Easier
Now that I'm planning on buying a car (an old Corvair van to be specific), it strikes me as a little absurd that I've existed for 3 years riding my bike around this town and living without a car. Biking to school and work in the rain. Biking home drunk from bars at 3 in the morning. Buying a new bike when my bike is stolen. Getting tune ups on my bike.
I still plan to ride often, but I'm looking forward to the greater freedom allowed by a car. That means getting up to visit friends in Seattle and to the Oregon Coast where I sometimes dream about settling down. Being able to load groceries into a car will be nice too, and being able to drive to Trader Joe's intead of having to take the Max to one of the stores on the Yellow Line.
Another thing I want to make easier on myself is my diet. After testing positive for wheat allergy and later taking a food intolerance test, my dietary restrictions are daunting. Not to mention that nightshades, which I discovered on my own were causing me problems, came back as suggested eating on the Alcat results. If I were to follow all the restrictions that have been set down by medical testing and leave out nightshades I wouldn't be able to eat wheat, rice, or potatoes. That is hard. It's not impossible once you've been working on eliminating foods for long enough, but it is hard.
I have learned, however, that overeating is the biggest culprit, no matter the food. Now that I've accepted this, and now that I have stopped drinking and smoking, I am hoping I can slowly begin to bring everything back into my diet again.
According to the Alcat test, I am severely intolerant of rice along with several other foods. I will probably try to wait out the suggested 6 month period, and then at that point I will start eating rice again. I have already started eating nightshades again. I'll probably try to keep dairy out too because it's bad for singing I've found. If eating smaller portions and less often continues to make me feel better despite eating a wider range of foods, I will slowly reincorporate wheat, oats, and barley into my diet again maybe toward the end of this year.
Not drinking has been fine. It's only been 2 weeks, but that's probably the longest I've gone in years. I was always afraid that not drinking and smoking would make me less inspired or feel like less of an artist. In some ways that is true, but the removal of pacifiers has been more of a boon than a deterrent to creativity. Plus I feel I have a financial and temporal advantage.
I still plan to ride often, but I'm looking forward to the greater freedom allowed by a car. That means getting up to visit friends in Seattle and to the Oregon Coast where I sometimes dream about settling down. Being able to load groceries into a car will be nice too, and being able to drive to Trader Joe's intead of having to take the Max to one of the stores on the Yellow Line.
Another thing I want to make easier on myself is my diet. After testing positive for wheat allergy and later taking a food intolerance test, my dietary restrictions are daunting. Not to mention that nightshades, which I discovered on my own were causing me problems, came back as suggested eating on the Alcat results. If I were to follow all the restrictions that have been set down by medical testing and leave out nightshades I wouldn't be able to eat wheat, rice, or potatoes. That is hard. It's not impossible once you've been working on eliminating foods for long enough, but it is hard.
I have learned, however, that overeating is the biggest culprit, no matter the food. Now that I've accepted this, and now that I have stopped drinking and smoking, I am hoping I can slowly begin to bring everything back into my diet again.
According to the Alcat test, I am severely intolerant of rice along with several other foods. I will probably try to wait out the suggested 6 month period, and then at that point I will start eating rice again. I have already started eating nightshades again. I'll probably try to keep dairy out too because it's bad for singing I've found. If eating smaller portions and less often continues to make me feel better despite eating a wider range of foods, I will slowly reincorporate wheat, oats, and barley into my diet again maybe toward the end of this year.
Not drinking has been fine. It's only been 2 weeks, but that's probably the longest I've gone in years. I was always afraid that not drinking and smoking would make me less inspired or feel like less of an artist. In some ways that is true, but the removal of pacifiers has been more of a boon than a deterrent to creativity. Plus I feel I have a financial and temporal advantage.