Unfortunately, I felt (and still feel) pretty bad.  I felt more tired again.  I felt like I had a harder time getting my words to come out like I wanted them, and the yummy treats I had dreamed of hurt my stomach.  They also didn’t taste as good as I had remembered.  I have committed to another 3.5 weeks without sugar (except for my Christmas party on the 11th, Nicki is bringing a world famous cheesecake).  I decided that I needed to continue eliminating sugar (particularly in between holidays) until I no longer looked forward to the holiday as an excuse to go all out.

I think the only thing I am really missing is a good way to make my steel cut oats in the morning.  Frozen fruit tends to be a little sour in there, and I need something to give it a little bit of taste other than the oats taste.  Any thoughts?  Oh, and I don’t like bananas very well.

These past couple days have actually been a bit harder than the first few.  I’m not sure if I had my start up momentum that got me going or what.  Lately I’ve been feeling like I’ve done enough now and it’s time for a brownie.  I have resisted, but it’s a lot less fun and exciting on day 7 than it was on day 1.  I am noticing a bit more energy, although it hasn’t been a drastic change so obvious I cannot deny it.  I’m impatient.  I know. 

One thing I am missing is good fruit right now.  I live in North Dakota, and sadly, this time of year is not exactly the best for fruit.  At a time when I’m also missing sweets in general, I am wishing for better quality and better selection when it comes to the fruit I’m choosing.

All in all, it seems to be going well, and I think I am accomplishing my somewhat unexciting goal.  Onward and upward, I am keeping on for at least another week (to Thanksgiving).

For a while now, I have been what I consider to be excessively tired for an extended period of time (12 years).   There are many possibilities that could be causing my lack of energy.  After exploring a few of them with little success, I have decided to delve into the ones that take a bit more work on my part.  One of those is eliminating sugar and refined carbohydrates from my diet.  In addition to being sleepy a lot, I also take an asthma medicine that is linked to increased likelihood of thrush, and before my asthma was diagnosed, I took many rounds of antibiotics in order to treat my apparent sinus infections.  Combining all those factors, there is a pretty good chance I have a yeast imbalance in my body.

A couple of the people I follow on Twitter have been talking about sugar and yeast.  After making the decision to jump in and do it, I chose today as my first day.  I’m not doing a full candida diet.  I’m starting small.  Well, smallish.  My plan is to avoid refined carbohydrates and eliminate sugar for at least the days from now until Thanksgiving.  Ideally I would like to keep this up until closer to Christmas so I don’t get back into the sugar habit between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but for now, I’m sticking with a smaller goal.

Unfortunately for me, I seem to have missed the Sugar Free Challenge that happened during a week in October.  Because I’m doing this on my own, I decided to make a smaller goal than what I originally wanted.  If anyone reads this and is interested in participating, let me know!  Support would be great and the more the merrier applies here.

Now, at the time of year when it’s normally at its worst, my eczema is gone!  About 9 months ago, I saw a doctor about it, and she recommended that I try to eliminate (at separate times) wheat and eggs from my diet.  Since I had already eaten dairy free for such a long time after having A, we knew it wasn’t dairy causing my eczema.  Well, I didn’t follow her advice.  I couldn’t ever get started.  I would plan to start, and then I’d decide to do it a different day.

Meanwhile, over the past year and half or so, Jason and I have been trying to decrease the number of processed foods we’ve been eating.  We’ve also been eating many more fruits, veggies, and whole grains.  In the past few weeks, I’ve been making our bread, spaghetti sauce, and soups.  The other thing that I have changed (more than Jason or the boys) is that I have stopped eating most meat.

Over the past year and a half or so, I’ve been a part of a group of women who have discussed several times the benefits of eating well and using high quality, whole foods.  One of the women went to a completely whole foods, mostly organic diet.  She has also found that her eczema cleared up.  So, while I’m not guaranteeing a connection, it seems like a pretty strong connection, and I plan to continue eating this way.

Then, I started putting ours together. It wasn’t the time or the effort that it took that made me start thinking about Christmas cards. I started wondering just how many resources were used to create and deliver a card. Then, I wondered what people do with them after Christmas is over. I keep mine, but I don’t know if everyone else does.

So, I thought back to the beginning of our Christmas cards, and here is what I came up with. First, I ordered the boys’ clothes off the internet for the pictures. Of course, their clothes are made in China. Shipping to US and to me. Then, we drove 70 miles (each way) to my sister-in-law’s house for the pictures. Then, we drove another 140 miles to pick up the pictures. That’s almost a tank of gas for us. After that, I drove 20 miles (ten each way) to pick out Christmas cards. They, too, were made in China. I am not taking into account the address labels or return labels, because I didn’t make special trips anywhere for them, but using 85 of them on our Christmas cards means that we won’t be using them on 85 letters in the future.

I know that paper will break down, but if half of the people throw away the cards, then it seems to me that I have used quite a few resources for just a few days of enjoyment. I could send the cards out before the week of Christmas, and then people would be able to enjoy them for 3 weeks, but that’s another topic for another day.

Jason and I were talking the other night, and we have some ideas for changes in our lifestyle for 2009, so don’t be surprised if Christmas cards are one of the things that we change. I love love LOVE sending and receiving them, so please don’t think I’m saying anything else. I am currently brainstorming ways to make that a more environmentally friendly process.

One Day Campaign

Since I have been having a harder time thinking of topics related to breastfeeding, I was wondering if you have any specific topics you want me to write about. My posts tend to be broad and shallow, so I can go into more depth in an area if there are any requests. Let me know.

I was hoping that this would be fairly easily resolved. I thought maybe I’d be lucky. I’d do the PFT test, and they would get a clear result. I’m actually still praying for that. I do think it’s more likely from what I’ve read and heard that the result will be inconclusive meaning that more tests are needed. I find that to be pretty frustrating. For one, I want to know what’s going on with my body and fix it. The other reason is that I haven’t given up hope for being able to run the half marathon in Fargo in May. It’s a pretty slim chance, and the door is closing on my chances the longer I have to wait. I still have that as my ultimate goal, though. If I end up not being able to do the half, I do know a few people who have decided to run the 5k, so that is my backup plan.

I told Jason today that life is kind of funny. When I was running, I was hoping that something would hurt or stop me from being able to run. Now that I’ve had to take a break, and it looks like this is going to be a harder goal to achieve than I originally though, I really want to do it!

I’m planning to call my doctor on Monday to see if she’s heard anything. I hate to be a bother, but I’m wondering if maybe some paperwork got misplaced somewhere or something. It just seems like 7 work days is a long time to wait for results of a fairly simple test. For all of you who pray, I would appreciate any prayers in this area.

Since then, I’ve been sick. Ugh. It started out as a terrible sore throat. I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to eat. It hurt so bad. Then, my sore throat turned to a cough. For those of you who know me, you know that this isn’t a rare thing for me. I have a tendency to get sick pretty frequently, and nearly every cold or illness I get turns into a cough. For years, at least the past 20 years, I’ve attributed the fact that I get sick so often to a poor immune system. Lately, though, I’ve been wondering if it’s something else. Allergies? Asthma? Something else all together? I don’t know.

I had an appointment with my doctor last Monday. At that appointment, I talked with her about this cough. She agreed that it wasn’t normal, and it was something we should try to figure out. Last Wednesday, I went to the hospital and had a pulmonary function test done. If you are like me, and you don’t know what a PFT is, I’ll tell you. Basically, I sat in a little glass box. First, I had to breathe into a mouthpiece. Then, the technician pumped some sort of gas into the little box. I did some more breathing. Then, she opened the door, and I did a few more breathing exercises. Each time, she got a chart and some numbers on her computer. I’m still waiting for the results of the test, but from what she said at the appointment, I’m guessing the results will be inconclusive. If that’s the case, I’m going to end up going back to the hospital for another test that is specifically to diagnose asthma.

So, to bring this back to the original topic of running, I don’t know what’s going to happen there. I was up to 2.5ish miles before I got sick. Most 10K and half marathon plans start around 3 miles. I would still really like to be able to run in the 2009 half marathon, but at this point, I’m not going to push it. I am hoping that figuring out what is causing this cough will also help my running. I had gotten to running about 2.5 miles, but my stamina was pretty spotty. Some days, I could make it. Some days I felt like I was going to die after 15 minutes. I wasn’t ever physically tired enough that I felt like I needed to stop running, but I sometimes felt like I couldn’t get enough air. I’d really like to be able to say that I ran a half marathon, and I’d like to do it with Jason, but at this point I just want to figure out what is causing my cough.

Between my post last week and his great time in the race, I had the extra motivation I needed last night to complete my 3rd workout of the week.  Generally, I run Monday, Wednesday, and Friday or Saturday depending on our weekend schedule.  Monday’s run went pretty well.  I ran about 1.5 miles, and then I took a short walking break before I finished the last mile.  Wednesday was TERRIBLE!  I’m not sure what happened.  I felt tired almost as soon as I started running, and I only made it to about 1.75 miles before I ended up walking the rest.  Ugh, it was disappointing and frustrating.  Then, on Saturday, we went to my sister-in-law and brother-in-law’s house for my niece’s fourth birthday.  We got home late, and I had a greasy piece of yummy pizza for supper followed up by some birthday cake and ice cream.  I was pretty sure that Saturday’s run was going to mirror the one I’d had on Wednesday, but I decided to give it a try (as spurred on by the 2 previously mentioned motivators!).  I ran the first mile and a half at my usual pace of 4.2 miles per hour.  Then, since I was feeling good, I decided to run the next half mile at 4.5.  I went back down to 4.2 for .75 miles, and then I did the last .25 miles at 4.5.  I was really happy about that run.  I felt good while I was doing it.  I ran the entire distance.  I increased my speed a little, and I made my goal!

After that run, I decided that I needed to get serious about making a plan.  Jason had used the Hal Higdon 10K running plan for his race yesterday.  He felt like it prepared him well, and he was quite satisfied with it.  I decided to (again) follow his lead, and starting a week from tomorrow, I’m going to start that plan, too.  I’m a little nervous about it, but I’m hoping that things will progress gradually from here on out.

Since my other post, I’ve had a few people visit with me about running.

“Doesn’t it make your feet hurt?”  Surprisingly, no.  In the beginning, I had hoped it would so I would have an excuse to quit.

“I’ve tried running, but I just don’t enjoy it.”  I started running in June.  I definitely did not enjoy it in the beginning.  I’m not quite sure I would say that I enjoy it now either, but I can say that it does feel good.  It makes me feel strong and, I know it’s good for me.

I’m not saying that everyone should run or that I’m for sure going to be able to run the half marathon in May, but I do think that there’s something to be said for making a goal and sticking with it even if it is *very* much outside your comfort zone.  That’s essentially my goal.  I think the 13.1 miles are secondary.