Diet: Day 6 Update

To my surprise, I have stuck to my diet. I haven't had anything fatty or chocolate for 6 days! I did eat fried chicken one night, but that is the worst I have done. The best part? NO reflux! My stomach has felt GREAT! The most improvement I've noticed is at night and in the morning. I'm actually hungry when I go to bed and wake up in the morning. Previously, in the mornings I would wake up with a lot of pressure between my ribs below my sternum. I haven't had that at all this week!



The hardest part is all the good stuff I still have sitting around the house. I have 3 types of chocolate ice cream bars in the freezer, oreos and fudge stripe cookies in the pantry, hostess cupcakes in the fridge, and brownie mix in the cupboard. Yesterday we went to a gathering and I had to pass up chocolate chip brownies and scotcheroos! Tomorrow I will go to the grocery store and find some alternatives.



I've also had water for every meal, except today I had a little bit of lemonade with lunch.



I'm going to try for another 8 days. Then I'll have given it 2 weeks and add back in one acidic item at a time. The key is truly moderation. I know I can eat SOME acidic foods as long as I conform to the not eating late and not eating too much.



In other news, the Vikes won a GREAT game today. I didn't actually get to see it, but I was following it online. So glad we have Favre.

The Low Acid Diet: Day 1

As anyone who reads this knows, I really like to eat. You also probably know that my choices of what I like to eat are many times not the healthy choice. I eat fast, I eat a lot, and I eat mostly junk. My diet can be somewhat compared to the Gilmore's diet. I was blessed with the Honchar High Metabolism, so I don't easily gain weight. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

In the meantime, most of you also know I developed acid reflux when I was in high school. No shock there, when you look at my eating habits. I take medicine to keep it under control, but lately it hasn't really been under control. I had an endoscopy done, and the doc didn't find anything too concerning, which is good news. Regardless, I still get reflux at least 3 times per week even with treatment. The doctor gave me a diet to follow, but I sort of ignored it.

Basically the low-acid diet means avoiding tomato-based products, caffeine, carbonated beverages, anything with citric acid, alcohol, and ....chocolate. Also, you are supposed to eat several smaller meals per day, and not eat within 3 hours of bedtime. I already don't drink pop, alcohol, or caffeine, so that's not a problem. I'm most concerned about the chocolate part. A few months ago I announced to everyone in my office I was giving up chocolate. I made it ONE day.

Yesterday I finally decided I was going to take on the low-acid diet challenge. Today I ate a yogurt for breakfast (this was the first time I've eaten breakfast in a long time), rice and vegetables for lunch, and pasta, bread, and an apple for dinner. I know its not quite the daily servings for fruits and vegetables, but its certainly better. Alas, no reflux tonight! So I would call Day 1 a success.

Why did I blog about this? Because I thought if I announced to the world I was going to try the low-acid diet for 2 week, I might actually see it through. I've tried this before, and only made it about a week before just giving in.

Neville's Foot

A couple months ago I was carrying some clothes and dropped them on the floor. All of the sudden, I hear painful cries coming from Neville. He stopped, cried, and limped around like he was in so much pain. The next morning, he was fine.

About a month later, I dropped some sheets on the floor. Same thing happened again. He was totally fine the next morning, but that night, you would have thought he broke his foot.

Since then, every now and then he develops a limp. Once he tried to jump in the window when it wasn't open, and then limped around for a little bit before going over and playing again.

Thursday night we found the ironing board on the floor in the basement, and a limping cat. He looked to be in pretty bad shape. I asked him if he wanted a "treat", and magically his foot was cured and he walked just fine. After the treat, he limped for awhile again before playing with his toys really hard for a good 10 minutes.

Tonight again, he started limping again. Yet if I mention the prospect of food, he is suddenly just fine again. If I throw his toy, he can run with no problem to go get it.

So I'm totally perplexed by this behavior. Is this a real or phantom pain? When he was young, did someone make a loud noise and he somehow hurt his foot, so now when something startles him he thinks his foot hurts? He was declawed, so his foot might actually hurt him. He usually sits and licks it obsessively when he's limping. Part of me thinks I should take him to the vet, but I think if something was really wrong with him he would be limping in all situations.


In the meantime, a fire truck just went by. This is a big deal in a town of 1000. I went outside and found all of the neighbors also standing outside trying to find out where the fire truck went. Everyone was yelling across porches. I found it quite humorous.

I also decided I am going to finish the paper. Yea!

Till next time.

Catch-Up Time/Frustrations

This weekend we FINALLY had a weekend at home with nothing planned. This was huge for us. We were only home 4 weekends this whole summer, and I think only 2 of those we had no plans.

This weekend was a great time for R&R, and also some catch up. Friday night we went to HuHot, which is quickly becoming my favorite restaurant. Seriously, all you can eat stir fry, customized by you? It's really awesome. Saturday we cleaned the house and got groceries. That night we had Panera and rented Adventureland. It wasn't a very good movie. I had a Blockbuster gift card from a few years ago, so I used the last of it on the movie. I then decided that $4.99 to keep a movie for 2 days is a waste of money and finally signed up for Netflix.

Today was my catch up day for work stuff. On Tuesday of this past week, I finally taught the "Improving Online Communication" session. I had a breakthrough before Labor Day and decided to use our online course evals as data. I analyzed them for comments related to "Communication" and then placed in specific categories. From there I made several suggestions for improving communication within those categories, both from research and just things I've picked up from my job. It was very prelimary, but gave me something to work with. I was so pumped that I thought, maybe I should apply for a doctoral program in education. I realized I actually really enjoy studying communication in online courses, and I think there is a lot of potential for other areas of research. Most importantly, I did this all myself. I had the motivation to work on this myself, and I didn't have an advisor or mentor to help. That told me that maybe I really could do this EdD/PhD thing...

Today, I attempted to sit down and actually write up the paper that I will submit to Central States. Ugh. Now I remember why I DIDN'T go on to UWM last year. I really hate writing research papers! The lit review went ok, but I feel like there is so much research I haven't found yet, that it could take me another year before I could find it all. My method section was a train wreck. I know what I did, and its a loose form of Content Analysis, but its not really an official "published" method. I wasn't even sure how to phrase my method. For those readers not familiar with the academic world, most critiques of research come from methods. I could just imagine presenting my paper at a conference and everyone laughing at me about how my method was so flawed. That's what we did in grad school classes - critiqued methods.

Granted, this is a much more qualitative piece, and my background is in Quantitative methods. So naturally, I'm trying to write it as if its a quant. piece. Perhaps I'm way overthinking this, and maybe I can just organize it as an inductive piece. But then, since I know nothing about how to actually do qualitative methods, all the qualitative people will laugh at me. Or, my paper will just be rejected all together. The parts of my study that REALLY matter is the results and discussion anyway. That part I already have outlined, and those are the communication tips and tricks for online instructors. Overall, I just got a bit overwhelmed and just quit working on it. I'm not exactly even sure if its worth picking up again. I have no incentive for finishing it or presenting it, this was completely my thing. If it's going to cause stress and frustration, is it really worth it?

Then I thought that maybe the doctoral degree wasn't for me after all...the same conclusion I came to in April 2008 when we decided to move to Iowa instead of Milwaukee. I don't like how research has so many rules. I would rather read and do stuff like I did on Tuesday for fun, without having to conform to specific rules so I can present at a conference or be published.

So now I'm going to put the paper on hold for another week and continue doing stuff I LOVE to do...building and developing my online computer and communication courses. I'm so close to being done with computers. Everytime I think I'm done, I think of something else cool that I can do. Strangely enough though, I never get bored or frustrated with it.

So this entry contained a lot of frustration vents, and most of you probably have no idea what I'm talking about and think I'm crazy. If you are still reading, you deserve a cookie. Go get one now...

Back to working on the office next weekend. We are going to paint it blue and the plan is to add a bunch of shelving on the walls.

We did buy some stuff for the dining room from Yankee. They had a whole section of holders and accessories devoted to wine. We bought a plate and two tea light holders. I would like to show pics, but the Yankee Candle website doesn't have them. Must be store only.

Hope everyone has a great week!