So, I wanted to give a brief update of what I'm hoping I'll be able to do with the blog. It's going to take a bit of a turn compared to the types of recipes and things that I have been posting.
Background
For quite some time now (years) I've been dealing with some degree of joint pain and headaches/migraines, along with some other more insignificant symptoms. Throughout college the pain got worse and at the end of my last semester (Fall, a little over 2 years ago) I went to the doctor to see what was "wrong with me". Well, she got an MRI scheduled. No tumors or anything. Good news. So, after being told that I would just probably live with the joint pain (at that point in time it wasn't excruciatingly awful) and pop some pills for the migraines, I was on my way. As soon as my husband and I decided that we wanted to try to have kids, I went off the migraine prescription. I got pregnant very shortly after we started trying, and throughout my pregnancy I experienced very few headaches and little joint pain. About 3 months after she was born, it all came flooding back... only this time it was worse. I was headache-free MAYBE twice a week and a lot of the headaches were more on the migraine level. I was having a good joint-pain-level if the pain was isolated to only one part of my body or one side (i.e. just my ankles, or just the joints in my right leg). Many days, however, all of the joints in my lower extremities throbbed. For a while I just decided to continue to live with it. However, once my daughter was old enough that she wanted to start playing with me and I felt like I could barely even open my eyes or get up off the couch to switch over the laundry, I knew that I needed to figure this thing out. I also became pregnant again a few months back, so I really need to have good energy to be a good mom to two little kids less than 1 1/2 years apart.
I started reading some things about different food lifestyles. I cut out dairy for a while, thinking that might help me because other family members have dairy sensitivities. I wasn't feeling any major difference. My sister directed me to one of her friends from high school that had experienced some similar symptoms to what I had. I talked to her, and she introduced me to the Paleo lifestyle. {I'm being careful to call this a lifestyle and not a diet because diet has a connotation to it that I want to avoid.} To learn more about Paleo, this is a good place to start. You can also google "Paleo" to get a plethora of information and blogs. I have been eating "mostly" Paleo for just over two weeks now, and I feel quite a bit better, but I'm noticing that my mindset about food is not changing at all because all I was simply doing was "Paleoizing" comfort foods that I wanted to continue to eat. It really needs to be about refocus, which is why starting out Paleo the right way is so important.
As of yesterday, I started Whole30. Yes, I am 18 weeks pregnant. Yes, I talked to my OB to make sure that cutting out grains, dairy, and the added junk food completely out of my diet was okay. Yes, I'm making sure that I get plenty of good fats. No, I don't think eating grains in necessary for a "healthy" life. Thanks for your concern. : ) I decided that I wanted to blog my journey about Whole30 and my new Paleo lifestyle so that 1) I can track my progress as to how I am feeling, and what I am eating to see if I find any new correlations, 2) I can share the Paleo lifestyle with others who may or may not hear about it otherwise, 3) help hold myself accountable in one more way. Starting off, the recipes that I post will primarily be links to other websites that I have found to be very helpful. Perhaps I will, on occasion, become inspired to create a "new" recipe, or at least one that I thought of without looking up first.
I hope you follow me along my journey. Hopefully I will be able to publish a post about my journey every day to update how I'm feeling.
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