Psycho-therapy

This week I got to go see my psychiatrist to see how my medication is working. And yes, I too am part of the prozac generation although I resisted that designation for a very long time. Finally, when the panic attacks became too much and I got awfully tired of battling depression on a regular basis, I had to call in the calvary for some help.

The psychiatrist asked me how things were going (as if he could really tell a whole lot from 15 minutes of time with me every three months, but ah well!), and I told him that I was happy with my current medication. What with the complete lack of stability in my world these days, I know that without the pills, I'd be a nutcase. In fact, as I told him, I can feel the depression and anxiety, but thankfully it's over here floating in a cloud just beyond the barrier of Prestiq and Clonozepam. I don't like the weight that anti-depressants seem to adhere to my butt, but I do like being non-suicidal. And these days, with the stabilizing help of drugs, my GI system is not the happiest in the world. the little bundle of nerves governing that section of my body is in all kinds of an uproar about the amount of stress I'm carrying around with me.

Will I get the job, or not? If so, can I get to Alabama and be ready for school before it starts? If not, will things go ok here in Texas? Can I get my book ready, can I get that non-profit working? What does the future hold for me? And would it hurry up and just let me know already?? That person that I may have let past my walls and guards - why is he screwing with me now? Seriously, it's enough to make a sane person go crazy. And a crazy, IBS-living person might stray farther from the path of sanity. But then again, sanity just might be overrated.

In the meantime, I'm doing all sorts of relaxation techniques I've learned over the years. Yoga and I are becoming very very good friends this week, and running in the hot Texas nights is becoming a norm. Exercise, yoga, and a bit of too many cookies will help me get through this period of instability, both in life and in the body. I'm also going to start another blog here on quotes I find in books I read. I read far more than the average person, and I'm always stumbling across quotes that I would like to work with someday or that at the very least, should be shared with others.

Saga continuation

Last week, while I was on my way to Austin to visit folks, I nearly died in my car. I was on the service road of I-35, and wasn't paying attention to the road. To be so incredibly middle-class, I was looking for a Starbucks that the sign on the highway told me was off this exit. I was so concerned with looking for the entrance to the coffee shop that I didn't notice the light had turned from green to yellow to red. I looked up, freaked, tried to stop, realized that wasn't going to work, and then went through the light. I could have been killed, or worse, killed someone else. And all because I really wanted a cup of coffee. How pathetic.

But I was reminded again this past week that sometimes that person who sped through the light might be a dumbass like I was while looking for some coffee, but sometimes that person has a pressing need. (Need I say that defensive driving is a good thing?) The last post I made, about the the day I took the GRE, was also the last time I went straight through a red light. That time, though, there was a reason beyond coffee.

After I took the GRE, I continued down the road to go visit my friend Laura, who lived in Houston at the time and worked at Compaq. While well equipped with my toilet paper in the car for the trip, I was already emotionally and physically exhausted, and this was also in a time before I lost all sense of modesty. Laura was going to meet me after a 3/4 day at work at her apartment, but she wasn't there when I arrived. No problem, right? I've got AC in the truck and music to listen to, right? Well, yes, if you disregard the tiny little problem that presented itself forcefully in my gut shortly after ringing the doorbell to no avail. Oh shit. Literally.

I knocked on the people's door across the way - no luck. I went to my truck, thinking I could spot a place to do some business - no luck. The parking lot and apartment building was a wide-open field with windows and doors and pitifully few cars for cover. I jumped in my truck, sped out of the parking lot, ran two redlights and swerved across traffic in order to get to the Church's chicken store right down the road. I made it to the bathroom, which I'm happy about. But now when I think of it, I wonder what the price could have been.

After that, I called my friend and told her to call me back when she got home. I wasn't moving out of that joint until I knew I was able to go inside her apartment. I don't think I left her apartment again during that visit. I let the anxiety at my IBS issues take control. It wasn't the first time I did that nor the last.

Mind and Body

I was thinking today, since my stomach hurts, about the relationship between stress and the gastrointestinal system. All stress, all excitement, all of everything really affects how my GI system works. And now that I'm sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear if I get a year-long position at Auburn, I'm feeling the stress. Even though I know that if I don't get the position, then I'm ok - I've got the assurance of the adjunct coordinator at the local community college that I can teach a couple classes, and I'm pretty sure I can pick one up at UT-Austin. But still....a real position with benefits has my stomach in wads.

Yet I was reminded this past week of what it used to be like when my little bundle of nerves in the stomach was even more freaked out by my constant digestion of foods the tummy didn't like. I was asked to audition for Kaplan as a teacher for the GRE or SAT this past week. But that means that I would have to retake the tests since my scores are more than five years old. My mother urged me to study for the exam, but I didn't feel that way and so I felt like explaining.

The first and only time I took the GRE was so I could apply to grad school. I was in the midst of my 12 year fun and games with explosive diarrhea, and since all that was made worse by stress, you can imagine how much fun it was to take the GRE - a test so loaded with stress it should be called such. I was living for the summer with my dad in Longview, TX, but the closest place I could take the GRE was at Stephen F. Austin State U. about 2.5 hours away. So I got up at 5 a.m., drove 2.5 hours under high stress to arrive and take the exam at 8 a.m. I was so stressed out that I had to get up TWENTY-THREE times during the course of the exam to go to the bathroom. I swear this is probably a guiness book of world record for the most times a person has to poo during a three and a half hour exam. Thankfully, the proctors only made me sign out the first 10 times - because you know they don't stop the time on your exam just because you are having difficulties with the restroom. (Now, I would just wear depends and clean myself up later, but that was then, this is now.)

I still scored a 760 on the math, a 760 on the analytical and a 700 on the verbal. The analytical has been replaced by writing now. And I figured after 30 hours of math in grad school and a Ph.D. in English, if I can't score well on all parts of the test, I definitely have a problem. And it isn't the bathroom!

Topsy-Turvy World

The world seems to be going a little crazy these days, and my mood is following the economic downturn as I search for a job, or some kind of income, have given up on having health insurance (no matter how important that might be to someone with a history of GI problems), and am a little freaked out by the fact that my truck wants another $1000 spent on it. It seems to want that much about every three months, and I can't afford either it or a new car. What's a girl to do?

Well, I certainly know that when my stress levels get high, I often turn to food as a source of comfort and a sense of control. And I've been doing just that for the past few days. It's a bad habit and is completely linked to my dis-ordered relationship to food. Rather than see it as something merely nourishing or a thing to enjoy, I off load a lot of my stress and lack of a sense of control onto eating and food. In the past few days, I've polished off a couple packs of KinniToo's vanilla creme sandwich cookies, a pint of pralines and cream BlueBell ice cream, and a few other items. Binge eating like that is not particularly rewarding except in the moment, and definitely makes for a poor body image and feelings of guilt.

But it's not just the binge eating that I am worried about right now, it's the emergence of an old pattern of hoarding and eating that gets triggered by a lack of control in the present and some kind of emotional trigger. I will seek to control my food intake, and thereby control my life, by not eating much most of the day. I subsist on coffee, a piece of fruit, and a handful of nuts. Then, by dinner time, I'm starving. So I eat a good dinner since there are other people involved. But sometime thereafter, I get hungry (and no wonder since I've not eaten most of the day), and I binge on sweets or salty depending on my preference that night. Sweet usually wins the taste competition.

So now I get to face this demon again. Like any recovering addict, I will fight this dis-ordered relationship to food my whole life. But for now, it's good that I recognize it and can begin implementing the strategies I have used to come out of this tailspin in the past.

1. Food diary including how I feel when eating, one hour later, and the next day.
2. Don't let it undermine weight goals - increase exercise while winning this battle.
3. Chew gum. Chew lots of gum.

I'll keep an update on how this goes as I continue to search for answers, a job, and oh-so-much more.

creating a non-profit

This past week, I drove up to Austin to see some friends, and help out my friend with home schooling his kids. One of the great ideas that came from that trip was the creation of a non-profit organization to raise awareness of food and digestion issues as well as the emotional impact such problems can cause. Since this is basically exactly what I'm writing my book Survival Strategies about, I thought it would be good to actually have an organization to help target my market (most Americans) and begin the process of raising awareness.

The organization will be called "Eating Well" and the logo will be a well where one can draw water, but also a place notorious for drowning. Andy and I agreed that the logo captures many of the nourishing, life-sustaining aspects of food and one's relationship to one's body, but it also carries the connotation of depth (psychoanalysis anyone?) and potential danger.

The first step to the creation of this new entity, "Eating Well", is to incorporate it. Not only does this create the organization itself as a separate entity legally, but it also gives me a title "Executive Director". I say "yay" to that. In order to do all this legally and correctly, I need to have a board of directors, who will operate as final budgetary decision makers, etc. So I'm looking for those qualified individuals who like my idea and could contribute to my overall aims:
1. raising awareness of food related problems, including binge eating, food allergies, celiac disease, etc.

2. helping provide strategies for living well in spite of the limitations of diet and the body

Let me know if you're interested!

Quite Possibly the World's Perfect Food

Yes, I know that Chiquita banana used that title as a slogan a few years ago to encourage Americans to eat more bananas, and it is true that bananas are excellent as a snack, a cooking item, and they're awesomely portable, but I'm not convinced that bananas are the world's perfect food. For that, I'd give the prize to my favorite grain - quinoa (pronounced keen-wa). It has to be the most amazing food source ever - without quinoa, the Incans would have had a hard time living well in their high Andes' homes. Without quinoa, I wouldn't have my favorite pasta, or many of the recipes I use. Quinoa is one of the super-foods - one of those nutritional sources that is nearly perfect and has so many vitamins, minerals, etc. that it is heads and shoulders above those pithy normal foods.

Besides being an excellent addition to any meal (and SUPER easy to cook - soak for 30 minutes, rinse, simmer 1 cup with 1.5 cups of water for 15 minutes, and eat), quinoa is also the basis for the only gluten-free pasta I've ever found that is decent to eat. Most rice pastas are icky gummy and don't mimic the feel or taste of regular pasta in any way that could be considered non-parodic. But Ancient Harvest has a quinoa and corn pasta that is absolutely delightful. Tastes and feels pretty much the same as regular pasta, and it's better for you! This is one aspect of having celiac disease that was good. I ate a lot of pasta, and I still eat a lot of...well...quinoa. But just to give you the breakdown, here's what quinoa has compared to our oh-so-loved wheat:
Quinoa is 16.2% protein - wheat is only 14%, Quinoa has 1.2% more fiber than wheat.
But even more important is comparison of the amino acid pattern of quinoa to other grains. As even the box of Ancient Harvest will tell you, quinoa "stands alone as a complete protein grain. It supplies all the essential amino acids in a balanced pattern." In comparison to the ideal reference pattern for evaluating protein, quinoa is almost a perfect match, whereas wheat and soy are so far off the mark, they should be embarrassed to sit next to quinoa.

Quinoa is versatile, filling, and so good for you. It can take the place of rice in a dish, but what I love to do with it (besides cook it with some pine nuts to accent the nuttiness of quinoa itself), is to use it in place of bulgur in tabbouleh. It's light, and so perfect for those hot summer days. I think you could survive and thrive quite well eating quinoa tabbouleh and drinking iced yerba mate tea. The body doesn't need much else!

So while bananas have tried to pass themselves off as the perfect food, and acai berries are doing a good job with PR these days as a perfect food, my vote is and always will be for the following foods: quinoa and goji berries. If you put them together in a sweet-ish dish, you might start levitating because of how healthy you would be.

Changing Ideals and Loving Your Body

My friend Sophia let me borrow this book (ok, she told me, you will like this, read it!), and although it is a bit repetitive in parts and probably could have been much shorter to make the same points, it was quite provocative to me as I try to love the body I am in rather than be at odd with it. The book, College Girls by Lynn Peril, traces the trends and discussions surrounding womens entrance into college from the early 19th century until today. It's actually a quite interesting book on many levels (i.e. why are we still having the same debates about the masculinization of women who have careers???), but the part I want to talk about today involves body image and changes in the ideal about women's bodies. A lot of this I knew just from a general sense of history, but some of it was fascinating.

We live in a world dominated by ultra-thin bodies, or at least that's the ideal that is set out for us. With 2/3 of Americans being overweight or obese, though, it is quite clear that we fall far short of the idealized mark. What struck me about College Girls was two things: first, all the pictures of college girls and women from the early 20th century and before show women with healthy curves and a normal body weight. The women aren't tiny; they aren't small. And these were the women being shown to demonstrate that girls in college are normal and beautiful just like girls who didn't go to school. It's a fascinating look at the changes in our beauty standards. The fact that so many letters home to parents quoted in the book read like the opposite of what we desire today is astounding. Rather than worry about the "freshman 15", or what turned out to be in my case "the four year 50", these girls wished to gain weight. They wanted to be pleasing and plump.

At about the same time that women in college was becoming a bit more mainstream, women were also beginning to be taught how to exercise as well - in a womanly way of course! There were even standards for what constituted the perfect athletic woman's body. Let me give you some of the measurements as proposed by Dudley A Sargent, M.D. who directed the Harvard gym and gave these as "A Fine Type of Athletic Figure":
Weight: 118 pounds
Height, standing: 61 3/4 inches
Girth of Chest, full: 33 1/2 inches
Girth of waist: 23 1/4 inches
Girth of Hips: 35 1/4 inches (in Peril, pp 253)

There's a whole bunch more there that is just silly (like who cares about how big around your wrist is???), but I was interested in the fact that the ideal athletic woman at the time was not a small person except in height. 118 pounds seems to conform to today's ideals, but that's for a woman who is 5 feet 1 and 3/4 inches tall! They say you should add 10 pounds for every inch, so that means that as a woman who is 5 feet and 9 inches tall, I should weigh 188 pounds! How's that for a difference from today's ideals! And the ideal woman had hips that were wider than her bust - child bearing hips they used to call them. Now this is an ideal I can live up to!

So it just goes to show that even though we live in a time when the ideal for women is so far removed from what is normal or even possible for most, this hasn't always been the case. I would have been a raging beauty back in the day, whereas today I struggle to love the body I have because it seems bigger than it should be.

Today, then, and every day, I want to remember this and give my body the affirmation it needs. I'm going to look my body straight in the face/eyes (yes, this seems like an odd statement) and give it a hug energetically. I'm going to stop berating it for being what was once considered the standard of beauty, and love what it can do for me. I'm going to love it, period. And yes, this is going to be hard since I have a lot of history with my body and I often feel like it betrays me. But then, my body probably thinks I'm an asshole for being mean to it all the time. That has to change.

oh alcohol! or how I miss beer.

When I was younger, I loved beer. Loved it. Like many college students, I probably drank my weight in beer over the years, and of course, traveling through Europe did nothing to stop my desire to drink beer. Beer is a wonder really, and it's no big surprise that Europeans at least have been drinking it for centuries. It tastes so good (my step-mother would disagree here, as would a few of my friends, but they're strange anyway), doesn't get you drunk quickly, but provides the proper social lubricant for nearly any situation. I love beer. But it makes me sick. I now know why after a night of drinking some beer, I was soooo sick the next morning. I just thought I had bad hangovers! And I do,but that was not the source of worshiping the porcelain throne in my 20s, nor the disconnected wobbly-head feeling that comes with my allergy reactions.

But since I've found out about my wheat allergy and gluten intolerance, I can't have beer. In fact, I can't have so many awesome lovely beverages that it kind of makes me want to cry sometimes. Thankfully, though, there are a few gluten free beers out there in the world, although only one of them is at all mainstream. Redbridge, made by Anheuser Busch, is a pretty good ale, and I do enjoy it even though it doesn't have the same taste as all those micro-brews I used to down. There are other beers for celiac sufferers out there, but they're hard to find and expensive.

Even worse though for those of us with not just celiac's but also a wheat allergy is the fact that we can't even drink most liquors. Who knew that most vodka's were made from wheat?? Urban legend says potatoes, and there are a couple made from something other than winter wheat, but few of them taste quite the same. Potato vodkas are a little "slippery" in comparison to wheat ones, but it'll do in a pinch. Tequilas are often mixed with a grain alcohol unless they say specifically 100% agave. Bourbon, the king of corn liquor, only has to be 51% made from corn and the rest is usually, you guessed it, made from wheat. Rum, made from sugar cane, is often aged in old whiskey casks, so the possibility for contamination is high.

We often think about the food we can't have when we have allergies and/or celiac's, but quite honestly, it's just as annoying that I can't have a decent drink when I go out with friends. I do know more about alcohol and how it's made than I ever wanted to know, and I know my limitations. It just sucks that this limitation is for my favorite drink of all time. OH BEER! HOW I MISS YOU! I could write a poem along the lines of "how do I love thee, let me count the ways...", but I won't because then I'd have to balance it with "how do you hate me, let me count the ways..." And that would be just depressing!

I sure love cookies

I was thinking yesterday about binge eating - not a huge surprise since that's the topic of the first part of my book project - and the fact that binge eating is more difficult now that I have multiple food allergies. Perhaps for that I should be thankful....yeah, right.

Yesterday I was pretty good - I only ate six cookies. (Of the KinniToo Vanilla Sandwich, gluten-free, wheat-free, egg-free, dairy-free variety.) They're rather addictive and good. (Don't go with the chocolate ones - they try to be Oreos and FAIL. I was having a day of cleaning and organizing. That part wasn't so bad, but the moment I turned my attention to getting copies of my book query letter and book proposal printed out and ready to mail, I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to eat cookies. So I did, and promptly felt kind of bad about it. How is one supposed to lose the weight that stupid medication put on me if one can't stop eating cookies? Ah, what a conundrum!

Well, as usual, I chose to focus on one part of the equation "calories in vs. calories out" and went running at 11 pm. Even at 11 pm, it's muggy and hot in central Texas, but at least I burned off some of those extra calories I munched during the day. And running does make one feel good - well, except for that whole sweating thing, which is really no fun. Come to think of it, I don't really like the whole "I can't breath" thing either. But the adrenaline rush is worth it all.

Now, I only had the energy to go running that late because I actually ate a very healthful dinner. Stirfry - many veggies and chicken - is yummy and so good for the body. Now I ask, why can't I remember that eating well gives energy and makes me feel good later, not just now? Unlike eating the cookies, which tasted delightful and fixed my urge to binge, eating a healthy meal that took almost no time to prepare left me with energy to spare and made me want to do more to help myself. What a concept!

A concept I struggle to remember. A concept that is so important for us all to hold on to. A concept contradicted by all the food industries commercials and PR. But a concept that is true and worth thinking about. In my book, I plan on having a worksheet to help those with binge eating tendencies or obesity problems to note how a food feels now AND then.

Memory of Panic

Some neighbors came over last night, and I found it particularly interesting when our discussion turned to worries about health. I mentioned my first experience with a panic attack, and I was gratified to note that of the five of us at the table, three had had a panic attack. Anxiety disorders are more widespread than even I had known.

I remember my first panic attack, which happened around January of 1998. Unlike the others at the table, I didn't "just" have a panic attack. I don't remember having anxiety issues until I started having IBS symptoms. Funny how a year long experience of uncontrollable, daily diarrhea will cause a little anxiety! 'Cause this is your grandmother's lack of control, and it's hard when you're 20. I remember the first time I wore depends to deal with traveling on a plane with the experience's interminable lines. A friend who worked at a nursing home asked me if I was ready for a room at the home yet. Not quite yet, I replied, but getting close.

The crushing feeling of a panic attack was not something I'd ever experienced, and how was I to know that it would feel like I was dying? There I was, studying for a German exam, sitting on the couch, and all of a sudden, the bottom dropped out of my world. Tightness in the chest, can't breath, shaking, and a moment when it feels like the world stops and the heart does so with it. The first thought, "this is a heart attack."

I freaked, as so many do with their first panic attack. And to my chagrin, I called 911. Paramedics in route, I'm still freaking out. I'm dying after all. Didn't take the paramedics long to figure out that what I was experience was panic. I felt like a complete and total idiot, and it was a long time before I let panic drive me to the medical community. (another story, another time). In and of itself that's pretty amazing since that first of the panic attacks became a normal part of my life - anxiety can become normal if experienced long enough.

Classic Celiac - Ouch!

So the other night, I had the exquisite pleasure of hurting celiac-style for the first time in a while. Back when I had symptoms more often, it was sort of a "oh look my stomach hurts again" and it was also masked by a lot of symptoms from stress-IBS and food allergies. But not the other night - oh no. Classic pain and bloating. Ouch.

Mom and I had gone to eat at Carrino's, which has a gluten-free menu, and I've eaten there before many times. But someone screwed up this time around. I wondered if I would be able to sleep that night because, well, it's hard to sleep when it hurts. The stomach, the sides, everything in the mid-torso region.

But then I remembered some "miracle" stomach pills I learned about when I went to a two week detox and holistic medicine retreat in North Carolina called The Center for Awakened Health. Although I don't really practice the vast majority of what I learned there - I'm far far too "in the world" for that, I did learn of a few things that are helpful. One of those things is Quantum Stomach Complex capsules by Premier Research Labs. They're totally herbal, don't have the most common allergens in them and are vegan to boot. You can only order them online, but they are, as my friend Victoria said after taking them, "those miracle stomach pills."

You can swallow them with water or open the capsules in hot water for a tea. The tea kind of tastes strange, so I usually just take the capsules. So I took those and did some yoga to stretch out my mid-section and muscles which were cramping up because of the pain I was in.

Yoga stretches: Child's pose, Cat Stretch, Cobra (mostly supported), Knees to Chest, and Spinal Twists.

Anyway, within about 20 minutes I felt ok again. Ready for bed and no longer in quite the pain I had been.

Just thought I'd share what worked for me the other night...

The lady at the store

The other day, I was up in Austin visiting some good friends of mine, and one of them, Andy, and I went to the grocery store. Well, of course we went to the grocery store because in a non gluten-free household with four kids, I wanted food I knew was safe while I was visiting.

While we were wandering around HEB, we encountered a lady, shopping cart in tow, staring at the rows of crackers with a look of bewilderment on her face. She slowly bent down and picked up a box of Nut Thins and stared at them. I know that look and I know who usually buys Nut Thins - gluten free folks. So I asked her if I could help her. She looked at me, blinked, and asked, "Do you know anything about gluten-free stuff?" Yes. Yes I do.

Andy and I directed her to the gluten-free aisle of the grocery store (and god bless HEB for having one!), and I helped her pick out a few items that I knew were good - Glutino's Pretzels, Kinnitoo's Vanilla Creme Cookies, Mary's Gone Crackers (great for meat and cheese appetizers). I asked her if she was going gluten-free. She said, "No. My husband is at the airport right now picking up some visitors, and I just found out they are gluten free. So I'm here." I told her they would probably arrive with food anyway but would be super impressed that she had things on hand for them to munch on. And anything they need can be bought the next day as long as she had the basics.

First, how cool that she was there looking for gluten-free food for her guests. Second, how incredibly great it is that we live in a time when gluten-free foods are available in a local grocery store. Third, what a great coincidence I was there to help her. Just goes to show how many of us there are out there - we exist, we impact others, we travel. We do. How wonderful!

What I'm About Now

Hello and welcome to my blog!
As a person who's suffered from a whole host of issues related to food, diet, exercise, and the relationship between mind and body, I am starting this blog as a place to share instances where others can get a glimpse into the life and thoughts of someone with Celiac Disease and extensive food allergies. I plan on sharing recipes that work for me, stories that are hysterically funny and/or hideously embarrassing, and strategies I've worked out to life a full and productive life despite it all! Life is an unprecedented saga, but I hope to share my own story here first to help those with or who know someone with an eating or body issue.

Also, I just graduated with my doctorate in the worst job market in nearly 100 years. They tell us that it is getting better, but I'm not so sure about that right now. Like many, I apply for jobs in academics, the corporate sector, anywhere I can every day with no success. So a secondary focus of my blog might just have to do with that job search and what I'm doing in the meantime....which is actually REALLY exciting.

I am currently writing a book about the body and mind, my experiences with obesity, binge eating, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Celiac disease, and food allergies. Tentatively entitled "Survival Strategies: How to Live Well When the Body Betrays", my book is in process although the book proposal is done. Now to find an agent....