a fresh start

Okay, so the two-week test hasn't gone as planned. Actually, it hasn't gone at all. I'm just not ready. I'm in too much pain on a daily basis at this point. Not to mention, I have no money. Therefore, I've decided to go back to focusing on a low-fat vegan diet while trying to work. When I first started the vegan diet back in January, I had no problem going vegan, but the low-fat part, not so much. This time around I really need to focus on the low-fat part, which includes not cooking with added oils and keeping servings to 3 grams of fat or less.

Over the past few weeks, meat and diary have slowly been elbowing their way back into my diet, and it needs to stop. The several times it has happened, I've felt terrible. I want to be vegan; I prefer being vegan. It makes me feel better and now knowing what I know now about what animal products due to our health, I could never go back. Last night was the last vegan study class. Since January, we've been meeting every Wednesday to discuss how things have been going and to learn about what following a vegan diet can do for our health. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to make it to a lot of the classes because of my poor health, but going last night made me realize how much the diet has done for everyone. I may be the sickest one in the class, but it gives me hope that this diet can still help me. So I'm starting over, and that begins with going back to being 100% vegan in addition to keeping fats to a minimum. Additionally, I've been avoiding coffee and several of my food triggers so I'm going to continue to do so. I'll do this for the remaining of the month and see how it goes!

the two-week test

It's been awhile since I last wrote. These past few weeks have been long and difficult, but I've slowly been regaining my strength and getting back on my feet. My migraines have been doing better (in a sense), but unfortunately, my diet has not. Although most days I follow a vegan diet, I find myself slipping more and more, and I need to get off of this slope fast. Surprisingly though, when I do slip, I still follow a vegetarian diet. In fact, I can't even remember the last time, I had meat. Wait, I take that back. My sister came to visit a couple of weeks ago, and when we went out to dinner, I ordered salmon. But red meat? I can't even remember the last time I had any, and surprisingly, I don't want any! When my boyfriend and I grilled out with some friends over the weekend, I actually requested a portabella mushroom over a thick piece of red meat, and even chicken. After going vegan, both types of meat just seem too heavy. I think I need to give myself more credit than I have been. I'm hard on myself when I fall off-track, but now that I'm writing about it, I really haven't been doing too bad. Additionally, I've also been completely avoiding my known food triggers, which include onion, garlic, and chocolate, for weeks now. Maybe that's what's been making such a difference with my migraines on a daily basis. Around the same time, I also started taking thyroid medication to treat what may be hypothyroidism. I had been giving all of the credit to the medication, but maybe more thought should be given to avoiding my known triggers. At the end of the day, I'm still not losing a lot of weight and my hair continues to fall out, but anyways, on to what I actually wanted to talk about...the two-week test.

I've mentioned this in a previous blog post. I had planned to start this anti-migraine diet during the end of March, but unfortunately, I was just too sick at the time and was ultimately hospitalized shortly thereafter. However, I now feel like I'm in the place to do it and plan to give it another go tomorrow. I adapted the diet from the information I received from the vegan study I'm currently participating in, Dr. Barnard's book, Foods that Fight Pain, and my own personal triggers and experiences. It's called the "two-week test," and it includes eating as much as the pain-safe foods as possible, avoiding all of the common migraine triggers completely, and eating any foods that aren't on either list freely but with caution. As I mentioned previously, one common trigger is gluten, which is probably going to be the single hardest food for me to give up during the diet as wheat seems to be in everything. But I really think this diet is going to help me identify my food triggers, all of them. It'll be difficult to follow, but not as difficult as the elimination diet. All I have to do is give this a try for at least two weeks. I also developed an extensive food tracker to help me pinpoint any triggers I may be consuming on this diet. If I can do that, I may be able to avoid going on the elimination diet. If not, well, then I can always give the elimination diet another try. I know at this point, not consuming any gluten is going to be difficult but I can do it, and at the end of the day, getting rid of my migraines is my number one priority. Here I go!