Beating That Gluten-y Horse!!

I hate to do it but I can't seem to help myself.  I keep revisiting the ol' gluten issue.  I let something creep into my diet last week and didn't realize it until early this week when the rash came up.  I know what it was.  It was something that I started eating, regularly, and it was manufactured on shared equipment.  That is always the toughest for me since I can rationalize the reason why it is most likely safe.  But then someday I will learn that "most likely" doesn't mean "IS" safe.  In fact, in that situation, I usually don't have a strong immediate reaction.  Instead, I have low grade symptoms that build over time and are often mistaken for things like a mild virus, nervous stomach, dehydration, or training fatigue.  I may at this point overlook the fact that there was that subtle little warning on the label and continue to eat the culprit food.  Then the rash comes and it becomes clear why I have been feeling lousy.

I spent last weekend feeling miserable and did not workout at all over the weekend.  You don't need to know the gory details but suffice to say, I felt miserable.  I thought I had the flu, was really run down, that my joints were killing me from working too much and my GI tract was angry from coffee.

Then the rash came up.

Gluten.  Dammit!

Wednesday, feeling mostly recovered I had a dish at a Vietnamese restaurant that should by all rights be gluten free.  The waiter didn't really understand but the recipe is generally pretty safe... unless they use cheap rice noodles that have a percentage of wheat flour in them.  I believe this is what happened.  I was horribly ill all afternoon.  I missed both my workouts for the day and slept most of the afternoon.  I was awake for a while in the evening with a crushing migraine, then went to bed and slept it off for twelve hours.

The next day I felt a little better but I was still getting sick following each meal.  I had to take a nap after each time I ate, like digestion was an exhausting process.  Fortunately, I felt fine otherwise and logged two very sharp workouts.

The problem is three missed workouts in less than seven days.  That is not okay.  I am trying to maintain a modicum of consistency and that becomes impossible with these health issues flaring up.  If I continue to make mistakes, I will have to go back to logging every bite of food that I eat, tracking my sleep, and monitoring my well-being, not to mention avoid eating out and boil myself back down to the very basic (boring) diet that I was using when I was first trying to get this under control.  If I make another bone-headed mistake, this will need to be my next step.

These days, I have the healthiest relationship with food and my body that I have ever had in my life.  I am eating intuitively, losing weight at a healthy pace, feeling good (when the gluten isn't a problem), training well... all good stuff.  If I bring back the food journal, I am afraid that I will go back to a less healthy outlook on food which can be a very slippery slope for me.

Over the years, I have struggled with my eating, probably to the point of disordered eating (having bounced from binge eating, to binge/purge, to starving myself, and back again), and the freedom from that in recent months has been a blessing.  I have worked to separate my emotions from food, to address things at their source... if I feel out of control, instead of responding by either binging (mirroring the feeling) or starving myself (manipulating food for a feeling of control), then I try to fix the part of my life that actually IS out of control.  Food has been relegated to it's proper place... as fuel, and meals have become low stress, sometimes social events.

That is all wonderful, except that I have basically poisoned myself twice in recent weeks.  That cannot keep happening.  It is interfering with my training and straining my overall health.  Today I feel better than I did yesterday and with care, I should feel even better tomorrow.  I understand that I am having to relearn more than three and a half decades of eating habits and that is not a quick or foolproof process.  I just hope that if I have to go back to journaling my food that I can keep it in perspective and not lose the intuitive, relaxed quality of my current patterns.

Life has a learning curve.  It looks like this.

Paleo Diets and More On The Topic Of Boulders!

I read an article today on whether or not the paleo diet is right for runners.  I almost never comment on articles like this, especially when it involves using my real name!!  However, I did comment...

from the article... link above.

The picture is the best part of the article. I tend to think articles like this are dicey because every body is different and will ultimately thrive on a different diet and the more rules there are in a diet, the less it becomes a self-honoring, accountable way of life. However, processed food is generally bad news for almost anyone. I don't follow a Paleo diet but have found that the more I listen to my body, which thinks gluten and dairy are pretty evil, the less I have. Once I got the "poison" out, my desire for anything processed is pretty limited. I have, however, noticed a drop off in digestion and well-being if I stray too far from what works for me... primarily whole foods, mostly veggies, a lot of fruit and plant proteins, a little fish or egg most days. My starches come from sweet potatoes, and occasionally ancient grains or brown rice, and rarely processed gluten/diary free breads or pastas. My primary fat sources are avocados, fish, eggs, and a minimal amount of olive or sesame oil. Aside from being mindful of my protein needs (a banana does not a meal make!), I just find that when in doubt, it should have leaves. The fewer hard and fast "rules" there are, the more likely I am to make a good choice because I want it. Has it worked? Yes... to the tune of 80 lbs and a major leap in performance and overall well-being! Is it a "diet"? No. It's simply what has worked for me.


Diet for me has become less about doing what I am told (unless it is my body doing the telling) and more about figuring out how the components in my diet affect my body, my training, and my life.  If I can identify a need or deficit, I fill it.  If I find a habit or food that is not working for me, I eliminate it or change it's context (meaning anything from not eating solids before a workout to not allowing containers larger than a single serving of certain foods to live in my house to adding a fat source to my smoothies to increase the staying power.)

I experiment with things the way a child tries different puzzle pieces in the space, setting aside the ones that weren't needed at that moment.  The only thing that causes a food to get eliminated is if it causes significant cravings that undermine everything else that I do, or really irritates my GI tract.  So far, the list of foods I refuse to touch is relatively short, but the list of things I will not do at certain times or in certain ways (example: nuts or nut butters kept in quantity in the house or solid food with a high fat content less than four hours before a workout.... all bad plans!)

If something is bothering me or affecting my performance, I pay attention, try to notice a pattern.  Is there a root cause?  Can I tweak something to make an improvement?  My food is my fuel and if I am putting diesel in a gasoline engine then I should expect sub-optimal results.  If I overfill the tank and it overflows onto my shoes, I try to identify an indicator that the tank is nearly full and respect it in future situations.  If I run the engine out of fuel all the time, not only will it refuse to run, but the fuel filter gets all clogged and it affects future performance.  You get the idea.  I actually don't know enough about cars to use an automotive analogy but I am just reckless that way!

Eliminating the scale was a big component for me.  Taking away the obsession about my weight and focusing solely on performance allowed me to begin to develop this attitude about food.  If something doesn't work, I don't have a meltdown, I just don't do that again.  The trial and error process needed the freedom to have error as well as trial to be successful.  When I was monitoring my weight like an overeager investor hovering over the scientist who's research he is funding, I can't be objective.  I can't make training and performance the meters on which I measure the value of a food or habit.

The other big component was coming to terms with my sleep.  By recognizing that I have a broken sleep cycle, and treating it aggressively as a condition rather than simply accepting a sub-par waking existence, I have finally overcome most of the insomnia that has plagued me nearly all of my adult life.  Getting enough sleep.... and staying HYDRATED... curb cravings, allow my body to relax and heal, reduces cortisol (which is basically the on site manager for The Fat Storage Warehouse), and banishes my Chicken Little mindset.

Do you remember my post about the boulders?  These are boulders in the path.  If you find they are there,  then try to push them out of the way to no avail, what do you do?  Well for years, I sat down in front of those boulders and said, this is where my path ends.  Now, my plans include levers, pulleys, and a book titled "How To Move A Boulder" by DW!  And guess what?  It's working.  I feel better and look better than I have in years, not to mention that I am happier and more confident.  Am I done?  Heck no!  I have a huge pile of BIG A$$ ROCKS in my path!!!  I am working on them, chipping away, moving them aside and making significant forward progress.  Some days I achieve great leaps, some days baby steps.  Other days, I am simply treading water or even backsliding a little.  Overall, though, my good choices are outweighing my bad ones and everything (including the ratio of good choices to bad) is trending in a very positive direction.

It doesn't matter what boulder you have in front of you... There is an video article in the Twitter feed about a triathlon camp for veterans that DW and some pros put together.  These men and women have different boulders, but boulders nonetheless.  They are having to figure out their own pulley and lever system.  Whatever your issue is.... If you can take a step back from it emotionally and begin to look at it as a problem with a solution that you simply haven't found YET... then progress will be made.

Wake Up Call

Last week was something of an epic fail for me physically.  I am not really sure what happened but either I got into some gluten (or some allergen I haven't identified??) and was not aware... and had a really powerful reaction, or the stress I put my body under on Tuesday caused a flare up of the autoimmune symptoms.  I don't know.  I won't ever know, most likely.  The fact remains, it happened and I was very sick all week.

In dealing with the details I do have, the latter explanation is the most likely and going with that is my only real option.  I spoke to DW today, like I do every Monday, and it was a raw conversation, full of honesty and very eye opening.  We talked at length about the changes I need to make to attempt to manage my health with my job and balance triathlon in the mix.  The biggest thing is my tendency to prioritize my health, physical and especially mental, very low on the list and that needs to stop.

Diet is a big thing (that means preparing safe foods and eating in a reasonable, regular pattern), but so is sleep and keeping a consistent schedule.  It's not very exciting but in order to treat these symptoms and manage the inflammation in my body, I have to make sameness a part of my routine.  That means everything from planning my meals throughout the week to setting boundaries with my customers and coworkers so that I can have as constant a work/sleep schedule as possible.  Applying the same discipline and stubbornness that I reserve for my training to self-care and self-respect.  I have to muster the mindfulness to eat, sleep, work, and train on a constant schedule.  I need to care for myself and with the same intensity and professionalism I provide to my customers.  My health and well-being must become and stay my top priority.  Without that, I will do nothing else... well, or at all.

We also discussed acknowledging and honoring my need for downtime, me-time, when I am off the hook.  No demands can be made of me and that time is mine to spend as I wish.  Right now, I get to the end of the week with my mental fortitude expended.  I feel run down, exhausted and "under the whip".  It means that while I get my workouts done on my days off, I may not get anything else done.  I literally get so over scheduled that I rip me time out of the schedule at the expense of things like laundry and grocery shopping.  I mentally shut down and disassociate from life.

WHY?  Because I am forcing productivity out of myself even when I am totally sick and exhausted and I am doing it entirely on will power.  I work on it, train on it, take care of my dogs on it, never say no to anyone because I know I can make myself do it.  Until I can't anymore and the only thing I am willing to sacrifice is chores, personal time and my social life.  Work and training are too important... one pays the bills, the other makes me happy.

DW said to me today that my current life was not sustainable.  If I did not make some fundamental changes that I could "kiss triathlon good-bye".  That was a huge wake up call.  Especially since I know he's right.  Too right.  That terrifies me.

But then so does my health.  My fathers family has a colorful history of serious GI conditions and his sister and her daughters health is a mirror image of my own.  I do not know if he had Celiac's but he certainly struggled with GI health daily.  I suspect that he did.

I am two years older than he was when he ran Western States.  I am eight years younger than he was when he died.  That would be the definition of "not sustainable".  (RIP Dad.  I love you and miss you still.)

Today, the silver lining is that I see this.  I have a plan to deal with this.  I spent the day, as I will spend at least one of my days off every week from now on, preparing for next week.  I cleaned.  I went to the grocery.  I spent a little time visiting with a friend.  I ran and will here shortly head to the pool (open until midnight for all of the crazy night owls like me).  I contacted dietitians.  I wrote myself reminders.  I took tangible steps towards fixing the problem.  I put notes on duct tape on the fridge!

My fridge with my mantras

Stress, overwork, lack of nutrition and unstable sleep patterns are bad for anyone.  If you have to manage any kind of autoimmune condition, it is toxic, deadly.  As of today, I am changing my focus and perspective to one that prioritizes my well-being above all else.  Without my health I cannot train, I cannot work.  I am no good to anybody.

The devil is in the details, the simple, little, day to day details.   I am no longer willing to sacrifice everything just to please another person or simply because being organized is hard.  I must stop living like I am about to die.  I am worth more than that.

Putting Pain Into Perspective

So far this week has been very difficult for me physically.  It has been a bad week for fatigue and joint/muscle pain making work and workouts very unpleasant.  I realize that I am going to have these weeks and there is nothing to do but get through them.  Since my attitude is flagging a little bit, I am trying to put some things into perspective.

As a rule, my workweek defines my health week because of the patterns of my sleep schedule.  Tuesdays is the first night of work and generally speaking, I do not sleep at all.  I wake up Monday morning and then go around the clock until Tuesday morning.  Then I am on a daytime sleeping schedule until Sunday, when I nap during the day but sleep a full night.  Mondays are a day off and my patterns are normal.  I have tried on occasion to stay on a night schedule on Sundays and Mondays but it is too hard and I require at least one day of sunshine and normality.  The body knows that night is the time for sleeping and unless I am forced to stay awake, it's just not happening.

I made a mistake on Tuesday for which I am still paying dues.  I ran myself into a state of total depletion by forgetting my nutrition.  Tuesday night I paid and paid and paid for that.  I managed my workouts on Wednesday, although I felt miserable, and on Thursday I got  so dizzy and lightheaded during my intervals that I cut the workout short.  I took yesterday off.  I will run and swim tonight and revisit those intervals tomorrow.

Still, even if I get it all done by the end of the week, somehow I feel like I have failed.  Usually I refrain from writing posts when I feel totally dejected about my performance until after I have spoken to DW.  His way of showing everything in a positive light really helps.  But this is something I need to find terms with on my own.

The effects of the gluten and dairy sensitivities, the raging inflammation that they cause, all of the autoimmune issues that result are something I need to learn to live with.  I made a mistake on Tuesday.  For me, the price of mistakes like that is very high.  However, I am as human as they come and mistakes will happen.  These mistakes, when they happen, feel like huge setbacks and can be very demoralizing.  It does not mean that I am hopeless, a bad athlete, or that I should give up and resign myself to a two dimensional life.   They are just mistakes, albeit painful ones, and the longer I do this, the fewer I will make.

During my twenties, I was a successful martial arts practitioner, undefeated against the women for a number of years before I began seeking special permission to compete in the men's divisions.  While I trained very hard and took care of myself the best way I knew how, I was very, very sick the whole time. The fact that I was young and stubborn allowed me to compensate for this with will and discipline.  That fell apart after a series of injuries that led to two knee surgeries and over a year of physical therapy for my back.  I had to take downtime to heal.  A LOT of downtime.

I always had a saying that if I ever stop moving, I won't be able to start again.  I was about to find out how true that was.  For the next seven years, I froze up, fattened up and got progressively more ill.  I began to genuinely believe that I was fundamentally unhealthy.  I also believed that I was going to die young.




By the summer of 2008, I was in so much pain I could not perform my job, I was nearing 100 lbs overweight, my athletic life was totally trashed, and my body was a mess.  I remember one morning after calling someone to finish my work, something I had never done before, I stood in the bathroom in front of the mirror.  The spasms in my back had twisted my left shoulder down several inches below the right, springing my shoulder blade outward and causing my collarbone to point at a 45 degree angle to the floor.  I was taking 25 ibuprofen to get through a night and the doctor handed me a prescription for oxycontin to manage pain without destroying my heart.  I was totally shocked!  I tore it up as soon as I got into the car but refused to take any more ibuprofen.   I quit my steady job and began working on independent basis so that my obligation was never more than two weeks long, since I had no idea on any day if I could manage it again tomorrow.  I limped through the end of that year, barely functioning.

By January of 2009, I felt like I was totally out of options.  I did the one thing I knew how to do.  All that martial arts training taught me one thing... when in doubt, go to the gym.  I walked into the gym and met a brilliant personal trainer.  We began working together and I started a very long road back to health.  At that point, I couldn't life my arms up high enough to wash my hair.  Every night, working had me gasping for breath and to the point of tears.  Slowly, CE's program began to stabilize my body.  I started dropping some of the weight and the pain began to subside a little.  As I got stronger, I added cardio to the program.  A little swimming, biking and running, but not too much of anything so that I didn't irritate any old injuries.  (You might guess where this ended up going.)

As time went by, I got stronger and stronger.  The more I demanded of myself, the more apparent it became, to CE and I both, that something was wrong.

However the illness was progressing.  It came to a head roughly two and a half years ago when after a particularly bad bout of fatigue, I sent myself in for some blood work.  After the tests, I became lightheaded.  My blood pressure and heart rate plummeted.  I passed out, "brady-ed out" and departed this world for about two minutes.  After my return to this material world, I then found out that I was going to spend all my money on cardiologists and their tests to determine what happened.  (Of course thousands of declined-by-my-insurance-company dollars later, they have no clue.)

Today, I understand that I what is going on with my body.  I am working on controlling it.  I am accepting that it will not be perfect.  There is a learning curve but I am healthier than I have ever been.  I am gaining more and more control by the day and even though sometimes it seems like I am making so many mistakes that make me so ill, at one point I was so much more ill all the time that I thought it was normal!  It is by comparison to my now much healthier self that it seems like such a diseased state.

Sometimes it seems like I have so much road ahead of me.  It seems audacious to the point of ridiculous that I would attempt to train this broken body into the well-oiled machine of a triathlete.  I have a system wide problem plus a laundry list of old injuries.  It feels hopeless.  Still, my worst day today is far better than my best day two years ago.  For once in my life, it seems prudent to save for retirement.  Perhaps when the road ahead seems too long, I need to turn my head and take a peek at the road behind.

But while I do, I'd best keep the handlebars steady and keep turning the cranks or I might fall over!

Accountability, Responsibility.

After a miserable night and a (ahem) turbulent morning, I think I am mostly over the results of yesterdays little wheat germy mishap.  I keep wanting to be pissed at the manufacturer for not having the allergen info in bold on the label (ie. NOT YOUR NORMAL ALMOND BUTTER!!!! BEWARE!!!)... Oh wait, they did.  I simply failed to read it before I ate (or should I say OVERATE) it.

Accountability.  It is at the heart of the issue for me.  I screwed up and I want someone to blame.  I don't want to be at fault.  It is far easier to accept that I have been victimized by the evil corporations in charge of ingredients and labeling (not that they aren't villains most of the time, but that is another topic), than that I was so sloppy and neglectful of my own health and well being.

Accountability.  It's why I have a coach.  It's why I keep a blog.  It's why I try to surround myself with people who pursue wellness and athletic goals.  There is so much in life that I have no control over that I scarcely need to voluntarily give up the control I do have.  I made a choice to eat something without reading the label.  Of course, I also chose to buy it without reading the label.  And I chose to eat something that someone else prepared instead of making sure I had enough safe, healthy food available at all times.  I chose not to prepare for the post-workout meal.  I left the house without any safe nutrition in my bag (or water, I might add) so when I left the pool I was ravenous, light headed and desperate for something, anything.

All of that set the stage for the scene that unfolded later.  I got home from the grocery store and ripped into the almond butter (about the only comfort food left to me) and gluten free bread (which I never buy unless I am having control issues) and set about eating too much of something that made me ill.

DW has stressed to me that I need to always have water on me, always be hydrating, and that I need to make sure I have safe nutrition at appropriate intervals, regardless of how much forethought and planning it might require.  Simple concept, but like a threshold workout, not always easy.

But then who promised that changing the body and the habits I have had since childhood would be easy.  It is not.  It's not supposed to be easy.  If it was, there would be no obesity, no heart disease, and people would all decorate their perfect bodies with all the medals from their Olympic achievements.  But the difficulty of the task does not absolve me of the responsibility I have to my health.

I TRI for fun, to provide an outlet for my competitive nature, and to feel good.  Training also involves doing something.  For me, doing is easy.  It is a positive quantity, something I can understand.  Often times, however, good nutrition is as much about what you don't do as what you do.  The negative quantity that is not about exerting force but restraining action.  This is SOOOOO much harder for me to manage and from the looks of national statistics, I am not alone in this canoe.

WHO Puts WHEAT in Almond Butter!?!?

Yesterday was a good day.  Had another run-in with that wall during some threshold intervals.  I am convinced that the culprit is nutrition (more on that in a moment).  Still, I recovered quickly and got to play in NYC for the day with MVF, the cycling fiend.  For a change, we wore things like denim and wool instead of spandex and well, more spandex.  We knocked around all day, walking everywhere, and finished up with an opera at the Met!  It was sublime!  Then we concluded the day with a crazy 34 block speed session to catch a train!

Today, I started the day with swim that got postponed from yesterday (with DW blessing) to facilitate the trip.  I actually felt ok.  It took forever to warm up but then I felt stronger with each set.  A big relief after so many workouts this week feeling so rough.  Then I ran some errands, including grocery shopping, and headed home for lunch.

I couldn't find my usual brand of almond butter or sunflower butter, not uncommon when you are traveling, so I grabbed another that wasn't too terribly expensive.  When I got home I made a quick sandwich with gluten free bread and some apple slices.  I was ravenous and it needed to be quick.  The almond butter had flax in it, but that is okay, and I didn't think a thing of it until I got the splitting headache and my stomach swelled to "seven months along and it might be twins" proportions.  THEN, I read the label.  WHEAT germ.  Damn.

I have been really struggling and suspect that the poor performance and digestion this week may be due to the chronic, low-grade irritation that my system is getting from preparing food in a VERY contaminated kitchen.  I just felt deficient all week.  It was like I hadn't refueled after my last workout... but I had.  Now I am hoping that I can get things quieted down in time to finish what is on the schedule for today.  Ugh!

I cannot let my guard down like that.  The price has gotten too high.  I have a choice.  I can either continue to muck around inside my own head, not doing the right things nutritionally, or I can get it together.  I will not get as fit as I hope to if I do not figure this out.

Of course, this is why I got the Airstream.

I have 38 weeks of traveling ahead of me and I can't keep getting sick.  When I leave my mother's house after Christmas and pick up the camper, I need to go through it and clean it thoroughly.  And then I need to make my well-being my number one priority, no matter who thinks it is silly, is inconvenienced (including me), thinks I'm being hysterical or high maintenance or a baby... Those judgements will not keep me healthy.   Only I can do that.

But it's really, really hard.

Gluten and Dairy Make Duckie a Dull Bird

I want to touch on something that I feel is very important.  Ask any good triathlon coach and they will tell you nutrition is a critical part of the equation.  It is fueling.  It  needs to be done at precise intervals.  How else are you going to recover fast enough to do it all over again tomorrow or even later today?

Not only because I try to tri, but because my digestive system has chosen to rebel against many common foods, nutrition has become a huge obsession for me.  I was walking around the grocery (health and natural foods) store today and found myself suddenly so demoralized and frustrated, it was all I could do not to just sit down and cry.

You see, I cannot tolerate gluten or dairy.  I don't know why.  I got very sick a few years ago and the docs spent a lot of my money not coming up with anything conclusive.  I have that vague group of symptoms that are associated with Thyroid, auto-immune, etc.  At first it was fatigue, pain (some generalized, some localized), digestive upset, bloating and water retention (at times I gained water so fast I had to change clothes), weight gain, migraines, etc.  Later the symptoms started to include bloody stool, dangerously low heart rate, high cholesterol (over 300), fainting, rashes, crippling muscle, tendon, and nerve pain.  These things were enough to spur them to splurge on another round of inconclusive tests.    They still had no answers and I was getting sicker.

One day I had a fainting episode and due to my  already dangerously low heart rate and blood pressure, my heart stopped.

Thankfully, I had the good sense to drop in a doctors office so I am here to tell you about it.

I decided on a lark one day to try an elimination diet.  I was broke and my insurance had dropped me but it was free, and I didn't need a doctor to tell me I could or to interpret results.  I dropped almost everything from my diet, using a diet book written by a triathlete* as a guide.  When I added gluten back, it became crystal clear that there was a problem.  (I did not at that point check dairy because I continued with a vegan lifestyle for some time afterwards.  When I did add it back, the results were, well, dramatic.)

Do I have celiacs?  Who knows.  I know that I have no intention of going back on gluten so that they can draw more blood to find out. The stakes got a little too high there at the end.  Most literature says that the most conclusive test for celiacs is an elimination diet anyhow.

For a while, I could get away with things that did not have gluten ingredients but did not specifically state gluten free.  Then recently, I was eating meal replacement bars that were manufactured on shared equipment and started breaking out in an awful rash.  I now have scars on both arms from it and it continues to flare up a few times a week.

My sensitivity has increased to a level comparable to any celiac patients and that is the reason for the frustration.  I was in a health food store, looking for gluten free cans of beans so that I could find a veggie based protein source and I couldn't find any.  They had soup and chili that was appropriately labeled but no beans.  I went to the bulk foods section thinking I could soak my own and realized that I no longer trusted the bins.  I feel like these food reactions have me cornered.  I bought eggs.  I train too hard to not have a reliable protein source in my diet and the lack of gluten makes getting carbs hard enough.

I am also afraid to introduce many other common allergens that were also in the foods I was eating at the time of one reaction or another.  I am suspicious of soy, leery of corn, worried about too many of the common ingredients in food.  I find I worry about almost everything I put in my mouth now.  If it was not a whole food, purchased and prepared by me, it is dangerous.

I remember a time when I loved gourmet foods.  Grocery shopping was an art form and brought a lot of joy into my life.  Of course, the sit down and cry moments happened when I went clothes shopping.  Now I can barely navigate a grocery store without needing therapy but buying clothes is not a problem.

On Thanksgiving, I was grateful for not being invited anywhere.  I had peanut butter and banana slices on gluten free bread and went to bed early.  Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat and the duck is trying to figure out how on earth to navigate this holiday without ending up seriously ill.  I don't post this because I have answers.  I post it for the same reason I post most things.  The honesty is cathartic and if someone reads it, identifies with it and feels a little less alone this holiday, then it was worth it.

*Don't know the rules of mentioning published material here so I will refrain from giving this man a well deserved shout out.