I've been thinking about using an elimination diet for a while to try and improve my general health (meaning the migraines and random headaches that might be weird versions of migraines, since other than that there is nothing wrong with my health). An elimination diet works by eliminating the food groups that are potentially causing me problems and reintroducing them for a day and waiting to see if I feel worse or the same. If I feel worse I'll know I should stay away from that food group and if nothing changes I'll know that it's pretty much safe. The original plan was to start the diet after June exams this year but with school and everything it was a bit much to change my diet so drastically. Plan B was to start it after exams. Hasn't happened yet, so I'm going to break it up into smaller pieces and use the new year as motivation.
The plan is to make one change a week, starting from the new year. Firstly, I will take a week to get into the habit of going to sleep between 9 and 10 each evening and waking up at 7 or 8 in the morning. Then I will take a week to get used to finding time to exercise each day. Then I'll start with the elimination diet, eliminating one food group a week, starting from the easier ones and getting to the harder ones in time. I'm going to go by the suggested food groups to eliminate here (put in order of how I plan to eliminate them) which are food colourings, artificial sweeteners, high sugar products like lollies, chocolate, peanuts, dairy, wheat, soy, corn and gluten. After a month or so I'll start reintroducing the groups by eating them one day and waiting to see what happens. So, I'll probably finish sometime in June. It's definitely going to be hard but I'm determined to see it through. It probably also helps that by writing about my intentions here, the plan becomes more real. So to make it official: I vow as my new year's resolution to start and stick with this elimination diet until the very end as well as to keep a regular sleeping pattern and exercise at least a bit each day.
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I hope everyone celebrating Christmas is having a lovely time. If you're not already in the Christmas spirit, here's something to help you along! (although if you don't celebrate Christmas, it's still very much worth watching) I've been stuck in writing my first prompt for more than two weeks now. I think it might be because I favour writing in first person and for the first prompt I want to write in third. Or it could be because I'm trying to make it too perfect the first time around, ignoring the fact that I can edit it later to my heart's content if that's what I really want. Yeah, probably that.
It's been holidays for me for a while now, and I've pretty much been sitting around and doing nothing. Well, except for going to the movies and the beach once. My sleep habits are now horrible, which is quite bad, especially because as Christmas approaches I have more and more stuff to do. I spent the whole of today out, talking to uni advisers about course choices and helping mum with the Christmas preparations. Tomorrow my family is invited to a family friend's place which means that I only have Saturday to find presents for a Kris Kringle that one group of my friends hastily put together not too long ago. Our last chance to exchange presents is on Sunday, at least if we want it done by Christmas. After Christmas I'm going away for a week on Polish Camp so I won't be able to continue writing until January. So much for my Summer Writing Challenge. On the bright side, the break might help with the part I'm stuck on. I think I'll continue to try and finish all 30 prompts by the end of February; it's not like I've anything to lose. I've been wanting a set of ramekins for a while now, and yesterday I finally got my mum to buy me some. Now I have four ramekins with a red outside. So excited! The possibilities for quick and easy recipes are almost endless!
Today, I tried the ramekins out for the first time by making chocolate pudding. It turned out much better than expected. They were moist on the inside and not too sweet. I halved this recipe but baked it in my four 9cm ramekins at 160 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes. Next time I think I will put more of the sauce mixture on top and bake it for 10 minutes instead of 15 as the top was a bit too crispy. Here's a picture of one of the puddings: I wrote before about doing a 30 Day Creative Writing Challenge, but now that the Christmas season has begun, I doubt that I'll be able write about a prompt every day for thirty consecutive days. I started the first one today and have not gone past planning and it will take me a few days to finish it since I've given in to my perfectionist side.
So, my solution is to change the 30 Day Writing Challenge into a Summer Writing Challenge. I will still be using the same 30 prompts, but there will be a three month time limit until the end of February which is the end of summer. As long as I finish it all before then, I'll consider this challenge a success. |