food | Rust Belt Rebel

It’s a Jazzy kinda day…

There is something about listening to jazz music and cooking. The smell of onion, garlic, thyme, basil and tomatoes is lingering in the air and this makes me happy.

I had blood work done over a couple of weeks ago, my results are less than satisfactory. My TSH levels jumped another .09 since my last test. This has effected my cholesterol levels in ways that I found unbelievable. I was shocked! There has been a direct correlation in the last two tests. What does this mean?…..my thyroid is having a shit fit. I am burnt out, actually my adrenal glands are burnt and my pituitary has malfunctioned. I have been feeling crappy for a good couple years, but I had chalked it up to Peri-menopause. So a girl thinks – this too shall pass. NOPE!

Here’s the deal – many women in my family take the pill. Not that pill, the synthetic thyroid med every day and they still haven’t lost weight, still are stress mongers and don’t feel like themselves. I refuse to join in the party. So I made an appointment with the husband’s nutritionist to see if there is anything I could do in order to not take the pills. Everything I have researched over this week points to refined wheat, rice, barley (I love barley) well…. gluten being one part of the issue. On Monday we started a no gluten, no refined , no preservatives, no nothing in the the grub change in diet. We already do the last part but moving away from gluten is going to be interesting. BTW this also includes sugar – the white stuff.

I read this blog called “Gluten Free Girl”, long before I started this blog – Shauna’s recipe for grilled/broiled peaches is divine. Her blog is personable and the food that she and her chef hubby make has always been intriguing to me. I never thought that I would actually be making a life style change and the gluten free community is where I would need to turn to because let’s face it – I love bread, pizza, cake and all the other sins of baking. I have no shame, and yes I love stuff I am not suppose to have. I am human and not some saint after all.

You see I only weigh 104 lbs but I do love the goodies. This simply goes to show that weight has absolutely nothing to do with health or how you feel. I have no energy, doing a 4-6 mile hike puts me in nappy time mode. I have no motivation, I push myself everyday to do what I need to do. Might by explained by the lack of energy. I go through phases of depression for no apparent reason-loathing the city I live in may be part of that, but still. The light headed feeling I can really do without. These are just a few of the many. It’s all rather complex. However I really need to do something with stress I like to pretend that I don’t have. We all have stress it just comes in different forms, that’s all.

So I am taking a couple supplements – made from whole foods to re-balance my pituitary which will filter down to my adrenal which will stop robbing my thyroid. I already drink greenie (sea and land veggie + algea) smoothies for breakfast with hemp powder for almost a year now and I could only just imagine what my TSH would have looked like had I not. I am 7 days clean from eating gluten and sugar and eat a very limited amount of carbs. My body is too taxed out right now to deal with having too many carbohydrates to deal with. What I have already figured out very quickly is that I do not eat enough food throughout the day. I have to figure out how how to deal with this and now I understand why I seek out junk food. My workplace is full of it, everywhere I look there it is, gluten and sugar.

What I find which has been interesting is since yesterday after 3.5 mile hike – very easy, btw – we ate, we went shopping and I was exhausted. I took a nap – not unusual for me – and when I woke up I felt light heated, dizzy, floaty – if you will, high without the stuff. Today I feel a little better. The dizzy spells, much less than yesterday, are making me a little crazy. I figure the best way to calm the crazies is put a little jazz on and start cooking hoping tomorrow will be a better day.