It's a pain in my...everywhere!

Before I was ever diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, I was very skeptical. We had a few friends who claimed they had Fibromyalgia, and I always told them, "It's all in your head. Just get over your whoa-is-me attitude, and you'll be fine." OK, so I never actually spoke those words to any of my friends, but I thought them. It's got to be God's sense of humor that I now suffer from the chronic syndrome I used to make fun of. I have to admit, though, that even as I have endured the many symptoms of Fibromyalgia, I have often wondered if these things aren't all in my head, a figment of my hypochondriac imagination.

That is until I read FibroWHYalgia by Susan E. Ingebretson. I'm thrilled to have come across this book because I finally feel validated. I am almost relieved to know that the things I have felt have not just been my overactive imagination, that I'm not, in fact, going crazy.

Not only do I feel validated, but I feel almost a comraderie with Ms. Ingebretson...she's someone who understands what it feels like to wake up almost every morning feeling like you've been pavement for a dozen mac trucks during the night; she knows about missing out on getting down on the floor to play with the kids because you know that when you try to get up again, you will feel like your body is going to break in a million pieces; how carrying a purse or camera slung over your shoulder for an hour can give you neck, back, and shoulder pain for weeks after; she knows what it's like to try to open those blasted save-the-planet smaller caps that top water bottles; she would probably even understand how a haircut can help alleviate headaches because just the weight of hair can cause pain; she understands why I'm cold all the time and why I have to change seats in church if anyone around me is wearing perfume.

These are all things I experience from day-to-day, usually with no rhyme or reason. I joke that I have a Pain of the Week - some joint or area of my body that hurts for no apparent reason, and the pain comes and then leaves very abruptly, also for no apparent reason. I truly, honestly thought I was somehow conjuring these pains up from my mind. It's good to know there are other people out there like me!

Ms. Ingebretson offers some great tips for fibrofolk, as she calls us, to work toward wellness. Of course, the two main areas she focuses on are nutrition and exercise. I'm grateful that I am already well down the road toward good nutrition and exercise: after all of my previous reading and documentary viewing, I have been eating a lot more healthfully, and I have been faithfully achieving my 10,000 steps per day. So hopefully I begin to see some positive changes in my health.

In the meantime, I desperately want my children to be healthier. They don't know this yet, but we are about to embark on a study of nutrition for science! I'm going to use Michael Pollan's kid version of The Omnivore's Dilemma and throw in lots of other fun science things like studies of food chains, cows, plants, dirt, and anatomy. Maybe I'll at least plant a seed (pun intended)!

Whole Food Living - Week 1 - Snacks, Banana Bread

Today was a busy day. For one, last night the moment Irene made her exit, our power went out, prompting us to take our frozen and refrigerated food to a friend's house. Our power was only out for a couple of hours, but I waited until this morning to go get our food.

While I was retrieving our food, I stopped by a farm. I've said before how much I love all of the farms around here; you don't see this in the south. We have 3 or 4 of them within a mile or two of our house. If you remember, I visited one last year at the end of the season. All I got was some not-so-good end-of-the-season corn. Today, though, I was seeking two specific things: farm fresh eggs and local honey. I got both at one stop...eggs only a couple hours old and honey from hives right there on the property. ("They" say consuming local honey can help if you have allergies; we'll see if "they" are correct.)


I also had other things to do like teach the kids school, sign Michael up for swim team, and find some new running shoes for me that will hopefully help my painful ankles. As expensive as they are, they ought to enable me to comfortably run a marathon.

All this to say, today was more of a prep day than a day to focus on making elaborate new and healthy snacks for the kids. I did, however, have some yummy banana bread on hand that I had made the day before Irene visited so we would have a ready-made breakfast.

In college I had this yellow cookbook that, though lost, I can still picture in my mind. I also still use some of the recipes from it, like the banana bread recipe. Here it is:

Sift together:
1 3/4 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt

In separate bowl, eat until frothy:
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. oil
2 eggs

Add:
1 c. mashed banana

Add wet ingredients to dry and fold. Bake at 325 for about an hour.

I used freshly milled flour in this - hard white wheat. I only use my hard red wheat in bread as it does definitely have a stronger whole wheat taste. Honestly, you really can't taste that much of a difference between the processed white flour you'd find in the store and freshly milled hard white wheat, but the health benefits for the freshly milled flour are plentiful! Don't be fooled by "whole wheat" flour in the store either; it is still processed in order to allow for a long shelf life. I will tell you more about fresh milled wheat later this week when I make bread.

Anyway...for the sugar, I used the last of my honey granules; thankfully, I have my new bucket arriving sometime this week from Bread Beckers. I didn't quite have enough bananas to make a cup, so I filled the rest of the cup with organic plain yogurt, which I actually think made the bread more fluffy; I may make yogurt a regular add-in!

I meant to add some ground flaxseed because, honestly, that can be added to ANYTHING, and it's so healthful! But I forgot. I also often add chocolate chips and/or finely ground nuts of some kind (the kids don't like big pieces of nuts in bread or cookies).

So that was their snack today - whole, real food, just leftover whole, real food! Tomorrow hopefully there will be less running around so I can get more creative.

In Which I Ramble On and On About My Latest Health Kick

Have you seen that commercial for multi-grain Eggo waffles? A geeky looking mom dressed in sweats power-walks into the kitchen, passing her two children who are preparing for school, and then calling out, "Kids! Time for breakfast." With an alarmed look on his face, the boy turns to his sister and says something to the effect of, "Mom is on another one of her health kicks. We need to get out of here before she tries to feed us breakfast!"

That's kind of the reaction I get from my family each time. And, yes, I am on another health kick, inspired by the lead Yahoo story I saw the other day about the family who took on the challenge of 100 Days of Real Food. I am completely aware of the fact that my "kicks" are a bit cyclical; however, I do learn something new everytime, and I do typically pick up at least one new good habit. For example, I now mill my own wheat and use that fresh, whole grain flour for bread, baked goods, and breakfast foods like waffles and pancakes. I also often substitute honey granules for refined sugar.

But I do have a long way to go. I would like to get to a point where I don't use refined sugar at all. My one big obstacle is that my source of honey granules, Bread Beckers, is now 16 hours away rather than 1, and the shipping costs are a bit hard to swallow. But I did go ahead and swallow it and placed an order for a new 5lb. container of honey granules and some flaxseed, which I grind and put in smoothies and baked goods. There are of course many, many other things I can work on like getting rid of all of the terrible foods that come in a box.

I just ordered Jordan Rubin's book What the Bible Says About Healthy Living, and as the author notes in the brief preview Amazon permitted me to read, we are indeed "fearfully and wonderfully made". Why shouldn't we focus on eating what God provided for us to eat? As much as I have tried, I have not yet located the rare to non-existent Oreo tree, so perhaps we should not be eating Oreos and the like.

So I'm going to try very hard to eliminate all of those processed foods. It's tough. I'm a veeery lazy cook, so those pre-packaged, processed foods are awfully tempting. Because going cold turkey and rashly removing all of the junk food from the pantry at one time is just setting me up for failure, I'm going to take this in stages. For the first week, I'm going to focus on snacks. When the kids ask for a snack, instead of telling them to dive into a box of Cheez-Its, I am going to provide some whole, natural options instead. Some will take some work - like making my own cheese crackers - but our health is worth it, right?

Of course, I chose the very worst weekend to decide to be healthy. I just went to the grocery store day before yesterday - along with every other resident of Connecticut - to stock up on non-perishables in the event that Irene steals our electricity. So I will start our Snack Reformation after Irene has departed and our power has been restored. At that point, we can take the yet unopened boxes of Cheez-Its and Oreos and donate them to the local food bank.

Until then, I will continue to exercise. Very surprisingly, I have been very committed to exercising daily. I work out every morning on the treadmill - working on building up my endurance so that eventually I can run a 5K. A huge goal for a non-runner like me, especially since, aside from high school sports, I have never before been consistent in any exercise program.

Thankfully, I'm not alone in exercising...we have had some great family times over the last month hiking some of the many trails that traverse the New England landscape and biking. Mark and I splurged and bought bikes so we could join the kids. In addition, we got a bike attachment that turns Mark's bike into a tandem bike thus allowing Audrey to keep up with our pace.

Is she cute or what?


Unfortunately for me, I had to cut my workout today short and will take tomorrow off as well. My ankle is killing me. For no reason. That happens a lot with fibromyalgia - pain for no reason. Which is why I'm on a new health kick. I refuse to take any of the medications that fight fibromyalgia with side effects like "thoughts of suicide". I am confident that if I learn to eat healthy and stick with it, I won't be so tired all the time, and I won't have a Pain du Jour.

So raise your healthy drink...here's to getting healthy.

Conquering My Sweet Tooth

I would make a terrible recovering addict. And, no, I'm not confessing here. It's just a hypothetical based on the fact that I can't make it a day without sneaking a cookie. It's no secret I've spent the better part of December elbow deep in chocolate and icing. So it's no surprise that every cell in my body is pleading with me for a salad. My sweet tooth, however, is not, at this point, on talking terms with the cells.

I'm not a huge New Year's Resolutions person because I hate setting myself up for failure. I'm thinking, though, that since my family and I did quite well eating healthy for the majority of 2009, we can raise the bar a bit in 2010.

And on to 2010 I march...I actually did make it on to the treadmill today. And it was only 1 1/2 cookies. I can't give my Sweet Tooth the cold turkey treatment, can I?

Annual Non-Resolutions

In the Blog World, I stalk follow DeeDee over at Fiddledeedee. She makes me laugh. Everyday. And I need lots of laughter to stay healthy. Speaking of healthy (did you like that segue?), today DeeDee is encouraging her readers to offer their insights about health and weight loss. Because I'm so wise in this area, I thought I would share what is going on in our family. I've always been one to set New Year's Resolutions. Because I'm a big fan of new beginnings. However, in so doing...altogether now: I'm just setting myself up for failure.

So this year I've merely mentioned in casual conversation that as a Goal for 2009, I want our family to get healthier. I haven't made any lists about how to achieve this goal. And I haven't done anything drastic like empty my pantry into the trash. I also haven't outlawed all sweets. I've done all of these things before, and about 4 days into it, I end up making a late-night, 50 mile round-trip run to my favorite Italian restaurant for a giant piece of their 7-layer chocolate mousse cake. It's never pretty (the situation, not the cake--which is positively, fabulously, divinely pretty).

Now while I haven't made any actual lists, I do have a few ideas in my head. I'm taking this getting healthy thing in baby steps. There are just a few changes we've made or will make in this house toward healthier living. One is that we are cutting back on refined sugar. As much as possible, I'm replacing the white stuff with alternatives like honey, raw sugar, or Sucanat. Secondly, we're trying to cook with as many of the 10 power foods from the Sonoma Diet as possible. Those 10 foods are broccoli, tomatoes, grapes, blueberries, strawberries, almonds, extra virgin olive oil, whole wheat, spinach, and bell peppers. All foods I like. That's why I like the Sonoma Diet. Some diets want you to start the day with a Mango-Celery-Tofu shake, and I'm just not about that at all.

The biggest change we're making in this family is that we are taking one more giant leap toward becoming Homeschoolers of Stereotype (I think the only step left is to add some long skirts to my closet) (no offense): I'm going to start milling my own wheat for bread and other baking. I know...if you are personally acquainted with me, you can probably pull a few choice words from your hat that I've had to say about this in the past. But I've had a change of heart, plus when we stayed with our friends in Missouri, she made fresh bread for us, and it was really good. And easy. At least she made it look easy. So...I now have 90 pounds of wheat berries in 2 big buckets in my pantry. And I have a mill and mixer on the way. I already have a Kitchen Aid, but this mixer is all-powerful; this baby will mix enough dough for 5-7 loaves at a time.

I suppose I should address the topic of exercise as well. Although I wish to forget that it is an important component to a healthier me. I actually have been pretty consistent with hopping on the treadmill for my 30 minutes. Not everyday, though, if my schedule doesn't allow.

So those are our baby steps. We may add some more things (or take things out, whatever the case may be) as new reform becomes habit. Most importantly, I'm not beating myself up when I miss a day of exercise or sneak in a piece of leftover Almond Roca. Not that I'm confessing here or anything. And just as a reminder of all that's good and sweet, my two favorite kitchen books, ironically, stand side-by-side on my counter (ignore the bottle of brandy propping up the books; let's just say it goes well with the power foods):