In Search Of Understanding

I get why it's hard to believe something you can't understand, but I don't get why people refuse to understand what they perceive as unbelievable.  If the information is there or I'm telling you the summation of that information - facts, details, documented events - why is it still easier to shake your head and say, no, that's not real?
Novak Djokovic is in the process of conquering the tennis world. Always a good player, now he has suddenly become one of the best, beating the best. He attributes this achievement to a gluten free diet. He found out he was allergic to gluten last year. In every article and every blog about the tennis star there is a general tone of disbelief. In fact they all seem to be quoting the same Cornell professor - if you believe it is the cause of your disorder, then it becomes the cause of your disorder. In those few words they dismiss the effects that gluten had on Djokovic as something inconsequential and instead smirk with their words by writing about the power of the mind. It's as if they believe a gluten free diet for someone with an intolerance is merely a good luck charm.
I realize that in this case there could just be a general ignorance, lack of research and, dare I say, lazy journalism? But this approach to the gluten free diet isn't just in the media, it's throughout the population. Chefs post anti-gluten-free rants on facebook - calling it yuppy was one of the nicer words - while others look on it as a weird diet craze which will fade as soon as the pounds are packed back on. Worst though, are when friends, who saw you suffer for years, dismiss your diagnosis as unbelieveable and flippantly say you should go see a new doctor - as if you hadn't gone through 50 or so in the eight years leading up to your diagnosis.
What is so hard to understand? The research is there. The facts are there. Pictures of damaged intestines are all over the internet. Is it because the damage is not on the surface or not seen right away, the way a peanut allergy would be? Is it because celebrities, while bringing needed attention to Celiac Disease, also create a fad-like aura around its treatment? Or is it simply a desire to ignore the effects that food can have on your body? It's easier to tell your friend to find another doctor than it is to acknowledge that what you eat greatly influences your health. That greasy breakfast burrito, the sweet drink with more chemical ingredients than real fruit, and the four pints of beer last night might not sit so easily once you do. To accept that food not only keeps you alive but also influences the quality of that life would mean a major overhaul of most people's diets and, as someone who had to overhaul her own diet, it's not only scary but life changing.
So in my search to understand why there is such a lack of understanding, I've come to realize that the resistance towards a gluten free lifestyle has more to do with one's own diet than someone else's.

Suggested Reading: Living Well

Since I've started making smoothies a regular part of my diet I've been on the lookout for books and websites that not only have recipes but also offer guidance on how to improve one's health through diet.  My local Borders was one of the unfortunate locations having a closing sale, so I searched through their shelves and stumbled upon a few health and diet books that might be worth reading. The one that interested me the most was Living Well by Montel Williams. 

Now I grew up with Montel the talk show host but I was never really a devout watcher - school kind of got in the way - so I never knew he was such a health advocate until I started reading his book.  (You can find out more about him on his website, montelwilliams.com.)  The book takes the simple premise of exercising more and eating better and gives you a step by step guide on how to optimize these two things for better health. It's a guide to achieving a balance between what you should do and what you can do.  

As a sufferer of MS, Montel states that "by supercharging your diet and physical fitness, you can reduce the risks and symptoms of chronic disease and vastly improve the way you feel." He calls his approach The Living Well Code.

One of the first components to his approach is what drew me to the book in the first place: smoothies and juices. Not only does the book offer several tasty recipes, but a list of what Montel calls the rainbow fruits, rainbow veggies and superpower greens. These lists you can mix and match to create a 'super-charged' drink that gives your body the nutrients it needs. 

Of course the book doesn't stop at smoothies and juices. Amongst many other things, there are mediterranean-inspired recipes that aren't too complex and exercises that you can do at home - try not to let the six pack on the model intimidate you, many of them are simple movements that most can achieve.   

One of the things that endeared me the most to this book was that even though Montel has his own website, with his own products to pitch (everything from an ab machine to a rotisserie), he does not limit you to his resources.  Throughout the book and especially in the back, there are suggestions on where to get even more information. The most useful, at least for me, was the hint that if you go to AICR.org  and put in a vegetable from the rainbow list, they will generate recipes with the vegetable as an ingredient.

The book overall was an easy read with an equally easy approach to improving your health. Of course the hard part is the implementation, but if you need help with that - there's always the ab machine and rotisserie.  

 

 

Badass Smoothies

I have a confession.  You know those drawers for produce in the fridge?  Up until a little while ago, mine were filled with chocolate candy.  It started when we had leftover Halloween candy that kept melting and sticking together.  I threw the snack sizes in the fridge and forgot about them until my husband stocked up on Cadburys during our last visit to England.  Then came treats from Christmas and I’m sure a chocolate bunny will be added in April.

I’ve managed to condense all that chocolate into one drawer and now my other drawer is filled with fresh greens, bright fruit, and other things that look like the flora and fauna of an alien planet.  

That drawer, along with the increase of frozen fruit in my freezer, makes it official; I’m a smoothie junkie.  On the weekends I’m making them for breakfast and on the weekdays I make them for dessert.  Berry smoothies with a bit of dark chocolate really hits the spot after a savory meal – but it’s not just the taste that appeals to me, it’s the chance to get a lot of nutrients in one glass.  I consume fruits and vegetables that aren’t exactly easy to include with a packed lunch – giving me a chance to load up on iron, magnesium, folate, potassium, antioxidants and numerous vitamins.   

When I was first diagnosed with Celiac Disease my nutritionist gave me some advice that at the time I thought was a bit weird.  She said to chew my food carefully.  Yeah, my second grade lunch lady told us the same thing because she didn’t want us choking on our food.  But it turns out my nutritionist wasn’t worried about choking. She was trying to give my digestive track some help.  The smaller and more broken up your food is, the easier it is to digest, especially for a person whose digestive system has taken a hit.  So doesn’t sticking everything in a blender until it’s a soupy mix seem like a good idea? 

Perhaps the best thing about adding vegetable and fruit smoothies to my diet is that they are so easy to make, and really hard to mess up.  Add kefir, yogurt, avocado, bananas, ice or frozen fruit to make it thicker.  A little fruit juice (100% juice and not the syrup stuff) or a dollop of local honey will make it sweeter.  Throw a cucumber in for a refreshing taste and don’t forget a piece of fresh ginger and a spoonful of flax seeds to give your stomach some aid.  

There's just so much you can do and the preparation takes only a few minutes.  The most time-consuming thing is deciding what to add.  I'm not good with ingredient lists and recipes as I like to feel my way through, but there are countless sites online and books (especially in the bargain priced section of Barnes and Noble - yes I do practically live there) that can give you ideas, as well as the nutritional values.  I picked up a few books and have skimmed some of the sites, garnering inspiration here and there.  If I find a favorite book or site I will let you know.  

In the meantime, I'm also looking for a badass blender so I can make more than a single serving at a time.  I do realize that shopping for a blender instead of some cute shoes means I'm showing my,  shall we say, maturity.  But after consuming a healthy drink like the ones I've been putting together, I have more swagger to my step than I ever have with a pair of death defying stilettos. 

Adrenal Fatigue Jinx

Do you ever read a word for the first time and then hear it being used by everyone around you? How about a song that seems to play whenever you turn the radio on?  I don’t know much about physics but there has to be something that explains how things are pulled toward you at the same time – like a message from the universe, or in my case, a kick in the butt from the cosmos.

This synchronicity is occurring for me with Adrenal Fatigue.  At first it was just something that was briefly mentioned by a friend. Then I saw a book on the topic in the wrong section of the bookstore (reviewed here) and suddenly Twitter is alive with mentions of the syndrome.   Adventures of a Gluten Free Mom had a post that went into detail of her own experience of being tested for Adrenal Fatigue.  It also contained a quote from Dr. Tom O'Bryan on the 2010 Celiac and Gluten Sensitivity Forum DVD: “You cannot put a celiac patient on a gluten-free diet and walk away… because many of them will die.” Now I have not seen the DVD so I cannot vouch for anything contained within, but that one line struck such a chord with me.

After being diagnosed I felt like I was sent away to figure everything out on my own and when there was very little improvement, a few tests were run that came out negative and I was sent on my way with the half-hearted prescription of, “We’ll see how you feel in a year.”

I’ve already played that game before, that’s why it took years to be diagnosed with Celiac Disease.  So I know better now than to just blindly follow my doctor’s every word.  So, with the universe practically shouting at me, I’m trying the suggestions in the book, on the web and keeping my eyes open for any new information.  Perhaps the best thing I have found so far is smoothies.  Not fruit smoothies, which I used to make in abundance – it turns out that much sugar, even natural, can put a huge strain on the adrenal glands. Now I’m making vegetable smoothies with ingredients like kale, avocado, ginger and flax seeds.  The only time I ever had avocado before was in the form of guacamole and nothing could be more alien to me than fresh ginger root.

But I have found that despite my aversion to the kitchen, there is something satisfying about putting everything into a blender and watching it meld together. It’s oddly stress-relieving.

I’ve also put a priority on getting more sleep.  The difference between six hours and eight is the difference between a dull ache and a sharp stabbing pain. 

It’s worth noting that things have not gotten better dramatically overnight and I know that there are a lot more changes I need to try to make.  But I do have something that I didn’t have before… hope.

Suggested Reading: Adrenal Fatigue, The 21st Century Stress Syndrome

I'm tired.  I'm exhausted.  I wake up and all I can think about is the next time I can lay down.  

Simply put, I'm fatigued.  

Which is why when someone asked me if I had heard about adrenal fatigue – a term that refers to the adrenal glands functioning improperly - I made a note to look it up.  I had heard of it before, even brought it up with my doctor, but she had dismissed it, and so I never looked any further than its definition.  Now though, since that same doctor has told me I need to give it more time before I start to feel more energized, I looked it up again. Which led me to buying the book, Adrenal Fatigue, The 21st Century Stress Syndrome by James L. Wilson. 

While there is a lot in the book that can be found on different medical sites online, no one should underestimate the time saved by not having to search in countless places for a comprehensive explanation.  And this book is certainly comprehensive. 

From going into how your adrenal glands work and what occurs when those glands are put under too much stress, to several ways of self-diagnosing and finally a step-by-step guide to treatment, Wilson gives the reader every answer that they could ask for, as well as a website to obtain the nutrients recommended for speeding up recovery. 

I was a bit skeptical at first of the occasional website referral, but the book was not a 361 page advertisement for the products available on the site.  In fact, the most valuable chapter is titled Dietary Supplements, and goes into a level of detail on vitamins, herbs, and minerals that I have not been able to find online.  So, while you can buy these supplements on his site, the information in this chapter allows you to form your own treatment with whatever means you wish. 

This is not a book for those suffering from Celiac Disease, so the suggested diet is not gluten-free, but the important message of decreasing adrenal stressors such as sugar and caffeine is easy to apply to any diet.  The rest of the treatment is a bit harder to make happen as it calls for a reorganization of the reader’s day. There are also some things that for me are impossible to implement, such as getting to bed by 10:00 PM every night, or sleeping in until 9:00 AM every morning.  Getting rid of what Wilson calls “energy robbers” in my life would not just be a change in my everyday routine but a new direction in my life.  So I’m limited in what I can do at the moment, but Wilson gives enough suggestions that even with some smaller changes someone suffering from adrenal fatigue should stand a strong chance of feeling better. 

Judgement Pitch

Writing is easy.

Talking is easy. 

Talking about writing is hard. 

I tried to recommend The Hunger Games to someone and I made it sound boring.  If you’ve read the trilogy, I’m sure you think it’s impossible to make dull, but any piece of work stripped of its details sounds uninspiring.  Try it.  Try to explain Harry Potter in a few sentences – you can’t touch on all the emotions, adventure and riveting fun in such a small space – if you could, book seven would have been a lot shorter.

So to pitch my own work, in sixty seconds, or worse 25 words, was so daunting a task I found myself putting it off for weeks.  When it couldn’t be avoided any longer, I spent so much energy on it I could have written another screenplay or gotten through half the edits on my next project.

Putting my work out there for others to judge, I hoped to be the proud mother of the valedictorian, and feared that I'd come across like a slightly unhinged mother from Toddlers and Tiaras.

All the advice I found online could be summed up in five words: just talk; have a conversation.  A conversation, though, suggests an equal footing.  When only one of you is being judged, that balance doesn't occur.  Pitching is more like an interview or a presentation in that it's all about making a good impression.  Unlike an interview or presentation, it doesn't come down to the preparation you did; knowing the sources and being as much of an expert as the time allowed.  For a fiction pitch, you're not being judged on your level of preparation, you're being judged on your ability to create a spark.

Like trying to pick up a guy, you can straighten your hair, you can put on mascara and your favorite perfume, but at the end of the day there has to be something intriguing about you that makes the person want to know more.  You need a spark that will result in the exchange of phone numbers, or in a pitch’s case email addresses.  As in dating, if you try to fabricate something, the chemistry will fizzle and you’ll be told that they already have a similar project from another client – the equivalent of being told that they have a girlfriend (but let’s face it, if they were that crazy about that project/girlfriend they wouldn’t be looking around, would they?)  So after all that energy that I used to come up with the best words to describe my work, I discovered that while the advice to have a conversation is sound, the most important thing is to just be yourself… 

But it doesn't hurt to have a really good opening line.

A Question Of Selfishness

I'm going to write about something that isn't going to be very popular but has haunted me from the moment the migraines started almost a decade ago. I had fifteen good years of fertility in front of me, so I had been able to push it aside most of the time.  If you do your math, you'll see that there's really nowhere for me to push it to anymore. Even after all this time, it's a question I still don't know how to answer. There is no judgement in it, as I really don't know where I stand.  It's just a question that goes round and round my head as more and more baby bumps seem to cross my path and cover the magazines at the checkout counter.
Is it selfish to be sick and have a child, knowing full well you could pass your illness to them?
Eye color, hair color and a risk of breast cancer.
A crooked smile, funny laugh and depression.
Height, weight and an autoimmune disease.
Part of me thinks that life is hard enough, who wants to risk adding further hardship to the person they will love the most in this world in order to silence the desire that every atom of their being is screaming out for?
The other part of me can't think over the screaming.  It's deafening and somehow more painful than anything I've experienced before.  As I think I mentioned, in over a decade of physical pain, I've sadly lost connection with my body and with it any intuitiveness I once possessed. But this desire is so intense, even in my most disconnectedness, I can feel it as acutely as any physical pain I've ever had.  So I try to rationalize it out, causing a whole new line of questioning.
Every child is at risk of some hereditary misfortune, so is an increase of 10% of that risk worth crushing my dreams?  This one is easy to answer with the cynical reply of you could breathe the wrong air on the wrong day and your risk could increase that much. But then the next questions come and what seems impossible happens; I lose my cynicism. I ask where I should make the cutoff, at 25%, 50% 75%?  And who should I trust since those percentages vary depending on who I talk to and what I read?  Should I believe that I can somehow decrease the risk by doing certain things such as eating a very strict diet that only Gwyneth Paltrow could follow?  Is that strict diet, exercise and meditation regime just an attempt to control the uncontrollable?
Which leads my spinning mind to the realization that "increased risk" is just one way of trying to claim some mastery over that which can not really be mastered.  After all, doesn't everyone's chances just come down to 50/50? Either you pass your illness on, or you don't.
So for a moment I think I've found an answer.  Then my mind spins some more and I realize that it's not as simple as trusting fate.  For instance, if someone warned you that if you cross that bridge there is a 75% chance something horrible will happen, you wouldn't cross it, would you?
Of course you wouldn't. And neither would I. So that just leads me to my final question:  What do you do if you need to get to the other side?

Does Pain Equal Art?

A few years ago I read Chuck Palahniuk’s Diary and it stayed with me.  One of the main catalysts in the story is that great work is generated from an artist in pain.  As if the pain itself creates the art.  There seems to be a ring of truth to it, after all how many painters went mad?  How many writers were/are alcoholics? How many musicians were/are drug addicts? How many actors have we watched come undone by their bad relationships and plastic surgery addictions only to turn out Oscar-worthy performances?

But I never thought it applied to me. The more pain I was in, the less I could think straight, least wise write coherently.  Pain did not help me tap in to some deeper, darker side of myself; it made me want to run away from myself.  Which I suppose is how some artists break free of constraints.  For me though, writing was my way of breaking free of all my constraints, it was my way of saying what I can’t speak.  Pain only silenced that voice. 

So I’ve been fighting with myself, almost daily for the last few months, that I shouldn’t write until I feel better.  I need to put my health first, take the time to get better, as much as I can, and then focus on writing. But it’s a gamble, isn’t it? My whole life could pass me by before I feel well enough or, heaven forbid, something else could happen to my situation that could make finding the time and energy even more difficult to obtain.

I didn’t know what to do.  How could I find the balance of health and art, where both are a priority along with my marriage, my family, my friends and the bare minimum I have to devote to keeping my day job that pays the doctor’s bills?  Everything has to be in balance, and in case you don’t remember from my previous post, balance is not something that I am good at.

I honestly thought I didn’t have a choice anymore, that eventually I would feel so bad I wouldn’t be able to write anyway, so that I should give it up now and at least give myself a chance to get better.  Then I got some bad news last week, nothing horrific but not a sign of improvement, and my conviction to put the laptop aside was stronger than ever.  The problem was, when facing the pain and disappointment all I wanted to do was not hide in bed and rest, but to write – albeit, in bed.  I needed to be something other than the pain.  I needed to remind myself that I was more than a body needing to be taking care of.  I was a writer with a story to tell, or actually several stories to tell, the main one being that while the pain may slow me down, it won’t stop me. 

As You Do On The First Of January

I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.

That’s a quote from Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls, a young adult novel whose main character is struggling with anorexia.  It was a Christmas present.  So was the other book I’m reading, Portia de Rossi’s Unbearable Lightness, the actress’ account of her struggle with her image.  It seems almost kismet that I should start reading these books today, the day when it seems every woman in the world is stepping on the scale and promising themselves that they will be 5, 15, or 50 pounds thinner by summer. 

The gym has been crowded since eight this morning (not that I went, I just walked by), leftover cookies and cakes are thumping down the trash shoot every twenty minutes and it seems everyone has added some type of fruit to their shopping cart – along with Weight Watchers frozen meals.

We have just passed through the time of year when food took center stage.  It started with Thanksgiving dinner and continued with Christmas lunches at work, going out to eat with friends, gifts of cookies, candy and cakes until the big drink-a-thon New Year’s Eve and the greasy hangover cure breakfast that followed.  At no other time of year do breakfast, lunch and dinner become events unto themselves. 

So with all the food around, food that I cannot eat, I had to fight back.  I started cooking and then baking and, as expected, eating. 

Now, food and I have had a volatile relationship as of late.  Every since I found out I needed to cut out gluten, eating has just been, well, consuming.  But since my diagnosis I’ve put being thin on the back burner and focused on not being sick to my stomach.  Since cookies and cakes were no longer on offer and I couldn’t face making anything myself (or spending a fortune to eat a poor sugar-filled substitute) I had no problem fitting into my jeans.  Don’t get me wrong, I was nowhere near svelte.  By NYC or LA standards I’m pretty sure I was fat.  But by Philly standards I was on the thinner side of the scale. However after the last two months of cooking and baking and eating, let’s just say I should have gone into the gym this morning and not just walked by.

So I started this morning, as you do on the first of January, to come up with a strict plan.  It was two pages long and would have consumed all of that precious time between getting home from work to going to bed at night.  And as I looked at it, at all that time I could be spending writing, with friends and with my husband, I felt mad.  That’s when I realized, I’m not going to spend all my time on how I look, I’m going to spend it on how I feel.  If I feel a bit bloated or pudgy, I’ll cut back on the salty snacks.  I’ll exercise not to fit into a smaller size but to feel stronger, because I am not the space between my thighs; I’m the strong muscles within them that are going to kick this year’s ass.