Friday 28 June 2013

Caffeine headache nearly gone

Thank fuck for that! I may as well stick caffiene   free now that I'm through it!

Thursday 27 June 2013

Holy Caffeine withdrawal batman

I had not planned on giving up caffeine it was literally by accident. I bought decaf filter coffee and hadn't noticed! After a day I had the worlds worst migraine, I still didn't realise what was causing it till two days later when I noticed the packaging..,doh! Still I'm three days into it I may as well run the course!

Sunday 23 June 2013

Rather fucked off

It's my 40th coming up yet it seems only a hand full of people can be arsed to come out. Which does kinda fuck me off as throughout my life I have organised things for others, made an effort on their special occasions etc. it would be nice if they could be bothered to return the favour.


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Friday 21 June 2013

Sons with a death wish

So earlier this week my eldest (16) announced he had been running with a weighted barbell on his neck...WTF way to try and break your neck son! Then today my younger son (11) went on a school trip and came home with a hole in his scalp, an actual hole and a scrape around his neck where he got "tangled" in chains...around his fricking neck. Now I can't even blame the school as he has nearly hung himself in blinds twice (we have none now) and a skipping rope once. Is it just my boys or do they all have a bloody death wish?




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Getting diagnosed or at least taken seriously

I have been ill on and off for ten years. Each time I fell ill it was put down to a virus or an ear infection or something of that ilk. I cannot tell you how many courses of anti-biotics I took during that time. When I mentioned crippling tiredness to the doctor the response was "oh it's your hormones" or "you have 3 kids what do you expect"  It was only when I kept a journal of the occasions I fell ill that I was able to notice a pattern and they did full blood tests. This of course showed by blood work wasn't quite right and I wasn't actually crazy. My top tips for getting a result are 

1) keep a detailed journal, what are your symptoms? Does anything precede them be it sun, stress, a new food. 
2) If there are visual symptoms such as rashes photograph them. Often by the time you have seen a doctor they are faded or gone. 
3) observe the people around you, do you get sick but no one else in the house does? In which case is more likely to be your own body doing something whacky than a viral or bacterial infection. 
4) look for patterns in the symptoms you have, if each time you are ill it's the same batch of symptoms again its unlikely to be a virus or other infection. They all tend to have their own MO.
5) Be persistent, no one knows you like you. If you feel consistently ill for no reason you have a right to know why. Don't let people make you feel like a malingerer or pain in the arse.

Day off, well everything

I'm pretty pooped today and have the blessing of a day off so later I'm going to practice the Ashtanga Rishi style (10 asanas held for 50 breaths) perhaps have a walk into town. Till then however I'm going to read Christopher Gladwell's book The Stream. I started it already and it's ace, incredibly descriptive which may or may not have been a good thing in the initial torture scene, but I love a bit of horror!




It's only I believe available direct from Chris right now
http://www.radikalfreedom.com/

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Clicky thumb and big toe and a high fat diet

For as long as I can remember I have had a thumb and big toe that feels like it need clicked all the time. To constant cries from my family of "oh if you do that you will get arthritis" now I've been eating a high fat diet with loads of nuts and coconut fat my joints are slowly feeling less and less like that. Interesting really. 

Thursday 20 June 2013

Raw chocolate cake- yum



So happy right now

Funny thing is my husband and I haven't had a single fall out since I cut grains out even when I'm premenstrual. Now I know he hasn't gotten less irritating so I must be less reactive, in fact I hardly even had pms the last few months. On the whole I just feel really level, content and happy even with all this going on.

Teaching yoga with Autoimmune

I have thought about this quite a lot recently and have been just now as I plan to teach yoga for a few hours this evening. There is this idea amongst many students that yoga teachers have to be paragons of health, that somehow yoga makes us immune to any illness or disease, catch a cold and the reaction is "oh I thought you did yoga" this has made me quite worried and reluctant to be open about being ill, I don't for example talk about it a huge amount on facebook. I don't want to put people off coming to class, it is after all my livelihood.

Then this afternoon I realised it should make people more keen to come to class, I have had this for ten years. It has taken that long for the doctors to actually figure out what was going on. During that whole time I practiced and a lot of it I taught. There have been good days and bad days as far as practice goes and weeks were I was bordering on comatose and couldn't practice. However I have consistently continued and am utterly convinced without it I would have been far, far worse. That I hope will lead people to realise that yes they can do it, you don't have to be a twenty years old gym body to be a yogi. Anyone can practice to their own degree, I have days where I have to slow it down, other days I can romp through a very strong practice. It's about listening to your body and doing what is right rather than following a set of rules. I hope that as I become more open my students will realise that I my personal experience puts me in a unique position to understand their struggles rather than it putting them off.


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It's ok to sob on the mat isn't it?

So I practiced, I knew my energy was a little low so used Matthew Sweeny's Chandra warm up, threw in a few standing poses then went onto back bends. I so needed back bends today and my theory is my body probably has a clue as to what it needs. I kept it simple with Shalbasana, Danurasana, Ustrasana followed by a bundle of Primary forward bends, I even had a go at Kapotasana, lets just say I may get there in 300 years! Having a burst of energy at this point I decided to arm balance and held Bakasana for 10 breaths and something resembling Tittibasana for 8 (probably wasnt pretty but my arse and feet were off the ground so hey!) at this point I dissolved on the mat and was suddenly so tired I just wanted to sob for a few minutes. Hey ho!




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Raw chocolate cheese cake in the freezer

For later after I have finished teaching evening classes...yum! Basically the same as the avocado cake but with orange juice rather than lime and a few decent tablespoons of cocoa :-)

Extreme food

I have as you will know found that various foods either make my autoimmune better or worse. I'm not quite paleo as I do like a lentil now and then (wild I know). I am kinda low carb as that seems to work but love a weekend cake. I do eat meat and I do practice yoga, in fact I would like to think of myself as yogini, an imperfect one indeed but trying my best (I once explained to my kids whilst ranting at them that they should have seen me before yoga!)

Now there seems to a bit of a war going on between the Paleo and the vegan camps, of course as I stand in the middle I see a lot of this on yoga blogs, paleo blogs, raw food and vegan blogs. I as I am now gluten free find great recipes on all of those. But good gosh there is some ferocity in this battle. In fact a site has appeared outing ex-vegans! Wowsers.

Now I agree we should look after animals and be kind and if possible avoid eating meat. I tried vegetarianism a number of times and became very ill, no doubt because grains seem to trigger my autoimmune thingy.

Has it never occured to anyone that there is no catch all diet that suits everyone. In fact Paleo and Vegan are not actually in such opposing camps, they both avoid processed food, they both believe in organic, they both believe in local sourcing. In fact they have more in common than not.

Must share quickly :- Andy Bailey's video diary on living with MS

Not only is this an incredible insight into living with MS but he is also really bloody funny, if you haven't had the pleasure I suggest you take a peek.





Holy f**k I'm rubbish at this internet stuff

So I want Ganesh as my header photo:-
                                                             A) because Ganesh rocks.
                                                             B) remover of obstacles, no wonder the dude is my favourite.    

Can I get it to the right size? Can I f**k, oh I give up

Today's question...To yoga or not to yoga?

I practiced twice yesterday, one hour of power yoga first thing in the morning before the kids woke up then a short Ashtanga in the evening whilst they played out. Today I feel pretty ok, but a bit pooped. The question is should I rest physically today, study, work on my website etc or should I attempt a yoga session. I kinda feel like it but am a little concerned that I could push my ridiculous body over the edge effectively wiping out a week to come. Hummmmm. I shall let you know what I decide and I guess tomorrow whether that was the right choice lol.

Gluten free dessert experiment - Raw avocado cheesecake



Crust
Blend 1 cup of almond meal with ¾ cup of Medjool dates, and then press into a pie dish.
Filling
2 medium/large avocados
6 tbshoney
1/2 cup lime juice
5 tablespoons melted coconut oil
½ cup shredded coconut
Blend all ingredients and spoon on top of the crust.
Transfer dish to fridge or freezer until it has set firm.

Gluten free dessert experiment :- Chocolate orange cake





Orange and almond cake

Add "Orange and almond cake" to FavouritesAdd "Orange and almond cake"to Favourites

Ingredients
2 large oranges
200g/7¼oz caster sugar
200g/7¼oz ground almonds
½ tsp baking powder
6 whole eggs
½ lemon, juice only
To serve
crème fraîche, to taste
1 small punnet of raspberries
Preparation method
Put the whole oranges in a pan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer for up to two hours. Check the water to ensure they don't boil dry. After two hours, remove from the heat and leave to cool.
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
Remove the oranges from the water. Cut in half and remove the pips.
Place them in a food processor, skin and all, with all of the remaining ingredients and blend until mixed.
Put the mixture into a greased and lined cake tin (20cm/8in) and bake for 45 minutes



Taken from the BBC website


The plan

So over the past few months its been established I do have an auto immune disease, a non-specific auto immune. Not actually quite sure what that means. But it does explain why I have felt like crap on and off for the past ten years, why when I push my yoga practice I end up ill rather than a super yoga pretzel. When after a busy few weeks or fantastic time socially I'm cabbaged for weeks rather than flicking through photos of a great time.

I have read like a demon over the past few months and put a few things into practice already.
Things that seem to help :-

No gluten, none whatsoever, or pretty much any grains. As soon as I have any I am guaranteed a flare up.
No sugar, it doesn't cause a flare up to the same degree BUT leaves me really tired and cranky for days.
Lots of protein and good fats = no joint pain HURRAH!
Yoga when I have the bounce for it, rest when I need to. In other words pushing through tiredness does NOT work for me.
Of course no additives, but then that's a no brainer to anyone.

Now I'm trying low carb, not too low just around 50 grams a day. Loads of autoimmune sufferers swear by it.

Friday 14 June 2013

Thoughts on prednisone


I must admit I slightly worried at the idea of needing to take it, however infrequently. The side effects are well documented and serious from severe osteoporosis to huge weight gain. As I was only on a short course I shouldn't have had any of those, but I did retain water like a blimp. A lot of it on my face. Of course it was Sod's law that while I was imitating a hamster we had loads of family events, weddings, holy communions. All of which involved being photographed grrrr

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Amazing bouncy day


So after the glutening which caused a nasty flare up I feel super again. It took a few days of prednisone (nasty drug) and lots of healthy, healthy whole foods but Jesus I feel great. I'm now waiting for an appointment with the immunologist to figure out WHiCH autoimmune thing I have. That is not terribly important to though. I have it seems found a way to get myself back on track when things go awry and am super optimistic that within a few months I will be a "normal" person.

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Monday 3 June 2013

Glutened

So I was doing super well and feeling fairly fab, then we went to the Green Festival. A stall was selling gluten free cake. Now when asked which ones were gluten free they hesitated, bad sign. Then assured me one particular one was. Ok so I should have walked away, but I didn't. Roll on the next day and I feel like I have the worst hangover. Today I have water blisters on my hand, burning abdominal pain, a rash on my face, nausea and joint pains. FFS it wasn't even particularly nice cake!


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