Quick mid-holiday update

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays! I've been busy celebrating Christmas and showing my brother around Japan. Today is one of the only days we have a bit of free time, so I managed to squeeze in this post.

My brother learning how samurai swords are made.

As expected, some of the Christmas gifts I got included food that I'm trying to avoid. And of course it was all food that I love too! So I did break my rules a couple times on Christmas Day, eating peanut butter filled pretzels (gluten) and a couple types of chocolate (dairy).

Apparently I've been naughty, because I also got some coal!

My brother is also trying to avoid gluten, but we both made one exception that was planned ahead of time, because you just can't visit Japan and not try ramen! We went to Ippudo, my favorite ramen shop in Okayama. We thoroughly enjoyed the rich pork broth of their tonkotsu ramen!

So after eating gluten, peanuts, and dairy one day, and then even more gluten the next day, I definitely wasn't feeling too well. I've been strict since then though, and have been totally sticking to my goals.

A couple weeks ago I tried making sauerkraut for the first time, and finally gave it a test today. Delicious! And hopefully those active cultures will improve my gut health.

Homemade red cabbage sauerkraut.

I probably won't write again until after my brother leaves. Here's hoping that I continue to eat well during the rest of the winter holidays!

Happy New Year everyone!!

This, that, and the other thing

Hey everyone, it’s been a while! Miss me?

I’ve been slowly writing this post a paragraph at a time over the past couple weeks, so the end result might be a bit disjointed. I was going to post this two weeks ago, but then I caught a cold and didn’t feel like doing anything. Anyway, here are some thoughts I’ve had.

I’ve been very gradually working towards improving my health over the past ten years, increasing my effort more and more as I felt less and less healthy. Since starting this blog I have focused my energy on what I’m eating, and have been doing a fairly good job overall at sticking to my goals. I think it’s finally paying off! I’ve been feeling pretty good, digestion wise, and I’m starting to notice a couple correlations that I had not realized before, so that’s exciting.

Now that I have my definite trouble-makers, dairy and gluten, mostly out of the way, it’s a lot clearer to me what else affects my digestion. Remember when I said that I was going to quit eating peanut butter and nuts because they’re expensive and I suspected hard to digest as well? So I did that, and all went well. Then I decided to test peanuts, so I had a handful with dinner. I am now fairly certain peanuts give me gas. Pretty deadly too! It’s possible there was another trouble maker in my dinner, so I’ll probably test peanuts once more after I’ve eliminated it again. We all know how much I LOVE peanut butter, so if this turns out to be true, I’ll be really disappointed.

I’ve heard that being tired can make food cravings worse. However, since I almost always crave snacks, I couldn’t really tell that it made a difference. This past week, though, I was doing surprisingly well at not having cravings, even when I felt slightly hungry. It was so strange, and so awesome! I suspect it’s possibly because my body is finally getting used to not having snacks. Eating those carbs just makes your body want more carbs! So anyway, on Sunday I went out to dinner for a friend’s birthday and was out pretty late, resulting in going to bed a lot later than usual. On Monday I didn’t feel too bad, but by the evening I had that overwhelming urge to lie around and eat and eat and eat, with very little motivation to resist it. Hmm, interesting… I guess getting a good night’s sleep is important for even more reasons! Is it totally lame that I’m always excited for bed time? Oh no, a classic symptom of getting old!

So, I realized that I haven’t written about exercise in a while. Exercise used to be my primary focus when it came to getting in better shape, but I guess recently I’ve been concentrating more on what I’m eating to improve digestion. I’m still exercising, though! After six months of recovery, I’m finally able to go jogging without suffering from shin splints. I haven’t amped up to how much I used to run, but I’m working toward it.

I’m trying to exercise at least once a day, but I hate to admit I haven’t really been staying on top of that. I feel like I don’t have enough time these days. I can think of three things that could be taking away from my exercise time. One is writing this blog! Another is the increased time I’ve been spending grocery shopping and cooking so that I can stick to this new food plan I’ve been doing for the last couple months. And finally, it’s winter and it’s cold and I have such a hard time dragging myself out of bed in the morning! Even though I wake up at the same time as always, I often don’t get up that early.

Don’t expect me to post again for another couple of weeks. My winter vacation just started!! And my brother arrives in Japan on Christmas Eve, so we’ll be busy having lots of fun!

I’m going to continue trying to eat well for my body over the holidays. I’ve learned a lot of tricks over the past few months, like making safe dishes for myself like I did at Thanksgiving and immediately giving away or throwing out anything tempting that could cause me problems. Wish me luck! And good luck to you with whatever you decide to do, including eating all the fudge if you’re so inclined!

I’ll leave you with a couple beginning of the holidays pictures.

Bonnenkai (End-of-the-year-party) #1 - raw chicken

Bonnenkai #2 - nabe

Bonnenkai #3 - sashimi, garnished with a fish head

(Bonnenkai #4 has no picture, but I ate sea cucumber for the first time!)

Christmas in Japan = fried chicken and cake. So popular,

it's even in my school lunch. Why? Because. Marketing.

My presents don't quite all fit under my tree...

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!

Oops, maybe I didn’t win Thanksgiving after all

Remember the four turkeys’ worth of bones and giblets that I got at the end of the Thanksgiving party I went to and immediately froze when I got home? I’m afraid it’s unsafe to eat and needs to be thrown out.

NOOOOO!!!!

Juanita feels my pain.

The day after the party, I ate the giblets and some other leftovers, no problem. Then, later in the week I made a turkey soup with some of the bones. I ate that soup and other leftovers for the next two days, again no problem, and then finished off the last of it on the fourth day. That night, roughly four hours after dinner, I got really bad stomach cramps and felt nauseous while trying to fall asleep. I did manage to sleep, though not well, without incident and felt better in the morning. I figured it was because the leftovers had been kind of old, and honestly I hadn’t exactly followed safe food preparation rules. For example, I let the turkey bones thaw at room temperature rather than in the fridge. And after the soup cooked, I let it cool at room temperature (and forgot it on the counter overnight…) before putting it in the fridge. Granted, room temperature is pretty chilly these days since I’m cheap and haven’t used my heater yet this season, but I still don’t think it’s within safe food storage temperatures. So yeah, my bad, I figured.

This week I made another batch of turkey soup with some bones and a neck to make a nice flavorful broth. I was very careful to prepare everything properly this time, thawing the turkey in the fridge on Tuesday, simmering it for many hours on Wednesday and then promptly refrigerating it, and heating it up on the stove with some added vegetables on Thursday, after which I promptly ate it and put the leftovers back in the fridge. But, like last time, roughly four hours later while I was trying to fall asleep I got severe stomach cramps and felt nauseous. And this time I wasn’t able to sleep it off, and unfortunately was sick. Thankfully it was over quickly, and a couple hours later I fell asleep and felt better in the morning.

So, yeah. I conclude that my beloved turkey hates me. Why must it be a one-sided relationship?? Throwing all that out is going to be really hard. Much harder than the little cakes and cookies so many people felt that I wasted in my last blog.

Speaking of my last blog, it sparked quite the comment thread on Facebook! I know everyone was trying to be helpful, and I apologize for replying negatively, sarcastically, and passive-aggressively. It’s just really hard, what I’m trying to do for my health, and I felt like I was being misunderstood and criticized. That plus a number of other things going on in my life were making me have a super stressful day, so it was particularly hard on me to feel like I was getting negative feedback for something that had been difficult but that I was proud of accomplishing. I appreciate the advice, and will definitely consider taking some of your suggestions. I will also continue trying to do what I think is best for myself. Sometimes you just need to put your own health first!

Tracking progress

Last week, Wednesday’s school lunch had everything I’m trying not to eat, and I couldn’t avoid it by not eating one or two of the dishes because it was ALL dangerous. So I shrugged my shoulders and ate my lunch. Up until this point I had had three or four days of feeling great. However, on Thursday I could definitely tell that at least one of the possible problem causing ingredients (dairy, gluten, or egg) was most definitely causing me a problem. I had issues for three days after that. This is the most clearly I’ve been able to notice a difference in digestion when I don’t vs. do eat dairy, gluten, and egg. So now I just need to determine which, if not all, of them is villain.

Very unsafe lunch 

Also, I’ve decided to quit buying peanut butter and nuts. They’re both just too expensive for how fast I go through them, and really packed full of calories. Plus, I think they’re hard to digest in large amounts. So if I’m gonna have something expensive and calorie-packed, it’ll be coconut oil, which shouldn’t be so hard on my guts.

On Monday this week, lunch had dairy and gluten, but not egg. I was expecting to feel the effects on Tuesday, but that was not the case. Does this mean that egg was the trouble maker last week? However, I’ve already established a while ago that both dairy and gluten can cause me problems, and yet they didn’t seem to this time. I know, some foods can cause problems even weeks after eating them, so when I don’t feel well and think it’s because of a recent meal, that might not be the case. Also, some things your body can handle in small amounts, but if you’ve been having too much recently it can be an issue. Digestion is complicated! So I’ve decided to try keeping a food diary. Here’s what I’ve made to begin with (sorry if it’s TMI):

 Tracking the foods I eat and my digestive issues, hopefully to find correlations. 

In addition to that food diary, I have another monthly calendar I use to track my progress attached to my Food Rules. I update my Food Rules every month based on how I did the previous month and what I think I need to focus on. Here’s November and December.

 November

 December - notice a few changes.

Every month has at least a couple updates.

In good news, I've been eating well other than school lunch! Today I found cauliflower at the store, which is not very common so it was exciting, and I made cauli-rice.  Check it out.

Is that fish on rice? NOPE! No grains here, just cauliflower!

Also, I continue to resist the gifts of sweets from coworkers. One of the schools I teach at is quite small so I only go there twice a month. That means I have two weeks worth of sweets piled up on my desk. We've got quite the haul for Today's Trash!

 All of this plus three rice crackers that I could eat was waiting for me on Monday.

 I took it all out of the packages so you could see exactly what I can't eat.

 Proof that I resisted! Goodbye foods that hate my guts. (Get it? Guts? Hehehehe)

UPDATE:

Ok, ok, sorry guys, I take it all back! I absolutely love and appreciate every single school lunch and all of the sugary treats my coworkers so generous give me, and I never EVER throw anything away. That is not, in fact, a trash can you see in that picture, but rather it is a... um... feeding receptacle! Yeah! For Bobifer! He's real, I swear. And he has guts of steel, so he can eat anything, no problem! He is also amazingly resistant to medical conditions, so he'll never have to worry about heart disease, diabetes, etc. Lucky guy! Even though he doesn't have to worry, he's still really supportive of me and this journey I'm taking to improve my physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Thanks Bobifer, you're a swell guy!

Thanksgiving in Japan, days 1 & 2

Last Saturday one of my closest friends and I celebrated Thanksgiving, just the two of us. She has far more food sensitivities than I do, so we planned out dishes that were safe for her. Anything that’s safe for her is definitely safe for me too!

I spent a couple hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon cooking for our special feast. I really love cooking, just wish it didn’t make so many dirty dishes to wash!

 Making the first dish of the morning, rice bread.

Finished rice bread - kinda chewy but still yummy. Like mochi, but bread!

Unfiltered apple juice + whole spices = spiced cider!

 While one dish was cooking, I prepped for other dishes.
Not much counter space, so these are balancing on my toaster oven and a roll of paper towels.

I cooked so much, I actually gave myself a blister and sore muscles. Chopping, stirring, more chopping, more stirring... Totally worth it!

First course - quinoa salad and rice bread.

Quinoa salad close up

Second course -

lentil soup, mashed sweet potatoes with Moroccan spices, and quinoa stuffing.

 Quinoa stuffing close up

On Sunday I went to a Thanksgiving party hosted by a friend. I brought leftovers from the day before for myself plus some homemade gravy, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat a majority of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes being served.

 Made chicken bone broth a couple days before, chilled it,

and ended up with this beautiful, healthy, nutrient & collagen-packed gel.

 Added some cornstarch and spices to my bone broth,

and got this huge jar full of gravy!

My friend generously gave me a discount since I was only partaking in the turkey.

 The Thanksgiving spread, of which I only had turkey.

The pies weren't nearly as tempting as those peanut butter cookies!

Somehow I resisted.

Got some turkey, added my homemade gravy, stuffing, and mashed sweet potatoes.

Also had a large salad and there in the back is my special pumpkin pie with no crust.

So for two days in a row I was able to safely indulge in Thanksgiving feasting! I am very thankful.

During the party clean up I rescued four (small) turkey’s worth of giblets and bones from being thrown away. Such delicious and nutrient rich parts of the turkey, and they’re all mine!

 This is how much bones and giblets four small turkeys make. All for MEEE!!

 My freezer is half full of turkey. Yes, half FULL, and it makes me so happy :D

Bagged up and froze all the bones and giblets I got. Gonna make so much amazing SOUP. I feel like I won Thanksgiving.

Ups & Downs, and Thanksgiving plans

Looks like a lot of people took a look at my blog at least once to see what it was, but haven’t looked at it since. The number of page hits is definitely dwindling. That’s alright, though. As I said at the beginning, this is mainly for myself. To quote one of my favorite artists/muscisians/authors, Amanda Palmer, from her recent blog “when i decide that i need to cut something out (like, say, i decide to go sober for a month, which i did the month before i started writing, to clean my system) then the best way i’ve found, is to announce my intentions to everyone around me. that way i’m beholden to my entire network of friends, and my community, and stepping out of my commitments feels like a breach of trust to them, not just against myself. so when i decided not to read any reviews (which came out of a long conversation with Jamy Ian Swiss, my book doula), i told neil, told my publishers, told my team, and them, lastly, told my blog. and i turned off my google news alerts. and after i did all that, i was like: well, NOW if i click on the link i see on twitter saying “17 reasons amanda palmer’s book is made of pure bullshit” i’m really….breaking my promise, to everyone. so, final advice: announce your intentions. it helps.”

Sorry guys, I’ve been breaking my promise to eat a reasonable amount of calories every day. This hasn’t been a great week for me. I’ve been tired and grumpy and haven’t had much motivation to stick to my goals. And I made a recent trip to the import store, at which time I stocked up on peanut butter. I’m afraid I might have to just quit buying it…

I also haven’t been exercising much. Although, I did get one workout in the other night, with a bonus challenge at the beginning which I filmed! This is probably the highlight of this week’s summary, so please watch and join me in laughing at myself. Say it with me now, “I can’t do pistol squats!”

This weekend is a three-day weekend here in Japan, and so it’s when we (my group of friends, organized by Dave) have decided to celebrate Thanksgiving. There will be a big gathering with the full Thanksgiving feast, all the works. It’s not a potluck, but instead all dishes are planned and supplies bought ahead of time, then everyone pays to participate. Most of the dishes I will be choosing not to eat. I know, that sounds unbelievable and impossible, but I have a plan! I’m going to bring a bunch of safe and delicious dishes for myself that I can eat instead. I’ll bring a great big awesome salad, maybe with persimmon & walnuts or maybe make the salad Emiko brought to the Halloween party. I’m also going to try this quinoa stuffing recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/quinoa-stuffing/. I’m going to make my dairy-free, egg-free pumpkin pie, but without the crust, so I guess it’ll be more like pumpkin custard. I’m going to make gravy with my homemade chicken bone broth and cornstarch instead of flour. And I might also bring some mashed sweet potatoes that don’t have any butter or sugar, but spices for flavoring instead. So probably the only thing I’ll eat at the party will be turkey. Lots and lots of turkey! It’s the one chance a year I get turkey in this country, so I’ve got to make the most of it.

And to finish off this post, here’s Today’s Trash:

 Actually had to open one to see if it was safe or not. Not.

Hopefully lots of Thanksgiving picture to come!

Soap free? But how? UPDATED: New deoderant recipe!

Here's something I don't normally tell people because I'm afraid of looks of astonishment and disgust - I don't use shampoo, conditioner, body wash, facial scrub, or deodorant. At least, not in the form most people are familiar with. Instead, I use natural ingredients to make my own substitutions for those items.

So here’s what I do:
Shampoo – baking soda. That’s it, nice and simple. Either sprinkle dry powder onto your scalp, rub a bit and rinse in the shower, or make a paste in the palm of your hand and work into already wet hair.

Conditioner – 500 ml chamomile tea (I use Sleepytime, which is chamomile & mint), 100 ml apple vinegar, 100 ml lemon juice (adds acidity to help balance out the baking soda, plus can lighten hair) , and 5-10 drops of your choice of essential oil. I like lavender or rosemary. In Japan I can find two types of apple vinegar, and one is much less potent than the other, so I use it. However, in the U.S. I think there’s just apple cider vinegar, and it can be pretty stinky. I would suggest trying other types of vinegar, preferably something fruity but without sugar. This vinegar mixture works well if you let it sit in your hair, so I generally do my hair first, using a spray bottle to wet my hair and scalp, and then rinse it out at the end of my shower. If your vinegar is stinky, rinse really really well!

Not so stinky kind on the left, really stinky kind on the right.

Body & facial wash/scrub – 1 lemon, a chunk of ginger, and a couple extra tablespoons of lemon juice. The citrus acts as a de-greaser, antibacterial, keeps your skin acidic which it should be (soaps don't), plus the rind chunks are a good scrub as well. Blend it all up until it’s nice and smooth. Keep this refrigerated when you’re not using it! It can last up to a week, but eventually it will start to smell a bit odd. Also, be sure to rinse well! It’s surprising the places you’ll find little pieces of lemon and ginger later if you don’t thoroughly wash it all off.

Making my scrub.

My itty bitty blender is not so strong, so I pre-chop the lemon and ginger.

I’ve substituted lime instead of lemon in the body wash, but it’s a bit more expensive for me and I found that the lime skin was a lot tougher than lemon, so it didn’t blend as well. Other ideas of what to add are apple to cut the harshness of the lemon, orange or grapefruit, carrot for texture, and some refreshing mint. Another idea if you have dry skin is to add some coconut milk. If you try different variations and come up with a good one, let me know!

Some other ideas that I have tried but don't do regularly are oatmeal and honey. You can get some old fashioned oats, blend then up until they're like a course flour, and use that as is. A great benefit is that it's super portable, so good for traveling. Honey has antimicrobial effects and makes a nice moisturizing scrub. It can be really sticky, but getting your face wet first can help it go on easily. I guess I don't use these much because they're my traveling alternative, but recently I've been too lazy and just use regular soap when traveling.

Deodorant – again, you can just use baking soda! If this is too harsh on your skin, mix in some corn starch. I use 50/50 baking soda and corn starch. It’s not an antiperspirant, so you’ll still sweat (which is healthy!), but baking soda is a great odor absorber so it makes a good deodorant. Use a dry cloth or cotton ball to pat in on. For extra odor fighting, use some baking soda while your washing your hair to give your pits an quick scrub too. I then follow this with my regular lemon scrub.

UPDATE: I mentioned to a friend that a downside of using baking soda as deodorant is that it gets all over the bathroom, and she recommended mixing in some coconut oil. She sent me this link, http://worldtruth.tv/how-to-make-non-toxic-long-lasting-organic-deodorant/ and I'm excited to try it! Apparently it's even the same texture as regular deodorant. I bet it's a nice moisturizer too. If only I could find coconut oil for a more affordable price...

 416g of coconut oil for ￥1,650 ($14) is the best price I've seen at Kaldi or Jupiter

In addition, I use olive oil as a make-up remover, and a little bit of baking soda instead of shaving cream. That might sound weird because baking soda is rough, but when mixed with water it actually becomes smooth. I've heard that a tiny bit of olive oil can also work well for shaving, but I didn't like it at all. I felt like it was almost sticky, and gummed up my razor really badly. But it's a good moisturizer, so sometimes I use a bit after I shave.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “So that’s why Laura smells so bad,” please tell me! Everyone is either too nice, or these soap free alternatives work well because I’ve been doing this for 2-3 years now and haven’t had any complaints. Although I’ve also been single this whole time…

At first when you make the change, you may not notice much of a difference. However, now, if I use regular shampoo and soap for more than a few days I can clearly tell that my hair is more dry and frizzy, my skin is also drier and more sensitive, and most importantly, my acne gets way worse. So that’s why I’m totally hooked on soap free! It’s also much better for the environment. Everything that goes down that drain ends up somewhere!
 

Look at that clear complexion!

One exception I have is that I still use regular hand soap. I work with hundreds of children every day, so I wash my hands with soap frequently. In this case I think that not catching the flu is worth it. Although, I should look into getting alcohol-based sanitizer instead.

Slightly related question, why do public bathrooms in Japan so often not have soap? Or when they do have soap, so many people don’t use it. Everyone just briefly runs their hands under cold water, if they bother washing their hands at all! Is this even remotely effective?