Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Adieu, Starbucks

I'm back, with a new hard drive. Man, you never realize how many preferences, plug-ins, etc. reside on your computer until you have to replace your hard drive.

I spent all evening at a bike maintenance class and am turning in soon, but I don't want to keep my two or three readers in suspense about the results of my allergy test for any longer.

I'm writing an essay about the two week break from wheat and dairy for a fine publication, so I'll keep it short here. I discovered that I am not gluten intolerant (oh, how relieved I was), but that I have a moderate intolerance to dairy. It's not a true allergy, but I realized that milk makes me congested and probably makes my skin break out. So I am bidding farewell to liquid milk, and ice cream, except for a very rare gelato. This is a change that I tried to make about two years ago, but I couldn't summon the will to just give up milk voluntarily. I think I like it so much because the protein in it helps to modulate my blood sugar. I know there are many evil sides to milk, though, and other things have the protein that I crave. I have switched to almond milk, which I find the most palatable of the non-dairy milks.

Yogurt does not seem to cause the intolerance symptoms, so I'll continue to have yogurt a few times a week. If I don't have it, I find that I'm a lot more susceptible to yeast infections (sorry if TMI).

My period of abstinence was grueling at times, but honestly, I felt so good that the cravings were generally easy to ignore. I credit the good spirits to my vitamin regimen, which I started about a month ago. I agree with my nutritionist, who thinks that vitamins shouldn't be used in place of food with nutrients. However, because I feel distinctly better, I must have been lacking some of the vitamins I'm now supplementing. I eat at least 2 servings of fruits and a minimum of 2 vegetable servings a day, but perhaps that was not adequate.

I have a few food pictures to post, but I'm not sure if the camera app is back on my computer yet. More next week!

2 comments:

Amy said...

I understand the pain of new drivers and backing everything up more than you can imagine! (Had an old computer that used to need a fresh install every 2 months for the whole 5 years of it's life! Ack!).

Sorry to hear about the dairy intolerance :( But yay for feeling better!

ceri said...

Happy Birthday!!!