023.

When I first decided to try the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, I didn't think I could do it. And truly, the first week was really hard--I was hungry and cranky and was never really satisfied. But as time progressed, I got used to eating veggies instead of bread and nuts & honey instead of chocolate. It was easy avoiding pasta and rice--I never much liked them anyway--but the craving for cupcakes or a thick piece of crusty bread spread with butter, those consumed many an evening.

My allotted 30 days expired on Friday. My first swallow as a free eater was a McDonald's milkshake. Yes, it's true. Unfortunately. And the weekend was filled with cake and hamburgers and Grandma's cookies. My eating habits weren't the way I had planned my reintroduction to "normal food," but they worked. I was never so happy for a breakfast comprising mainly of cantaloupe in my life.

While I don't remember a point in the last month where I said to myself "Egads, self, you're feeling rather fit today!", after a weekend of ingesting crap, I could feel it. Today I ate back with the diet (and had cashews with lunch--I have discovered that I can eat nuts now, and it's a beautiful thing) and it's like the universe has realigned. Well, my universe, at least.

This weekend I'm going to make myself bread with whole grain flour and see how that goes. Bread is the one thing I really miss.

015.

Started the diet today with pretty much no planning. In retrospect, this may or may not have been the best idea. It was good that I didn't plan, because I didn't have any time to talk myself out of it, or procrastinate while I stocked up the perfect pantry. It was bad, because I really don't have that many legal foods to snack on, and any pantry basics (like almond flour, honey and natural peanut butter) that might aid in making food I still need to acquire.

In a fit of irony, my work chose this day to feed a training session roast beef, gravy and mashed potatoes (currently the bane of my existence, I love them so much). There were, of course, leftovers. Very fragrant, yummy-smelling leftovers. Also, cookies.

But! I discovered today that beans are legal, and so is squash. And I think having restrictions to what I can eat (carbs are at least half my diet as of yesterday) will propel me to more adventurous eating. Hello, mushrooms.

I went to the grocery store on my lunch break to find some food, and I never really realized how many processed products there are with sugar. Or corn syrup. It's everywhere. Even in plain ol' beef jerky.

Excuse me while I go to the store for some beans to make refried beans. Mmm. I am determined to figure out some sort of tortilla substitute. I will not go years without quesadillas or enchiladas.

014.

The time has come to bite the bullet. Or, shall I say, to stop biting corn. And wheat. And sugar.

This might be a long story to tell. I'll start in the middle. My senior year in high school, my gastroenterologist was threatening me with surgery if I couldn't get my Crohn's disease cleared up (this sounds like somehow the Crohn's was my fault, but it isn't, I assure you). In an attempt to avoid surgery (which I did, just in case anyone is worrying), my mother found this book called Breaking the Vicious Cycle, which evangelizes the Specific Carbohydrate Diet as a way of curing Crohn's (and Ulcerative Colitis, and some other things, including autism) without drugs or surgery. The specific part about carbohydrates is that you can't eat them. No complex carbs allowed. That means no grains, no potatoes, no rice or corn, no refined sugar. Back then, it seemed an impossible task to me, and I'd rather feel sick than have to give up foods. I ended up finding ProBiotics, which got me into a mini-remission and into the good health I have today. Mostly.

Fast forward to a month ago, when I started reading The Omnivore's Dilemma (am now reading In Defense of Food, never fear). The prolificance of corn in the modern diet, if what Michal Pollan writes is accurate, is rather scary. I wanted to label everything CORN, instead of Spaghetti-Os or Fruit Roll Ups or whatever. Then I started thinking. If undigested chains of complex carbohydrates are making bad bacteria thrive in our guts (as according to BTVC), and corn is a complex carbohydrate, it stands that if we as a society (and me as a person) are eating mass amounts of corn-infused food, we have a huge imbalance of flora in our guts. And our current diet isn't helping at all.

So, with the coming together of two unrelated books (and also some hella infections, yay for having next-to-no immune system), I decided it's time to try the Specific Carbohydrate diet.

I'm a bit scared, not gonna lie. I'm trying not to think about all the tasty wheat-based products I love, or mashed potatoes. I baked my last cupcakes this weekend, and had my last quesadilla tonight. Tomorrow I'm picking up almond flour and yogurt starter.

SCD here I come.