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slightly less broken
Aug. 30th, 2005 03:31 amFingers crossed, I am better. That is, better than I was. Won't be all the way better until the evil gallstones are gone.
Had a bit of a frightening experience on Saturday when I realised that what I'd thought was a urinary tract infection might actually be my body starting to break down its own protein. ( Ick... )After panicking wildly I realised several important things:
1) that I was in danger of malnutrition - yes, I know that sounds ridiculous, but living off nothing but toast & breakfast cereal & occasional pieces of fruit isn't actually that good long-term. I had carbohydrate & some vitamins, but not all of them, and nowhere near enough protein.
2) the reason I was so damn tired and depressed was because I was desperately malnourished.
3) I couldn't face eating because of the nausea - but even if the nausea lifted, I still couldn't face eating because of the total lack of variety in my diet.
4) so not only was I not eating a good combination of things, I wasn't eating enough. (I think I was eating about a third of the amount of food that I normally eat in a day).
5) the nausea and the lack of variety in diet things were a vicious cycle, because I couldn't do anything about the lack of variety in my diet (like stand and cook a proper meal) until I stopped feeling nauseous all the time, and I couldn't stop feeling nauseous until I'd eaten properly.
6) the frustration wasn't doing me any good either. ( Self-esteem/mental health triggers... )
So it became pretty clear that what I needed to do was sort out the damn nausea. The problem was, my usual surefire kill nausea technique - eat ginger nuts until my stomach's settled enough for "proper" food - wasn't going to work, owing to the fact that each ginger nut biscuit contains 1.5g of fat. Yes, I know about peppermint tea - it's wonderful stuff - but it's not solid.
To cut a very long story short, I found a recipe for vegan gingerbread cake that was fairly low-fat to start with, and then I amended it using a banana (bananas can replace eggs or margarine or both). Although making the cake was a bit unpleasant because random food smells in the kitchen made me feel violently ill, the cake itself was enough to overcome them. Once full of cake, I was able to read through my cookery books without (much) retching. And basically, since yesterday, I have been in the kitchen - trying out recipes and cleaning up. Leah Leneman is my new best friend.
( Food porn... this cut-tag here to prevent drooling over keyboards at inappropriate moments ;) )
I'm still looking for recipes. If you come across any very low-fat vegan or easily-adapted-to-be-vegan recipes, give me a link. They need to be fairly unexciting, as I'm going easy on garlic & chilli for digestive reasons. (Don't just say "search vegan-food.net", I kinda know that already). Don't bother with soup, though - I think I have enough soup recipes now (and I'm bored with soup, having eaten it far too much lately).
Had a bit of a frightening experience on Saturday when I realised that what I'd thought was a urinary tract infection might actually be my body starting to break down its own protein. ( Ick... )After panicking wildly I realised several important things:
1) that I was in danger of malnutrition - yes, I know that sounds ridiculous, but living off nothing but toast & breakfast cereal & occasional pieces of fruit isn't actually that good long-term. I had carbohydrate & some vitamins, but not all of them, and nowhere near enough protein.
2) the reason I was so damn tired and depressed was because I was desperately malnourished.
3) I couldn't face eating because of the nausea - but even if the nausea lifted, I still couldn't face eating because of the total lack of variety in my diet.
4) so not only was I not eating a good combination of things, I wasn't eating enough. (I think I was eating about a third of the amount of food that I normally eat in a day).
5) the nausea and the lack of variety in diet things were a vicious cycle, because I couldn't do anything about the lack of variety in my diet (like stand and cook a proper meal) until I stopped feeling nauseous all the time, and I couldn't stop feeling nauseous until I'd eaten properly.
6) the frustration wasn't doing me any good either. ( Self-esteem/mental health triggers... )
So it became pretty clear that what I needed to do was sort out the damn nausea. The problem was, my usual surefire kill nausea technique - eat ginger nuts until my stomach's settled enough for "proper" food - wasn't going to work, owing to the fact that each ginger nut biscuit contains 1.5g of fat. Yes, I know about peppermint tea - it's wonderful stuff - but it's not solid.
To cut a very long story short, I found a recipe for vegan gingerbread cake that was fairly low-fat to start with, and then I amended it using a banana (bananas can replace eggs or margarine or both). Although making the cake was a bit unpleasant because random food smells in the kitchen made me feel violently ill, the cake itself was enough to overcome them. Once full of cake, I was able to read through my cookery books without (much) retching. And basically, since yesterday, I have been in the kitchen - trying out recipes and cleaning up. Leah Leneman is my new best friend.
( Food porn... this cut-tag here to prevent drooling over keyboards at inappropriate moments ;) )
I'm still looking for recipes. If you come across any very low-fat vegan or easily-adapted-to-be-vegan recipes, give me a link. They need to be fairly unexciting, as I'm going easy on garlic & chilli for digestive reasons. (Don't just say "search vegan-food.net", I kinda know that already). Don't bother with soup, though - I think I have enough soup recipes now (and I'm bored with soup, having eaten it far too much lately).
