Update

So much has been going on... Where to start?!

I haven't been too consistent with posting my food journal. I'm trying to do it every day but I decided if it's too much to keep up with some days, oh well :p Overall I think I've been doing pretty good. I've been hitting the chocolate more than usual lately but I think there are reasons for that which I will explain later...

Main thing I need to work on with my eating? Making sure I get my veggies. I've noticed I do better with eating them when I make a meal plan, and when I go to the store that has the fabulously fresh produce. This last week has been terrible with veggies because of the tropical storm. I couldn't do our grocery shopping till Friday, and that's the day the tropical storm started coming in. We didn't know if we would lose power so I had to buy canned foods just in case. I try to do it at the beginning of hurricane season but with moving we haven't had the money to do it. I didn't have extra money to do it last week, but I didn't have a choice. And what got cut from the groceries was the veggies :( We don't eat many canned foods so I didn't have hardly any in the pantry. I bought enough for us to eat at least two days just in case. And it really ate into the grocery budget... I'm looking forward to getting some fresh veggies later this week!

I would also like to lower my consumption of white flour. I used to eat whole wheat whenever possible and miss it :( A longtime online friend makes a homemade gluten free, lower carb bread in her bread machine. I have her recipe and plan to get the ingredients to try it soon as an alternative to white bread. I picked up a variety of brown rice pastas recently so I'm stocked up on them for a while. We like them better than whole wheat pasta and they're whole grain too! I would love to have some time to make oat waffles to freeze for quick whole grain breakfast carbs. Pancakes too. Maybe one day...

And now for the biggie... Between moving, trying to cut costs, etc, I hadn't been taking all of my usual supplements. I had gone down to taking a probiotic (necessity for me) and immune builder. I cut my iron dose in half and was sporadic at best with everything else.

And my body decided to rebel...

It took me a while to realize what was causing my seemingly unrelated symptoms. My depression and anxiety started up. I had no energy. My patience and tolerance were much shorter. I was starting to get really concerned. I could feel that I was on a downward spiral but had no idea what to do about it. I asked my natural health place about it and they suggested a chromium mixture. I didn't have the money to buy it but I kept it in mind.

I went online and researched vitamin/mineral deficiencies and depression. I was convinced there was something my body wasn't getting that was affecting me mentally. This - depression.about.com/cs/diet/a/vitamin.htm - is one of the articles I found and I was SHOCKED at what I realized! Almost every vitamin and mineral on their list is something I had stopped taking...

I showed the article to Jesse and we discussed it briefly. We decided to find the money to get me back on everything and see what happened. Over a period of about a week (he gets paid twice a week so we split the cost between paychecks), I started back on everything I used to take except the multi (plan to add it back soon). I felt a difference in just a few days... My depression and anxiety started lessening. My stress level went down. My energy level went up. My patience and tolerance started returning to normal levels. The days were no longer a struggle to get through. I started sleeping better.

For almost three weeks I had had a backache. I didn't injure it, but it HURT. Jesse tried to massage out the worst of the knots. I went to my chiropractor - it helped but I was still hurting. I iced it. I rested it as much as possible. It HURT. The only other time my back hurt that much was during my first pregnancy. This definitely rivaled it and I was in a lot of pain then! Aleve helped, but didn't get rid of the pain and knots. I tried sleeping in different positions. Anything I could think of for some relief! As you can guess, my back trouble was only making my depression etc worse...

A few days after I started back on my supplements, I noticed my back was better. I stopped taking Aleve and icing it. I worked back up to doing things that had been torturous - like standing for more than a few minutes at a time. Apparently something in my supplements had an effect on my back! I'm wondering if I had a severe deficiency in something and it made my back inflamed. It's still bothering me a little but is so much better!

Little by little I'm feeling better - both physically and mentally - since getting back on my supplements. I'm trying to be mindful of taking them as I'm supposed to. I now know how badly I need them...

So with everything going on, I still haven't made it back to the gym :( I'm hoping to this week but poor Gabriel is fighting something so it depends on that.

Between the depression, having no energy, being in pain, etc I haven't felt like blogging much. Plus I have to type posts on my phone and it takes so long! I just haven't wanted to take the time and effort to do it...

Now that I'm feeling better, I hope to get back on track with cooking, eating, exercising, blogging, and everything else ;)

And as for the chocolate... It's a natural antidepressant. It also contains a lot of the minerals that are in my supplements. I think I've been craving chocolate for those two reasons. (Look for my previous post about the health benefits of chocolate for more about this)

Have a great week, and thanks for reading!!! :D