Yay for Armour!

Well, I finally made it to my doctor and was so thrilled to get a prescription finally to address my low thyroid. I've been feeling so tired lately, constantly slightly depressed, having insomnia, dry skin around my ears and back (yuk) and a pretty low temperature, that I knew I was having trouble. Also the fact that, while not perfect, I have been doing better on my weight loss efforts and the scale is barely budging.

I'm taking Armour thyroid, a natural thyroid replacer. My sister takes synthroid (synthetic) and has been for 20 years. She recently lost almost 100 pounds and is running the 1/2 Madison Marathon this weekend. I'm so proud of her.

I just love summer menus, don't you? Since I was out and about last night, the kids had pesto pasta with green peas in it (I also add spinach and zucchini puree to it for a boost in vitamins). I was out with the girls and had 3 drinks and a glass of wine over 4 hours! We also had some shrimp, feta cheese and sundried tomatoes and two thin-crust pizzas. Not the healthiest, but I'm back on the wagon today. This morning I had cottage cheese with blackberries, rapsberries and strawberries. For lunch, I'm havin a little leftover pesto pasta (just a bit) and some sugar snap peas and chicken breast (about 2 oz). For dinner I'm having grilled chicken, sweet potato fries and broccolini. I'll probably also grill some tomatoes (I love that!)

I'm waiting for Tracie to weigh in on my food journal to see if I'm doing better.

In Praise of Coconut Oil

I had a very inspiring meeting with my nutritionist yesterday. In the meeting was another of her clients, who had come to her to help solve her irritable bowel issues. Interestingly enough, that client was drinking coffee with a heaping spoon of coconut oil and a little real maple syrup. Yum, she said. She calls coconut oil (which comes in a solid, white form) her miracle drug. Not only has she lost a little weight by eating it, but her bowel issues have greatly reduced and are about gone, I believe. My goal this week was to do more research on coconut oil and then add it to my diet daily.

My nutritionist, Tracie Hittman, has always loved coconut oil, but I was afraid of the taste. Today I added it in my coffee. It was virtually tasteless. It just added a little body to the coffee and a little oiliness which I didn't mind at all. I also fried my eggs in it and it tasted great! All I could taste was the egg, and when I use butter, I really taste the butter.

For research, Tracie steered me to the Weston A. Price Foundation Web site. It's a scientific organization that promotes the eating of real foods. It has researched many issues surrounding food and is a key player in the movement toward eating real foods. I see that they also praise coconut oil as being among the few fats that are truly healthy.

So this week, I'm going to experiment by trying the coconut oil. I'm going to try to stick to my same diet, but substituting coconut oil for butter at least a couple times a day. I'll weigh myself now and at the end of the week and see how it goes. I'll also note my moods, my hunger levels and my fatigue levels.

Next week I go to the doctor-- Ann Stanger, M.D. -- to take a look at my thyroid levels. Although much of my thyroid damage can be solved with food, I believe, I'd still like the help of taking Armour or another natural thyroid until my body is more healed.

My garden and my hormones!

We are putting in a huge garden. Here's a photo from about a week ago as Tim is rototilling in our compost! The area is about 100 x 20 feet and includes beans, peas, 7 kinds of tomatoes, 10 kinds of peppers, 5 kinds of greens, red and white onions, garlic, rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, watermelon, squash, potatoes, pumpkins, zucchini, cucumbers, beets, cabbage, broccoli, eggplant, Brussels sprouts and herbs.

Now for the hormones. Be warned: this is going to get personal. Since about mid December I've not been getting my period. I just thought that since I was 46, perhaps I was repeating what a few of my friends had gone through and was hitting menopause early. That's fine with me. Although my nice little stepson wants us to have a baby boy, I'm not interested in complying! Too hard on my body and a lot of work. Three new children is already a lot of work. Then, bammo, last Friday the darn thing reappeared. What the. . . ?

Well, a little research on Woman to Woman, a Web site on women's health indicated that hypothyroidism can make your menstrual cycle irregular. (Naturally, Tracie had already told me that, but I really thought it was menopause.) As you may remember, I have a confirmed case of Hashimoto's thyroiditis as per the UW oncology department (no cancer, just my immune system attacking my thyroid). Hashimoto's results in reduced leves of thyroid hormone in your body. Symptoms are increased lethargy, depression, weight gain and other hormonal imbalance-issues such as hair loss, irritability, dry skin patches and period irregularity. But, because I'm eating foods that support my hormone production rather than throw it off wack, perhaps this is a sign that I'm doing better! Yay.

On May 19, I'm going to see Dr. Stanger, a medical doctor who supports natural medicine. Just a couple miles from my house, she will take some tests to see where my T levels are at and, hopefully, prescribe a natural medicine to stabilize my thyroid levels so that I don't have to deal with the symptoms I suffer: weight loss resistance, lethargy, dry skin and isomnia. Yay! But I'm really hoping to make the largest change with my eating habits.

All there is going pretty well. if I can just stay away from the processed foods a bit more (although I'm doing so much better) and stick to the real foods, I'll be good. A big part of that is continuing my habit of just buying the foods we are going to eat over the next couple days. We're going to clean out our fridge a bit more and really be eating fresh.