Bad Days

My follow-up doctor's appointment on Thursday can't come soon enough. I was doing pretty well last week, despite eating some things that weren't on the approved list (mostly fruit, and occasional sweets). In fact, I even had a few days where I didn't feel bloated at all -- I could hardly believe how happy and attractive it made me feel. My idea over the holidays was to try one experimental food per day, while still avoiding most grains and milk products. In essence, this meant that I allowed myself to eat some fruit, mostly oranges. That didn't seem to be causing any problems, so on New Years Eve I splurged and had several large bowls of fruit salad, then added on some chocolate and cookies, and topped it off with some sparkling cider to ring in the new year.

Eating a large meal with lots of carbs for dessert probably wasn't a great idea, I grant you. But for three days now I have felt like there is a large balloon in my gut that refuses to deflate, even though I'm eating strictly low-carb and in small quantities. It's lasted so long that I begin to wonder if it could really all have been caused by that one meal. Perhaps there's more to the story. I had been taking Rifaximin to (hopefully) kill off the excess bacteria in my small intestine, but the 2-week dose ended just one day earlier, on Dec 30th. Today I ate two salads and some peanuts, and drank a lot of tea. Now my belly hurts worse than ever, and I think I'm probably starving, but my stomach recoils at the thought of putting anything else into the digestive path. Nothing sounds appetizing anyway -- nothing on the low-carb list, anyway. This diet has really taken away all of my comfort foods. And it requires extensive willpower for elusive benefits. I find myself getting irritable earlier and earlier in the day, as my resolve turns to depression and desperation. A person can only drink so much tea.

It's hard to believe that I've only been doing this for under 3 weeks. It feels like forever. I knew the holidays would be a hard time to start such a restrictive diet, especially when staying with family and celebrating special occasions. And it was, even though I still ended up having at least one high-carb item on about half the days. It's amazingly difficult and depressing to avoid eating any of my favorite things: fruit, pasta, ice cream, french bread, chips, chocolate, cheese, potatoes, rice, Dr. Pepper, and chai lattes. The only snack food I have left is carrots. The only liquid I have left is water/tea. I know that in the end this is all for my benefit, so it's really not fair to complain, but it's miserable to still have all the bad symptoms despite such a dramatic dietary change. Even thought I haven't maintained the low-carb diet perfectly, it's still a huge shift compared to what I would normally eat, that it seems inconceivable that I could be right back where I started after only a few days of happiness in the middle.

Hopefully I will have a more cheery update to post later this week. The world looks pretty gray right now.