Hi there! How is everyone holding up this Monday? More importantly, did everyone have a great weekend?

I already filled you in on my wonderful Friday dinner date and Saturday Farmer’s Market adventures, so that leaves us with Sunday.

Breakfast

Toasted almond bread with almond butter and honey, eaten while reading the Sunday paper and clipping coupons with my honey. Eating honey with my honey! Ha!

It was a rainy morning, and we were feeling pretty lazy. It took us a while to get up and moving, but eventually we pulled ourselves together and hit up the grocery stores for our usual Sunday shenanigans.

Lunch

Running errands really gets my appetite bumping, so when we got home I immediately started heating up leftover Pablanos in the microwave. I dolloped mine with salsa and had a side of cooked carrots with cinnamon on the side.

I also had an apple without the skin, and a bite or two of almond butter for dessert.

Then I was off to the gym. I jogged on the elliptical for 40 minutes, changing the incline and resistance every 5 minutes to keep my body guessing. I watched the Olympics and read my magazine during commercials. How perfect!

Dinner

I made baked chicken with cherries and olives in a wine sauce. I’m hoping to share this recipe with you soon; most likely this week at some point. It was very good!

My cooking process could be tweaked a little bit, because it can be made faster than the way I made it, so I think I will provide you with the revised version of the recipe; the way I would make it if I made it again.

With dinner, I served myself a side of quinoa, yes quinoa a whole grain which is not SCD legal, which leads me to my next topic…

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Specific Carbohydrate Diet and My U.C.

Moving on to more serious matters. If you have been following my blog lately you know that I have been trying my darn best to follow the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) to try to help regulate my current ulcerative colitis flare. If you are new to my blog, welcome!, and you can get caught up on this U.C. stuff real quick (click on the hyperlinks below):

Starting the Specific Carbohydrate Diet

Day 2 of the SCD

Feeling Overwhelmed with the SCD

I am going to be completely and 100% honest with you. My journey with this diet has been has been a bumpy one. After deciding that I was going to give this diet a try, I dove in headfirst. At only 1 week in, I was feeling about 80% better compared to before I began the diet. I was thrilled to be feeling so much better, and although I was finding meal and snack preparation very tedious and challenging being that I leave the home for work, I had decided it was worth it and I was going to stick it out.

Over the course of time however, I had multiple breakdowns. It was mostly because I was absolutely exhausted from all of the food prep and finding myself spending every minute, no more like hour that I had, in the kitchen when I would have much rather been hanging out with Dana or enjoying the weather outside. There were multiple times where I said I can’t do this, but then I continued on with it.

At about week 3-4, things really started to fall apart for me. My symptoms beginning to worsen, and I was beginning to feel very sad and down. I felt like that with all of this work with maintaining this strict diet, that there should be no reason for me to be digressing with my healing. But, I have done plenty of research on this diet and know that these symptoms are very common around this time while on the diet, and that they get better. I do believe this, but I also know that I need to make some changes, because this is not working for me.

What I’m realizing now, is that this diet is actually stressing me out more than I can handle. I have become lethargic and finding myself hesitating to reply to social obligations because I don’t know if I will have enough energy at times. The preparation and strict guidelines are exhausting me and also not fitting in with my lifestyle.

I have tried so hard to stay tough, but in the big picture, I need to make decisions for my body based on what my heart is telling me and what my body is telling me, not what I am reading from an online forum. Everyone is different and everybody reacts differently. I have said it a million times.

I truly support and believe in the SCD and all of the science that backs it up, but for my happiness and sanity, I have decided to deviate very slightly from the SCD. I am still going to follow a very low-carb diet and follow the SCD mostly, but I will explain my modifications.

My Modified Diet

1. Gluten-free Grains: I am going to continue to live as gluten-free as possible and eat minimal grains. On occasion, I will be including gluten-free grains such as quinoa, into my diet. Quinoa is an excellent source of protein and will help me and my non-loving meat ways, to help amp up my protein intake, and hopefully improve my energy as well. This will be the biggest change I make to my diet.

2. Fruits & Veggies: These will continue to make up a large portion of my diet. I am going to continue to experiment with adding fruits and veggies back into my diet. I will see how my body reacts, and progress gradually as I feel appropriate. I may start to include soy back into my diet as well.

3. Meat & Dairy: Nothing will change from the meat category as pretty much all meat is legal. As far as dairy goes, I may be switching to non-fat Greek yogurt or a soy-based yogurt. I may also begin to incorporate store-bought Almond milk. I will mostly stick to SCD cheeses.

4. Sauces and Misc: I will continue to be cautious of ingredients listed on store-bought sauces, however I am not going to limit myself completely to every last legal ingredient in the sauce. I will do my best to find simple sauces with limited additives so as to continue to live a clean diet.

Chocolate! I am going to allow myself to eat chocolate just not in excessive amounts. It is one of my very favorite foods and treats, and it is something that I no longer want to sacrifice. I swear, one bite of chocolate every day will be what heals me eventually.

Beverages. I am not much of a “drinker” so this one hasn’t been difficult for me. I enjoy an occasional glass of wine, and this is allowed being that I like “legal” wines for the most part. I may begin to include flavor waters again such as Vitamin Water and Powerade Zero, as I have two full bags of it sitting in the basement from prior to the diet.

Heart on the Line

Writing this plan out for you all to see is slightly terrifying. The last thing I want is for those of you following this diet to think that I am a failure because I’m not following it completely as prescribed or haven’t given it enough time. I just know in my heart, that this is not a good fit for me. I understand that with the addition of some of the illegal foods back into my diet, I am reintroducing some bad bacteria into my gut that my body doesn’t like. I really feel that with these slight modifications, and being that I am still going to stick to a very clean diet and limiting the “bad” stuff, that my body will still continue to heal and I will be able to stick this diet out and feel like myself again.

Food is my passion. I am a foodie. Having to be so selective with my diet isn’t something that fits my lifestyle. I will continue to do my best and make wise choices and will continue to fill you in on my health status along the way. I want to reiterate that I will still be following the SCD most of the time only with slight modifications.

I am tired of being an emotional rollercoaster, and not acting or feeling like myself. I need to take care of me and make decisions that support my best well-being. It’s time to be me again.

This is by far the most challenging post I’ve written thus far. Thank you for supporting me and bearing through this lengthy post. My vulnerable heart has been poured out to you.

I will catch up with you all soon. Enjoy your day!