In pursuit of health

I'll preface this with an apology...I'm going to talk about weight/food/diet and I usually hate all of that talk. Also, this is absurdly long.

In 7th grade, my English teacher dubbed me a "firecracker." She said that I got super fired up about a project/idea only to shortly thereafter fizzle out. I was insulted, but I couldn't help but admit that she was somewhat accurate in her assessment of me. I think I just get obsessed with things very easily but I have neither the time nor the attention span to sustain those obsessions.

Fast forward to today, and I have diets on my mind. I would really like for this to not be a firecracker fad. The thing is, I've never been good at diets. Until I went away to college, I tried my damnedest to gain weight and could not. The cruel 6th graders used to call me "Stick-Stickly" (anyone remember that talking popsicle stick from Nickelodeon?) and "Twigessa." Then in 7th and 8th grade, I grew 8 inches in 2 years! So to say I was unattractively skinny is to put it mildly. I ate whatever I wanted and lamented that Seventeen and YM constantly preached about body image and losing weight, but never touched on difficulties that come with being too skinny.

College. No one warned me that beer every night, 5am pizza runs and breakfast and lunch at the cafeteria could negatively impact my body. You would think a smart girl would know that, but I either didn't know or I didn't care. I gained the freshman 25. This is WHILE I played volleyball. For the first time that summer, I actually dieted. I worked out. I cut out anything sugary, fatty or highly caloric from my diet. I lost all that weight before going back to school for my sophomore year.

The following four years living in New York, I was much closer to my normal weight, but always a bit on the heavier side of that. As many New Yorkers do (or at least Manhattanites), we ordered delivery A LOT. I was too lazy to work out regularly. I enjoyed drinking a bit too much.

PJO and I moved to CA in 2006 and I instantly dropped 5 pounds. I still don't work out regularly (although I'm fairly active), but I also don't eat as much as often. Once I started having kids, my normal weight dropped about 10-15 pounds.

So here I am, about to turn 29 and I never even think about my weight or size of clothing or how what I eat affects either of those (because it doesn't). I like a lot of food, healthy and unhealthy, so I always just eat what I feel like getting and assume there will be a balance. My weakness is sweets, I completely indulge with no portion control, but I wasn't motivated to change that. And yet, I need to go on a diet.

Somewhat surprisingly, it has very little to do with the dietitian we met with. I have been meaning to talk about that, but essentially she told us that she saw no problems with Timmy's diet, thahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift she thinks he's healthy and just needs to be more active to be at a healthy weight.

This has to do with my lungs. The 2 minute background is that I have had asthma since I was little. Not the kind where I have asthma attacks but the kind where every cold turns into something awful. Over Christmas break of my junior year of college, right before I went to study abroad in Spain, I had double pneumonia. I thought it was the flu (per the diagnosis from Columbia's health center) and sat on my dad's couch for a few days, unable to do anything. Finally, my mom made me go to the hospital when she saw me. I thought she was crazy for overreacting, but it turns out it was good she did. The ER doctor said that if I had waited another day, I might have died. My blood oxygen level was at like 60% or something crazy low. I had pneumonia in 3 of the four lobes in my lungs. I was put on IVs (I had 5 bags on my "Christmas tree" at a time) and I was in the hospital for 3 or 4 days. I had never before felt so weak or been in so much pain (and at that point, I had been through "bad" cases of chicken pox, Mono and Shingles). I argued and fought with doctors to make them let me go to Spain as scheduled, and, like any 20 year old, I felt invincible. I recovered (obviously), but I feel like my lungs never FULLY recovered.

This past year, I had bronchitis about 8 times. My form of asthma essentially causes my body to produce too much mucus, so every cold started as a sinus infection and 1 day later, it would all be dripping down into my lungs. I was miserable. I decided to make an appointment to see the lung specialist I saw when I had the pneumonia.

He said to me, "it's probably the asthma. When you get sick, you'll need to ask me to prescribe you a steroid and you should reduce foods that cause mucus in your diet." Guess what those foods are? Red meat, white flour, white sugar, dairy, caffeine and chocolate. I mean, everything wonderful in this world has just been flagged as dangerous.

I know people are told to adjust their diets all the time and usually they don't listen. My father in law had a heart attack at a young age and he eats lots of terrible stuff. But my mom was talking to me about the pneumonia the other day, telling me about how she sat by my bed in the hospital and watched the number on the blood oxygen monitor hover for hours at the level her dad's did when he was hospitalized with leukemia. She told me how she really thought I might not live. And I lived through it, but the gravity of the situation didn't hit me until now. Thinking about ever seeing my kids or husband like that, or how difficult it would be if I couldn't be there for them, made me realize I need to do what I can to make myself healthy. And yes, I love cheese and cupcakes, but if I have to give those up for a while to see if my lungs clear up, the mature thing to do is give that a shot.

My plan is to be as strict as I can for March and see how I feel. I can always gradually add back some of what I like to eat. Even if this diet makes no difference for my lungs, it was time for me to cut back on sweets and dairy anyway. I am guessing that if it makes a difference, I won't want to go back to eating like I used to. So for March, I am trying to eat vegetarian except for fish and chicken once a week each. I'm not letting myself have any sweets if I can help it. I wanted to cut out wheat completely, but I'm sure some whole wheat will sneak in there. Dairy will be excruciating, so I'll probably let myself have a piece of cheese or yogurt every so often.

I had no idea how hard it is to find breakfast foods that have no eggs, no dairy, no meat and no wheat. This morning I had oatmeal with walnuts, honey, banana and berries. It was good, but I will be sick of that in a few days. There are always non-cream soups or veggie sandwiches without bread for lunch. With gluten free pasta, rice and quinoa, I think I can come up with plenty of dinner ideas. If anyone has any ideas for recipes to try, let me know!