Diet Watch

Below is a listing of items I have introduced back into my diet and have not had any issues with. This list is really more for me than anyone else – to help me keep track before I go back to the GI doctor on Thursday:

Milk
Yogurt
Cereal – high fiber/low sugar
Fruit – very small amount of blueberries
Granola
Veggies – asparagus, carrots, mushrooms
Chicken
Chocolate – small amount, approximately 6 Hershey’s Kisses per day
Soup – mostly creamy kinds, no spices or pepper though
Crackers – plain, low fiber

I still haven’t added back any carbonated beverages, no caffeine and no alcohol. Why do I have a feeling one or all of those could be a culprit? Because I love them all so much???!!

I think that is about it. I am hoping since I have cut everything out – once I start introducing them back in, maybe something will stand out that causes my stomach to be upset. So far, I haven’t had any issues since Saturday so that is great. I have had a lot more energy and am generally a lot happier, of course, feeling better like I do.

I feel like my biggest issue is portion control – I think my body does not process food out of my stomach as quickly as most people so it is SO important to have frequent, small meals rather than big ones. And my body’s idea of big compared to other people’s is just so different. It is so easy for me to fall back into the habit of eating too much, for me, going out to lunch and dinner with people and seeing the portions they eat. I have basically cut everything back in half again and will just go from there. I also am trying not to eat anything until I am hungry, like my stomach is just starting to growl rather than saying – oh, it is 11:30 so I better eat lunch, it is 3pm so I need my afternoon snack. My body will tell me when it is ready and one day, it might be longer inbetween hunger than another day, depending on what I eat.

It is so flipping complicated and frustrating but if I can just try and listen to the rhythms of my body more and follow what it is telling me, I think I may be OK not cutting anything specific out of my diet. Of course, I want to run this all by my GI specialist Thursday and see what he thinks too.

I have Thursday off now – we are insanely slow here at work at my new job. Our busy time doesn’t start until October and goes off and on until the first part of February. Our busy times of the month are the 1st 8 business days of the month so right here in the last week during a slow time, there is NOTHING to do. Especially when you don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground, like me, right now and can’t even begin to know what you could pick up and do without someone handing it to you.

My boss is in a class tomorrow afternoon and all day Thursday and was having a hard time coming up with things I could do without her assistance. I could tell – so this morning, I just asked if it would be easier if I took Thursday off and she was relieved, told me how much she appreciated it. Appreciated me taking a day off??? Did I mention I love this new job?? *grin*

So – what will I do? I have my doctor’s appointment at 12:15 and then Lily has a vet appointment at 4pm. Inbetween, I would like to do a little shopping – I need some things at Sephora and since our company has loosened up their dress code considerably, I would like to get some dressy sandals to wear with my pants and capris for work. Maybe a stop at Barnes and Noble to read for a bit?

I had many other ideas of things to do with my day off – get a massage, call up Lynne and see if she wanted to try and get together but all of those things sound too complicated to schedule – I would have to be somewhere at a certain time and I think I have enough appointments for the day already. I haven’t talked to Lynne since her son’s birthday party 2 Saturdays ago – I keep expecting her to call any day but the days just slip by with nothing. I might try her tomorrow afternoon after my boss takes off for her class or just call her to chat sometime on Thursday.

I have been working on scheduling the rest of my vacation time for the year too. I finally hit my boss up on when are good times to take off and which weren’t so I would know when to plan something. Sounds like I can still have my vacation at Christmas, which is nice but I need to get the rest of my available time on the calendar so she knows when I will and will not be here.

I am searching for tickets to a Cubs game on eBay right now and thought I might surprise Brian with them for next Friday. We did that about 2 or 3 years ago and had so much fun – took Friday off, took the train up in the morning, had lunch somewhere near the L, took the L to Wrigley to see the 1:20 game, came back to Michigan Street and did some shopping, dinner and then hit the 10pm train back to South Bend.

Then, I am taking a day in September for the Habitat for Humanity’s WomenBuild, which leaves me a total of 8 days before the end of the year. I think we can use 4 for a vacation somewhere, if we can stretch it over a weekend and then the other 4 at Christmas time. It is so dead around here at the holidays – I don’t know if I could stand coming into work everyday and just staring at the walls, even though we don’t have anything specific planned.

I just checked flights to Florida for my other 4 days and it doesn’t look promising. We would need to go around the end of October, beginning of November to miss hurricane season and the prices are horrible. I don’t know – maybe we won’t go anywhere big this fall and just take weekend trips to Indy or somewhere new. We shall see.

OK – I better run, my boss’s meeting gets out at 4pm which leaves me a total of 3 minutes to get this posted!