Gluten free dessert experiment :- Chocolate orange cake

Orange and almond cake

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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.

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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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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Oh I have an appointment with the rheumatologist tonight

What that will bring who knows, it would be useful to know what autoimmune thingy is going on, that way I can research that particular area and target the holistic methods I am using. Really rather than expecting the doctor to fix anything I want them to signpost me in the right direction so I can do my thang ;-)

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Doing pretty good

The paleo diet seems to be working very well, I have more good days than bad. Last weekend I made it to a friends birthday party which was a very late night and this weekend just gone a fabulous yoga workshop. The pay off after doing such things is a day of being totally exhausted which is where I am today but each time that happens it seems to pass after a day of taking it easy. Hopefully that will be the case today! The teacher of the workshop was a guy called Christopher Gladwell, an ex Ashtanga teacher who has now found his own path. It was an amazing experience, very thought provoking and inspiring. He interweaves science with traditional yoga ideas to show how to use myths and allegories as tools for practice. I really liked that I have never really gotten on board with the idea that certain mantras or meditations have totes magic powers. Kudos to those who do but my logical brain just won't go with it. Using these ideas as tools for practice my logical brain was well up for it! Wish that I didn't live some 300 miles from that particular teacher! Bother and drats!


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