sesame or sunflower seeds 1x/day, Day 15-Menses

-3 capsules of Evening Primrose Oil 1x/day, Day 15-Menses

-Probiotics (she recommends HMF Superpowder), 1/2 tsp, 2x/day taken with meals.

-Take 1 TBSP liquid B 1x/day in the morning.

-Take 1/2 sachet of Magnelvures each in the morning and evening (1 sachet per day)

-Take 3 capsules of Biotone EFAs at bedtime.

-Take 5000 IU/Day of liquid Vitamin D3 everyday.

-Drink at least 80 ounces of filtered or spring water everyday.

Now we move onto things that don’t have to do with eating or ingesting.

-Hydrotherapy:End my shower with a cool water spray, starting with my extremities and finishing with the low back.

-Dry Skin Brushing-using a natural loofah, before bed, thoroughly brus all of my skin, using short, very light, frequent strokes towards my heart for 45-60 seconds.

-Castor Oil Packs-Soak flannel with castor oil and place on my belly, covered with a towel, and then a hot water bottle or heating pad for 30 minutes.  Relax and do something enjoyable. (She said to try and do this at least 4 days in a row but every night is preferred)

-Deep Breathing-take at least 100 deep breaths per day.  This can be done in conjunction with the castor oil packs.  Breathe out for twice as long as you breathe in.

-Sleep-try to go to bed and wake up at the same time everyday. Sleep at least 7 hours and the hours BEFORE midnight are more beneficial.

-Movement-try to exercise/move everyday.

-Go outside for at least 30 minutes everyday.

-Play and laugh EVERYDAY.

-Take my temperature at noon before I eat 10 times over the next month.  Low body temperatures (which I have) have been associated with several conditions including weakened immune systems and poor digestion!

-LASTLY, Warming Sock Treatments. Soak my feet for 5-10 minutes in hot water. Next take a pair of cotton socks and get them wet with cold water, then place the cold wet socks on my feet and cover with thick wool socks, go to bed.

And that’s it.  WOW.

If you stuck in it this long I applaud you!!!

I can’t start with the supplements until after my stool test is done (Sunday).  Everything else should start pretty immediately.

Overwhelming, huh?

I’ve been fighting a head cold since Monday.  Unfortunately, it caught up with me today.  I feel so icky that I don’t even want to be on the computer-that’s saying A LOT!

After I dropped Lu off at daycare, I got a Jamba Juice (used up the last of my gift card) and coupled it with some wheat toast.

I’ve been watching the Olympics and NBC this morning and Hoda and Kathy Lee are on now.  Oh my-Saturday Night Live ISN’T exaggerating!!!!  I think the real thing is more uncomfortable and funny than SNL.

With that, I’m signing off.

Tonight I made my Dad’s award winning chili.  I’ve even won an award with it!

Unfortunately, I can’t share the secret recipe…

It’s picture day at Lucy’s school today and I didn’t even know!  Good thing she always looks cute!  She did have quite the carrot, kale, apple, and lemon juice mustache.  I had wiped her face but not to picture taking quality.  No worries, I cleaned her up before the pictures.

Speaking of juice:

Both times I had juice last week it made me nauseous.  Not this week.  This was delish!  Lu LOVED it too.  I never thought a 17 month old would like kale juice but I was wrong.

I stopped at Jamba and got a cranberry cherry pecan oatmeal for $1.09 (with my giftcard!).  Next week is the LAST week of $1 oatmeal on Wednesdays 🙁

(um, my camera is a little too good…look at all those wrinkles on my hand!  ACK!)

When I got to work I was a foaming machine.  I made my best foam yet and had too much foam for my cup.  I saved it though and have been adding it in as I drink my tea latte.  Even though I drink decaf, I SWEAR this wakes me up.

You can see the little whole in the foam where I added some of the extra.

Extra foam.

I heard back from the GI doctor and my blood test for Celiac Disease came back negative.  That’s good news!  I have an appointment with the Naturopath tomorrow where we’ll go over my blood tests and formulate a plan to hopefully get me feeling better.  I’m very excited!

I had a hard time returning from vacation today.  It felt like I had been gone from work for much longer than just 2 days.  I guess that’s good and bad-it means I had a good vacation but it also means that today was kind of difficult.

I forgot to photograph much of my food today too-opps!

The first thing I forgot was some yogurt with my Mom’s granola for my morning snack.  It basically looked just like this:

For lunch I had some lentil soup (from Trader Joes) with garlic naan also from TJs.

For my afternoon snack I had half a pear and 2 Ryvita crackers.  You didn’t miss much by me not photographing those 😉

I went to Whole Foods on my way home to do the shopping for this week.  I got out there for $88.21!!!  I usually spend $100 or more on groceries so this was huge.  In fact everything I bought (veggies, fruits, meats, canned goods, etc) was local except my bananas and my Larabars.  I even got local avocados!!!

When I got home I made veggies with pancetta over pasta.  I also got some beautiful salmon on sale that I broiled.

My favorite ingredient as of late?

Organic frozen veggies.  I use these all the time to boost veggies in Lucy’s meals and I’ve started to use them in our meals.  It make dinner faster and they are delicious!

Look at my beautius salmon!

I just covered it in lemon juice and salt and pepper and then baked in the oven for 10 minutes at 400*.  It was cooked perfectly.  Mr. Picky even said so 😉

The final product?

It was seriously delicious.  I added some sunflower seeds.  I thought they were pine nuts and when I put them on top, they turned out to be sunflower seeds.  It still tasted good :)  The pancetta (not surprisingly) was the star.  Shaun and I both gave it a 3. 

All I really did was cut up 2 pieces of pancetta and throw it in a pan with 3 cloves of garlic chopped.  Once the pancetta was browned I threw in some sliced mushrooms and some chicken broth and covered it for 3 minutes.  Then I added the frozen veggies and steamed them until just done.  I put it on top of pasta with some shredded asiago and nuts (pine nuts would be really good).  Dinner in about 15 minutes!

I walked into my office today to this:

My Mom got me that orchid in November for my birthday and it bloomed again!  I’ve never had an orchid re-bloom for me.  They always die-so this is exciting!

My table at home also has these:

My sweet husband bought them for me.

Tulips, Orchids, and Peonies are my absolute favorite flowers.

Today’s eats thus far?

I’m so predictable 😉

In case you missed it, check out the adorable pictures from my weekend.

…tomorrow.  I am beat.  It’s hard traveling by yourself with a 16 (almost 17!) month old.  It was a blast though.  I have hundreds of pictures!  In the meantime, here’s some of my favorites!

Tonight we celebrated Chinese New Year at Oriental Express.  The food was so very good.  It’s $25 per person and they bring out 10 courses of yummy food.  Unfortunately there isn’t a menu online, nor was there one at our table so I have to guess at what I ate!

First we started with shark fin soup-which sounded really scary but was actually quite good.

Next, they brought out a “cold platter” that had 4 different offerings.  A seafood fruit salad, a pate, candied walnuts, and tongue spiced with Chinese five spice.  It was all delicious.

Next up was onion cake. I’m used to onion cake being hot, this was cold but still good.  I do prefer it hot.

The fourth course was Peking Duck which they prepared tableside.

I’m not a huge fan of duck, but this was truly yummy.

Fifth was a Portobello mushroom with crab and bok choy.

Sixth was spicy shrimp.  These were a little too fishy for me (shrimp usually is) but they were good.

The seventh course was the star.  It’s not much to look at but it was absolutely amazing.  Longevity Noodles.  I could have eaten the ENTIRE plate.

Up eighth was the prettiest dish of the night-Chicken with vegetables in a noodle basket.

The ninth course was sweet and sour fish-this was surprisingly yummy.

And last, but not least, chocolate cake and ice cream.  I didn’t get a very good picture because Lu attacked this.

Speaking of Lu.  She LOVED it.

There was a violinist who came around and the girls loved the music. 

I dressed Lu in her skinny jeans tonight (!) and they just didn’t look right with her tennis shoes.  Mimi insisted that we stop at the Boise Co-op to pick her up some shoes.  They were having a big sale on See Kai Run shoes.  She got the Samanthas.

Look at these pants!

It’s only 8 o’clock California time (9 Boise time) and I am BEAT.  Goodnight all!

We got into Boise at 11:45 and came straight to my sister’s house to lunch!  The two cousins had spaghetti.  So far, I’ve only gotten pictures of them eating, but that’s because they ate lunch and then Lu went down for a nap.  Once she gets up, the cuteness will abound.

In the meantime, here’s some lunch pictures.

Tessa says, “What Aunt Bug?”

Isn’t the birthday girl ADORABLE?

Lu got a big girl fork, she felt VERY special. (Look at her poor tired eyes)

Tessa decided to share with Cousin Lucy.

That’s all I’ve got so far.  Tonight we’re going out for Chinese New Year so that should be TONS of fun.  I can’t wait!

What do you think of the new design?  If the blog doesn’t look different to you, hit F5.  Now, what do you think?  My extremely talented friend Ann redesigned the blog for me.  Ann used to be the graphic designer for Shaun’s company but left to get her Masters at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.  When Shaun saw the redesign he said, “She’s @!#$-ing talented eh?”  I’d say so!  Thank you SO MUCH Ann!  Pssst…she’s available if you want help!

Now to the eats, right?

Lunch was a Chinese Chicken Salad from Grab ‘N Go at work.  I brought leftover shrimp and grits but I was craving a salad, so a salad it was!

At 3, I had a team meeting with Veuve Clicquot and port!  Plus there was an assortment of snacks and goodies.  I had some crackers with baba ganoush and a homemade persimmon cookie (dairy free) or two.  That’s my kind of meeting!  We were actually discussing stuff so I didn’t take any pictures.

Once home I had to pack.  Shaun has made me promise that I’ll never try to cook the day before leaving on a trip-because I get too stressed out.  I had planned to have leftovers but Shaun wanted to take his ladies out for an early Valentines Day dinner.  We went to a local Italian restaurant Pomaroma.  I ordered roasted chicken but they didn’t have it.  The only other thing on the menu (besides a salad) that didn’t have dairy was a burger.  A burger with pancetta and roasted peppers it was!

I took off the lettuce and onion.  I really don’t like lettuce on sandwiches or burgers-isn’t that strange?

Lu had sketti and meatballs:

And bread:

And Daddy got the stank face again today:

Lucy also brought us home a Valentine!

I love it.  Like alot.

Alrighty, it’s off to watch some Survivor (YAY!).  I won’t be on until late tomorrow since I’m traveling.  See you all tomorrow.