Tea Party and Week One Recap
Week One: DONE. It has been incredibly hard but certainly successful. Michelle and I have both experienced intense die-off symptoms (flu-like aches and pain, brain fog, fatigue, and irritability) all week. I have not had a chance to take any time off work and rest, which has just made my symptoms worse. The initial die-off is supposed to last up to two weeks; I'm seriously hoping we'll be lucky and start feeling better before the two-week mark. So does our poor family who's had to put up with us this week!
A slight increase in low blood sugar episodes notwithstanding, the only thing I have been intensely craving is coffee. Before the cleanse, I drank very little coffee, except on really bad SEID flare days. This week, every day has been an "I-can't-get-through-the-day-without-coffee" kind of flare day. I'm counting the days until I finish the cleanse and can drink coffee again.
But this weekend, I awesomely navigated two difficult situations: a tea party and a pie auction. I ate before the tea party and just snacked on berries (and one small bite of chocolate) during the tea. For the pie auction, I made a delicious gluten/casein/sugar-free lemon tart (find this recipe and many other candida-friendly recipes at candocandidadietfoodandrecipes.blogspot.com) and didn't feel deprived at all. Michelle even liked it-win!
I've been bribing Michelle all week with bacon and eggs for breakfast. This week, I want to cut down on pork, so today I secretly switched out the bacon for turkey bacon, which she wasn't thrilled with, but she grudginly ate it. This week certainly has not been fun for her, but she has stuck to the plan faithfully and I am very proud of her. Other imrpovements in store this week: I am making my first-ever batch of bone broth today, and I will start soaking grains/seeds tomorrow. This week, Michelle will be eating properly prepared grains (and some blue corn chips, which I'm going to attempt to sneak out of her diet next week), while I'm attempting to go grain-free. Which means small servings of sweet potatoes, my absolute favorite food, every day :) Bring on week two!
