A change of pace, and back to basics.

I've been moving back to an old way of eating recently.

At one point in time, I was completely paleo.  I was excessively ill a few years ago, would up in the hospital, couldn't walk right, had terrible headaches, etc. 

None of the doctors could figure out what was wrong.  It was frustrating, exhausting and the medical bills were ridiculous.  (Thankfully I had good insurance at the time and had no out of pocket expenses, but still.  The strain I put on the system was crazy.)

So I tried something radical.  I went paleo.

I felt great.  But it was crazy to keep up with that kind of lifestyle when I was out and about so much, and I was also a student and could barely afford rent in super-expensive Boston, let alone the grocery bills the diet racked up.

I've had a love/hate relationship with paleo/Primal for the past few years.  I feel amazing.  I love the way I feel.  I HATE how expensive the diet is.  I didn't exactly like how much cooking I had to do.

But things have changed now.  I'm tethered to my home because I have a baby who needs her naps, so if we leave the house, it's only for a few hours here and there.  I am now obsessed with my crockpots, which is actually a very easy way to make great paleo meals.  My husband works full time and I consult for my firm, so we have the means to make a diet like this work.

I didn't really "mean" to go paleo.  I just sort of only ate paleo foods for a day as a fluke, and I couldn't believe how great I felt that night.  ESPECIALLY because the baby was teething and sick and we weren't getting any sleep --- I just couldn't believe that I felt energized and I wasn't achy -- something that usually happens to me when I don't get enough sleep or when I am stressed out.

It was a fluke, but I knew it was because I hadn't had any non-paleo foods in the last 48 hours.  I've "gone paleo" enough times over the last few years to know that, for me, the benefits are almost immediate.  (I've read blogs and accounts from others who say it takes them upwards of two weeks to actually start to feel good eating paleo.)  I was happier.  I was nicer, according to my husband.  I was able to multi-task better.  When the baby woke up in the middle of the night, I was immediately alert, as opposed to other times, when I'm groggy for at least the first 15 minutes or so.

Will BEGGED me to stay paleo last week.  I hemmed and hawed, saying it's just SO EXPENSIVE and some quinoa or gluten free bread every now and then wouldn't be too hard on me.  And lentils were okay, too. 

Will informed me that I am not the easiest to be around after I eat legumes.  I'm cranky, I don't feel as great and I'm more tired. 

Guilty as charged.  I try to not be cranky, but I know I am. 

And then Will said something that I couldn't really disagree with:

"We don't go out to eat hardly ever.  We don't stop at Starbucks and get coffee every day.  We don't take crazy expensive trips.  You get the baby's clothing on Craigslist or freecycle or from friends.  You MAKE your own baby food.  You coupon for free paper towels and shaving cream.  There is enough extra because of this to afford large amounts of high-quality grass-fed meat and mostly organic produce.  And even if there wasn't, YOU FEEL BETTER THIS WAY AND YOU HAVE MORE ENERGY FOR YOUR FAMILY.  We can't afford for you NOT to eat this way."

Can't argue with that.  It's true.  

So I've gone back to paleo, and it's been a week since then.  And I feel great, and feel more energized and am thinking more clearly every day.  (This is actually odd, since we haven't been sleeping well since the little lady has been cutting something like four teeth.  Teething has been BRUTAL with her.) 

But what about the husband and baby?

They are not going paleo.

Will is still going to eat basically what I do, but he has asked that I make batches of beans and rice, or quinoa or something "starchy and carby" for him to eat so he can fill up on those foods.  With the amount of food that he eats, it really would be tough on us if he went full paleo.  And he says he just really doesn't need that - he feels great on more of a Zone-food diet, anyways.

The baby will eat lots of meat and veggies, as she always has.  But she will still have plenty of organic dairy products, and I will still have her eating some grains (mostly the multigrain Trader Joe's O's) and lots of sweet potatoes. 

I'm stuck at home a lot, anyways.  I was making most of our food from scratch to begin with.  I have a Meat CSA that I LOVE, and we get a huge box of produce every week from our produce CSA and have a great farmer's market nearby.  Trader Joe's is less than two miles away from our house.  I DON'T WORK FULL TIME ANYMORE - probably the biggest reason WHY we can do this.

It's going to be tough for me to swallow my couponing pride and do this, but I just can't argue with Will's logic here.  I do feel better this way.  I understand that in the long run (and short run) it is the right thing for me.  I've been a vegan, and that lasted four days.  I've tried to be a vegetarian, and that lasted a few months, and I've never felt worse.  I've done Zone-diet foods, and I've done gluten free, and while I certainly didn't feel terribly, I didn't feel great, either.

What works for me is Paleo. 

So today:

Breakfast:

Pork sausage patty (courtesy of Meat CSA goodness)
Hardboiled Egg
The half of a banana the baby didn't eat

Snack:

Apple

Lunch:

Leftover Thai Chicken Soup
One leftover Omega 3-enriched meatball (dinner last night)
HUGE SALAD

Snack:

Almond milk and frozen fruit smoothie

Dinner:

Eggplant Lasagna
Sauteed Green Beans

THE. BEST. PANCAKES..... EVER!

Yes, that pretty much sums it up. 

I was hungry and wanted a snack tonight, but wasn't sure what to make.  After all, we pretty much have lettuce left from the CSA haul last week, and since I've already had a salad AND steamed kale, I'm pretty much greened-out for the day.

So I took to the Googler for some inspiration.

And I found these.

And I can't believe how easy they are to make, and I can't believe they taste so amazingly delicious and I can't believe how they are actually totally Paleo/Primal. 

1 banana
1 tablespoon almond butter
1 egg

Whip them together, and carefully!! fry them up like pancakes.  (They are much more delicate than a regular pancake, so be careful when flipping.) 

And then snack and smile and go to bed happy.

...am I getting dumber?

It was my greatest fear with quitting my job and staying home.

I would get dumber.

My job kept me pretty sharp.  My boss was actually very intelligent (something I can't say about all bosses I've ever had) and the people I worked with were, for the most part, some of the most intelligent people I've ever known.

And the work itself was challenging.  New accounts, forensic accounting, piles of data, huge projects to structure, infrastructure development, etc.

So I was worried when I quit that I would get dumber, because I wouldn't have those same mental exercises every day.  Don't use it - lose it, right? 

And to a certain extent, it's been true.  I'm mixing up words.  I'm making up new words.  I'm using fewer words on a daily basis.  It's somewhat tougher for me to speak in complex sentences.

I have a feeling some of this could be explained by just being with a baby for most of my time now.  I speak in simple sentences for much of the day.  I use simpler words.  And I'm (mostly) always distracted by the baby, so I don't have my full attention on speaking to my husband, the friend that's over, etc. 

I checked out a book on hyperconsumerism to read at the library today, and I'll admit, it was tough reading that first chapter this afternoon during nap time.  I used to breeze through dense reading like that.  But two months of not reading contracts every day, and suddenly it's tough again.

The flip side of things is that since I'm not spending all of my energy on being sharp and smart at work, I'm enjoying my daughter more, and noticing things I never noticed before.

... and that's something I'm okay with being a little dumb for.  :-)

... and we have a diagnosis!

The baby has had these little bumps and rash around her mouth off and on for the last month or so.

It gets worse, then it gets better.

And then it gets worse again.

And then it gets better.

No tweaking of diet, changing detergent, or using different shampoo has worked.  After a bad reaction to some frozen yogurt, we pulled her off dairy for five days, only to give her a big bottle of cow's milk last night and to see NO REACTION whatsoever.  Same with gluten.  And eggs.  And so on.

It was very frustrating.

Two different primary care doctors weren't able to help us.  "Sometimes babies just get rashes.  I wouldn't worry about it."  Well, I was worrying about it, and so I didn't listen to them.

Thankfully our insurance doesn't require these primary care doctors to refer us to a specialist; we just went ahead and made an appointment with a pediatric dermatologist ourselves. 

And after visiting with two specialists today, we now know that the baby has Perioral Dermatitis. 

It's not alarming, and it's not terribly uncommon (though the specialists weren't surprised that the primary care doctors weren't able to diagnose it correctly) and we can treat it with topical antibiotics for six weeks and see how she responds to them.  We're not crazy about giving her low doses of antibiotics for extended periods of time, but since it's the standard of care for this condition, we're okay trying it for six weeks and re-evaluating in the fall.  She may have problems off and on for a few years, and we may have to periodically use the topical antibiotics to correct it again.  But the specialists assured me that it wasn't anything that would scar or lead to other problems, and it would likely be gone in a few years.

It's odd she has it: we done use flouride toothpaste for her, and that can trigger this.  And we don't use steroid creams for her either, which can also trigger it.  It's also especially common in children with darker skin, and our baby is about as white as they come.  So you can't blame the average doctor for not thinking of it.  But the specialists said they had seen cases where a baby had been very sick with something else (like the roseola we had back in June) and when their immune system is compromised (like with the strep we had last week) sometimes it just happens.

Saliva and food getting on her face can make it worse almost instantly, which is why we thought that perhaps the oatmeal/yogurt/anything else she was eating and getting on her face was causing the problem.  It makes it worse, yes.  But thankfully it's not the root of the problem.

I can stop freaking out about food allergies, because they said that it would be freakishly bizarre if what the baby had turned out to be a food allergy and NOT Perioral Dermatitis.  They didn't say "freakishly bizarre" -- I think they said something like "extraordinarily unlikely" -- but in any case, the Google calendar for all the foods she was eating can be safely ignored now.

We're still learning and reading about this, and I suspect we will have a LOT of follow-up questions for our follow-up visit with the specialists.  But for right now, we're just happy to have an answer from two rock-star, top of their field specialists.

Living in the Boston area certainly has some perks, and solid medical care is definitely one of them.  We have some of the highest concentrations of some of the best trained doctors in the world, and seeing specialists like the ones I saw today really is reassuring. 

We're all going to be okay.  If anything, when things like this happen, I just remind myself that we're ever so blessed that our biggest concern right now is a slight skin rash.