Pass The Hatchet

One of the more troubling things about being on a very strict, unconventional diet is that when something inside your body isn't reacting the way it should, it's often hard to tell what could be causing it due to the fact that you're eating so many different foods and combinations of foods, as well as them being raw a majority of the time, sometimes it's hard to pin down. Take, for instance, my case this week...

Or rather it all kind of started about two weeks ago, when I arrived at work at 8am with a terrible stomach cramp that made me feel as if I might not be able to make it through the day, until I remembered that I had a bottle of Aleve in my desk and about 20 minutes later it felt a bit better. Now it's been nearly three times this week that I have had some stomach issues and I haven't been able to determine yet what might be causing them. Potential culprits could be:

Spirulina: The Heritage doesn't seem to have this high protein pond scum in any other form other than supplement capsules, and it says I have to take SIX of them in one serving! Is that actually necessary or is this the company's fiendish plot to make you go through more capsules and pay another small fortune for a weensy 'lil bottle? I went the newbie route and bought the smaller, 15-day bottle and took my first six (gulp, bleh) on Wednesday morning. Felt fine, although my stomach was making some alarmingly loud noises by mid afternoon.

Salad dressing: This week I experimented with some raw tahini, water, fresh lemon juice, and a small avocado in the blender and came up with an amazingly delicious salad dressing that I had twice this week. And each time that I had a salad for dinner Wednesday and lunch Thursday, shortly after, my stomach started feeling ucky. Not the crampy pain ucky of two weeks ago, but enough to make me want to lie down until the queasiness subsided. Was the raw tahini bad? Does tahini go bad? There was no expiration date on the jar. And not too long ago I had made a similar salad dressing without the avocado and I felt just fine. The avo was fresh, and so were the lemons. Now, I had spirulina earlier those days as well. Could it be the dressing? Or the spirulina? Or both combined?

Cacao powder: Friday morning at work I suffered another agonizing stomach cramp, which I cured with a dose of Aleve that got me through the day. Not the queasiness of the dressing, but a cramp much like the one two weeks ago. This time, I'm betting on the cacao powder that I sheepishly admit to probably overusing in my diet each week. I've grown quite addicted to the morning smoothie of strawberries, spinach, and a tablespoon of cacao powder, and cacao is a "superfood" as well as a stimulant, something that should be used in moderation. And godbessit, some days I really need the taste of chocolate, since I'm quitting coffee and sugar and I gotta have something to replace that morning high. Well, I probably don't gotta, but my body does tolerate stimulants generally well since I usually had coffee most days when I have to work early in the mornings. Most mornings with cacao go peachy, but what did I have for breakfast that morning two weeks ago? I can't remember. And I did have spirulina as well. No salad dressing. Hm.

I was feeling kinda blah when I woke up this morning, hungry but not hungry at the same time, and I felt the urge to eat cooked food today. I had Chinese take-out with my parental units last night (stir-fried veggies over white rice -- livin' on the EDGE!), so maybe that was why I was feeling gross in the early hours. I decided that today: No cacao powder. No spirulina. And I threw out the rest of that salad dressing. I had some cold deli sandwiches I bought at the Heritage yesterday so I ate the cooked hummus wrap for breakfast and the cooked vegan burrito for lunch, then dinner was baked spaghetti squash. And I felt good all day. I even took the spirulina supplements with my dinner A.) to see if taking them with food helps digestion, and B.) I still need protein and all that. Now at 9:15pm Saturday night (I know this blog post is a day early but I started it yesterday and only got around to finishing it tonight) I'm feeling A-okay. And maybe tomorrow I'll try to make another tahini salad dressing with some Joyva brand tahini I've had unopened in my pantry, which I'm assuming isn't raw but I think I just want to make sure that I'm not developing some kind of allergic reaction to sesame seeds (I have no seed allergies that I know of). I think eliminating one weirdo-food at a time might help me track down the cramping culprit. Then try and go back on more raw again tomorrow.

I've decided in moments of weakness it's foolish to beat myself up for not sticking to my own rules, especially when one of my rules was to follow my body and do what it tells me to do in terms of good health. I'm not going to be the kind of strict foodie nerd that feels guilty every time she has an avocado like one would have a slice of cake -- an avocado, for chrissakes. I'm still learning, and I'm still in that zone and I want to stay in that zone while the zone is still, uh, all zoney and I'm clear and focused and excited about all this.

Tomorrow's another day, and tonight I'm soaking some goji berries for what I hope will be part of my salad tomorrow that won't kill me. Wish me luck!