In the battle against fatigue: Diet

I’ve written lately about my battle with fatigue: a sometimes overwhelming tiredness that I feel that lends itself to lack of motivation and procrastination.

Besides tiredness, I have also been experiencing the following on a regular basis:

*bouts of diarrhea

*terrible heartburn, especially when I eat bread, chicken, or potatoes

*bloating

*skin irritations

As I said in Friday’s post, my doctor and I discussed my problems with fatigue, and one of the things he suggested was to change the timing of my depression medication.

Another thing we discussed was my diet. I asked him how much validity he put in the idea that one’s diet could affect one’s mental health.

He said he had patients who had changed their diets—mostly giving up wheat and other sources of gluten—who had experienced positive results. In conjunction with medication and/or other treatments, he believed certain changes in diet might help.

I don’t believe in throwing out whole categories of food unless a person has real medical issues. For example, according to the website of the National Institutes of Health,  people who have celiac disease cannot consume gluten because they have an immunereaction to gluten, a protein in wheat, barley and rye.

I don’t have celiac disease. And I don’t have symptoms that are anywhere nearly as bad as those with celiac disease.

But I’ve wondered if I may be sensitive to gluten.

Perhaps it’s really a matter of too many simple carbohydrates. Maybe it’s a problem with wheat.

I already know that milk irritates my digestive system. Cheese and Greek yogurt don’t. I’m allergic to tree nuts.

I decided to try eliminating, as much as I can, gluten from my diet for a week or two to see how I react. It won’t hurt. If I feel better, then I can add back some foods gradually and get a clearer idea of whether or not food is affecting how I feel.

I had no gluten (that I know of) Sunday. For breakfast, I had a cup of Greek yogurt.

For lunch, we ate at our favorite Mexican restaurant. I had beef fajitas and ate just the meat and vegetables and a little of the beans. I didn’t eat the tortillas.

For dinner, I had the salad pictured above: Romaine lettuce, carrots, red kidney beans, apples, and pickled beets. After I took the photo, I added cheddar cheese and some tuna salad that Larry had made. I also added balsamic vinaigrette dressing after making sure it didn’t contain wheat.

No heartburn. No digestive issues. It’s too early to tell about the tiredness.

I am motivated to try this. Saturday was a bad day for me digestively. I knew what had caused at least of the problem: I had eaten some doughnuts.

As I lay down to rest, I decided that I’d had enough of feeling so bad. I needed to find out how to help myself.

Right now my plan is to stay away from gluten and to follow the new medication timing.

Have you ever found that a certain food, or group of foods, negatively affect how you feel?

Opportunity

View of some of the woods along my walking route in my neighborhood.

Thank you for your good wishes for my doctor’s visit on Friday. The doctor x-rayed my foot again and pronounced it 90 percent healed. Not what I was hoping for, but he seemed pleased because it was better than it had been in June.

During my visit, he found a couple of other problems—minor ones, really—that I will have to deal with: plantar fasciitis in my left foot and tendonitis in my left elbow (tennis elbow).

I’m going to learn some exercises to strengthen the right muscles during two sessions of physical therapy, and he gave me some other things to do to get better.

The most important thing I took with me as I left his office was this: I had an opportunity. The opportunity to get strong and fit and become physically healthier.

I have to face the fact that I have let myself go. My muscles are weak and underused. When asked to do what they normally would do, they are balking.

Also a problem is the fact that I weigh too much.

I really like this orthopedic doctor. He draws pictures to illustrate his explanations to me, and he gives me plenty of time to ask questions.

He gave me two lists, one for my foot and one for my elbow. Here’s the one for the foot:

See that phrase third from the bottom? “Weight loss.”

It’s official. I need to lose weight and the doctor has put it in writing.

I’m putting too much weight on my foot with plantar fasciitis. And extra weight is not good for the almost-healed fracture in my right foot either.

The doctor jokingly said, “You’re falling apart.”

The take-home message for me was that I better start taking better care of myself or I will have more problems like the ones I’m having now.

I don’t see this as a burden. I see this as an opportunity to get better and feel better. And if I feel good physically, I’m going to feel better mentally and emotionally, too.

So I’m starting to eat less and plan how I can more systematically eat a healthier amount of food. I’m planning how to make time in my day to exercise.

Starting out on a walk on Saturday morning.

Step by step, I’m going to lose weight and get stronger. I have this opportunity to do that, and I’m taking it.

What is one thing you’re doing now that enhances your physical health? Please share!

A year with no meat

Last year, sometime in mid-February, I became a vegetarian.

I don’t remember the exact date that I last ate meat. I had been eating less and less with the idea of going meatless. At some point, after eating no meat for a few days, I decided to keep on going.

I don’t eat animal flesh of any kind, including seafood.

I stopped eating meat chiefly because I just couldn’t eat animals anymore. I’ve done a lot of reading about the meat industry and factory farming, and I don’t like it. It’s not necessary for me to eat meat to live. And the bond with animals that I have makes it unethical for me to eat them.

Vegetable fajita quesadilla at El Cazador

Let me say now that I am a vegetarian for my own reasons, but I don’t think everyone should follow my example. I don’t judge others if they eat meat.

My husband is a true carnivore. He loves steak, pork chops, country ham, etc. I think he eats too much meat, but that’s because I am concerned about the health effects.

Choripollo at El Cazador

I do wish that all those who eat meat would be more mindful about where it comes from. And I think all of us should be mindful of where all of our food comes from and eat it with gratitude.

I thought I would lose more weight than I have being vegetarian, but I’ve learned that calories are calories. I eat too many simple carbohydrates and too much processed food and just . . . too much food.

I’m trying to change that. I’m trying to learn more about what foods to eat to get all the nutrients I need.

I do think my digestive system works better overall without meat.

Anything I do for overall good health is going to help me in dealing with my OCD and depression.

It hasn’t been difficult for me to give up meat. And I’m happy to say that I really haven’t obsessed about it. I’ve ended up ingesting some meat accidentally when it was part of a dish I was eating, and I didn’t panic or think I had to start all over again.

Being vegetarian has been a learning experience. My husband adjusted well. He understands how I feel. When we’re choosing a restaurant to eat at, he kindly considers places where there are choices for me.

Today we had lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Cazador. I had a vegetable fajita quesadilla. He had choripolla, a dish with chicken and sausage.

We’re eating late tonight. I’m having a frozen dinner that I love: Amy’s Indian Mattar Paneer, which is curried peas and cheese with rice and chana masala, with rice, tomatoes and peas. Larry is having hot wings.