Thursday, January 2, 2014

Coconut oil saves the day


As any of the readers of my previous blog will tell you, I am not the most... consistant writer, shall we say. Life gets busy, I get tired and I just don't have any desire to sit and write a post at the end of my day. Once I do start, of course, I remember that I enjoy writing and I usually find I have a lot to say.

So, here's the story so far:

December 31st-
I had a break in the day during which time I was going to prep for oncoming month. I roasted a chicken. I have roasted chickens before and my preferred seasonings are lemon and butter (or butter-like substitue). I don't know if it was the Ghee, or that it's been a while since I roasted a chicken, but I nearly smoked myself out of the house. In December. In Massachusetts. The fans were on and the windows were open, letting in plenty of sub-freezing air and eventually clearing everything out.
Once that was done, I carved the chicken and threw the bones into a pot and filled it with water until the top of the bones were covered. Once it started boiling, I took it off the heat and dumped the lot into my crock pot. The reason for this extra step is that it works best to boil the water first, and crock pots (though magical) do not bring things to a boil. I cooked the stock on high for 24 hours. By the next morning I had delicious Bone-broth soup. Breakfast of champions.
I also made a salad dressing of Olive oil, apple Cider vinegar and an assortment of spices.

Symptoms:
Sinus headache/migraine/death-like pain
GI unpleasantness



January 1st-
I had some bone broth for breakfast. For lunch I pan-fried chicken and made carrot fries cooked in coconut oil. Coconut oil is the greatest thing in the world. The carrots didn't taste like carrots. They tasted incredible.
That afternoon I was working again. I packed up some cold chicken, spinach salad with carrots and zucchini and some dressing in a separate container. I also brought a lemon because well, why not?
Again, I pan fried the chicken (notice a pattern) and threw it into the salad. Thus dinner was served.

Symptoms:
3rd day of sinus pain. Tried Neti pot many times, flonase. Nothing helped.
Possibly less GI unpleasantness

January 2nd
I try not to focus too much on weight. However, one of the reasons I thought it might be a good idea to heal my stomach is that my weight has been steadily increasing the last four or five months, regardless of how often I would go running during the week, or how much I would eat. My weight continued to rise and stopped at 160. I haven't weighed this much since freshman year of college. Nothing I did changed it. However, one day after starting this odd diet, I am at 157. While I'm not taking too much stock in this and will not focus too heavily on it, that did tell me that perhaps my stomach really does need to heal.

I am a nanny and I work for an amazing family. This does help certain aspects of this journey. For instance, I can bring raw carrots and turn them into fries at work, instead of preparing everything beforehand. The difficulty with this job is that one of their children has a severe peanut allergy and I, not looking carefully enough at the label (which is weird), discovered that the coconut oil I love so much is made on equipment that is used to also make peanut oil. Therefore I cannot cook with it at their house. A small price to pay, I assure you, but carrot fries cooked in olive oil... not quite the same thing. It was a very off day. The food in general just didn't taste as good, now that the novelty is gone, and I was hungrier throughout the day. I would eat and still feel hungry. However, I'm not sure if that was true hunger or just stomach acid acting weird, as it will sometimes do. I also noticed I was lightheaded if I stood up too fast. That, thankfully, went away around mid-afternoon.
So I was feeling a bit disheartened when I came home and started preparing dinner: meatballs. I shredded carrots and zucchinis and sauteed them in a pan. Then I mixed them with 1 part beef, 1 part pork (yeah, for this experiment- Kosher is almost completely out the window. Just for now.) I put the meatballs in a muffin tin lined with coconut oil. Oh. Man. That coconut oil strikes again! I don't know what the secret is, but everything that I cook in coconut oil just comes out amazing. Freakin awesome dinner, with leftovers for tomorrow!!


The Long and short of it:
This morning- Bone broth soup for breakfast.
Chicken and carrots for lunch.
Dinner- the most amazing meatballs ever.


Symptoms:
No more sinus pain!!! Friggin hallelujah!!!!!!!
Fatigue after eating, lightheadedness/dizziness upon standing around midday (went away around 3pm)
Noticeably less GI unpleasantness

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