Is this what healthy is like?
I've been living gluten-free for over 6 months now and I am finally getting nutrition from food. This is such a strange realization to know that I have never derived energy from food like I do today. It is no wonder that so much of my diet has consisted of simple sugars from candy and soda, because those are probably much more easy to absorb by flattened, dying cilia then more complex foods. I have always complained that salads aren't meals, because I had been famished and weak if all I'd had was salad. Last week, I had salad for lunch all week, since it is the only food item in the cafeteria that I trust is gluten-free and wasn't starving immediately after. I'm also having to watch my calories for the first time ever. I noticed that my pants are all fitting tight and my waist looks thick. So it is time to add exercise back into my routine.
February wasn't a good month for exercise, since I caught a nasty cold that took me well over two weeks to recover from. Actually, it might have been a combination cold, bladder infection and opportunistic upper respiratory bacterial infection. When I decide to get sick, I really do it. So I missed nearly a month's worth of tap classes, which has been my only regular exercise for a while. But now that I'm feeling good, I'm going to add to that.
So tap dance is still a challenge. After years of classes in all kinds of dance, rhythm tap is so different that my background is no help at all. And now that I've found myself in the intermediate class, I am lost most of the time. It is so fast, any my brain is so slow. I need to practice more if I ever want to keep up with these kids. But I just found a very complimentary class to attend once a week.
My gym has been offering zumba classes and they are pretty popular, but the class I had attended on occasion is terrible. Zumba is fun, because it draws from latin dance making it much more of a dance class then a mind-numbingly dull aerobics class. I hate jogging, running, or using cardio equipment to get aerobic exercise because I cannot handle the boredom, but zumba is more fun, unless it is so poorly taught that it becomes just another aerobics class, set to world music. But the gym hired a new instructor from Brazil and I just returned from the Saturday class and it is really good. This might be a nice complement to rhythm tap as it shares the low center of gravity and relaxed upper body, if I can keep convincing myself to get up at a reasonable time on Saturdays.
The other health issues I'm having, thanks to a healing gut, is that the drugs that I've taken for years are giving me tons of side-effects now. Since determining that my fatigue was related to untreated celiac disease and not MS, I've been lowering the dose of the stimulant that I take, but now, I suspect I'm having increased side effects from the SSRI that I'm on. Clinical depression is another frequent symptom of celiac and it is possible that I no longer need the SSRI, but the one I'm taking is a particularly ugly one to stop taking. I'm not looking forward to dizziness and brain shivers. I see my doctor in a couple of weeks, so I can discuss altering my meds. Wow, this will be amazing to not need to be in a doctor's office every other month any longer.
Oh and if I can stop taking all of these drugs to battle depression and fatigue, I might be able to take something to control migraines. Sadly, cutting out the gluten has not decreased the number of headaches I get.
February wasn't a good month for exercise, since I caught a nasty cold that took me well over two weeks to recover from. Actually, it might have been a combination cold, bladder infection and opportunistic upper respiratory bacterial infection. When I decide to get sick, I really do it. So I missed nearly a month's worth of tap classes, which has been my only regular exercise for a while. But now that I'm feeling good, I'm going to add to that.
So tap dance is still a challenge. After years of classes in all kinds of dance, rhythm tap is so different that my background is no help at all. And now that I've found myself in the intermediate class, I am lost most of the time. It is so fast, any my brain is so slow. I need to practice more if I ever want to keep up with these kids. But I just found a very complimentary class to attend once a week.
My gym has been offering zumba classes and they are pretty popular, but the class I had attended on occasion is terrible. Zumba is fun, because it draws from latin dance making it much more of a dance class then a mind-numbingly dull aerobics class. I hate jogging, running, or using cardio equipment to get aerobic exercise because I cannot handle the boredom, but zumba is more fun, unless it is so poorly taught that it becomes just another aerobics class, set to world music. But the gym hired a new instructor from Brazil and I just returned from the Saturday class and it is really good. This might be a nice complement to rhythm tap as it shares the low center of gravity and relaxed upper body, if I can keep convincing myself to get up at a reasonable time on Saturdays.
The other health issues I'm having, thanks to a healing gut, is that the drugs that I've taken for years are giving me tons of side-effects now. Since determining that my fatigue was related to untreated celiac disease and not MS, I've been lowering the dose of the stimulant that I take, but now, I suspect I'm having increased side effects from the SSRI that I'm on. Clinical depression is another frequent symptom of celiac and it is possible that I no longer need the SSRI, but the one I'm taking is a particularly ugly one to stop taking. I'm not looking forward to dizziness and brain shivers. I see my doctor in a couple of weeks, so I can discuss altering my meds. Wow, this will be amazing to not need to be in a doctor's office every other month any longer.
Oh and if I can stop taking all of these drugs to battle depression and fatigue, I might be able to take something to control migraines. Sadly, cutting out the gluten has not decreased the number of headaches I get.