Wow. I went to the conference mainly for a kick in the pants back to higher compliance. I certainly got that, and it was relatively painless, but this was no Weight Watcher's meeting...I got so much more than I ever expected. 2005 tickled some neurons I didn't know I had, but 2007 may have changed the whole form and function of my brain! I'm tempted to say it was more worthwhile than my college education, but of course, that helped prepare me to receive it all. My college education planted a lot of questions in my mind that it did not answer, and I feel I've now received some answers to those nagging questions.

Here's some of the more hands-on stuff:

1. Night owls are more prone to a myriad of health problems, but can become normal or morning birds with a little intervention. I used to be a morning person, before college, and I did still have both forms of SAD (seasonal affective disorder, and standard american diet) the latter SAD served to cancel out many of the benefits of an earlier schedule. I think combining both BTD with better scheduling will finish off what seasonal affective disorder remains. Of course I've dragged down my children's schedules along with me, so this will take work! Last night they went to bed earlier than the night before, but I'm no pro at this part of parenting. I owe it to them and me to pull our schedules back up. "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." that aphorism has scientific backing.

2. Epigenetics: they touched on this in the last conference, but really spent some time on it this time and covered the mechanisms of it. Wow. That will be a whole blog or more right there. Basically, the time to change the health of the world is before a woman conceives and during pregnancy. Poor lifestyle choices at this time give rise to the major health problems of our day. Women need to eat adequate calories and most importantly get adequate nutrition, not only from supplements but from healthy food. Health interventions at this point deny the existence of health problems in future generations. That's frightening to me, considering the standard american diet, but also hopeful that the current epidemics of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc. can be turned around...likely faster than they could be cured. It was the portion on epigenetics that helped me decide to get tested for master's certification. I just love learning stuff like this! That intense interest of mine also what turned me into a biotechnology major when I planned on Family Science or Humanities. I just can't turn off the curiosity!

To over-simplify it, phenotype changes to adapt to environment, these changes can be passed on, and phenotype is often more important than genotype when it comes to one's eventual outcome.

3. The segment on detoxification pathways was as interesting as ever. Most people have trouble somewhere along the chain of events that removes toxins from our bodies, some of us have more trouble than others. It is the biological basis for those of us who complain about chemicals more than others.

4. Quality of life was addressed quite heavily, I thought. The purpose of extending and improving life is to allow us more time and ability to express ourselves and find meaning, and to help others do the same. Doing so, well, that is good medicine, and results in better health outcomes and a better world.

So, I'm back on the bandwagon, and understand more about why I fell off it. I found an oxystress kit in my shelves that I had forgotten to use. The results weren't good, but it gives me something to work on and a cheap measure of how I'm doing on my diet. In 4 weeks, it should be better. My diet wasn't going so well before a few days ago, we'd been working on our house and without a whole kitchen for a while, so it was convenience food all the way with ne're a green thing in sight. I'm not surprised that my oxidative levels were in the very high range. It's always nice to have a gauge of improvement to look to.

Other than a couple months that I feared I had a neurological disease, the last year hasn't been a very compliant one for me. During those months I lost 15 pounds and felt much better in so many ways. Sometimes I've let life get in the way of living, and ended up eating what was convenient/cravable in the moment, at the expense of my health. I've grown tired of analyzing why I do that, I'm now just going to get past those moments and move on.

So I got tested through enterolab for casein and soy intolerance. Another case of me needing a lab to tell me what I already know. If they had a test for corn intolerance I'd probably get that one too. Anyway, both tests came back positive. Not a big surprise, but it does serve to motivate me to be more compliant. I made the mistake of having a farewell-once-and-for-all day to casein, by eating as much as I wanted of it. That was a big mistake, but the consequences I will not easily forget, so there's more motivation. (I was already eating a bit, after buying my baby some sheep's milk cheese and eating it when he wouldn't...so I didn't expect it to be the major shock to my system that it was.) I still don't want to even look at cheese again, my stomach hurt so bad I almost passed out!

So now is the time to move my focus to the beneficials. Focus on the good... forget the avoids. My goals are to lose weight and then start running again after I find a running coach to help me avoid the back injuries I've had trouble with from running in the past. First, it's time for hiking and some core strenghtening. Pregnancy is a good excuse for my weight, I gain no quite a bit no matter how I eat, but I don't need the extra weight anymore and I'm not going to have any more excuses for letting my health slide. Convenience foods are convenient, but their consequences are not.

I couldn't believe it when I saw it, but St. Dalfour's makes a kumquat marmelade. It's completely compliant for nonnie Os. I bought some up, but now realize that I no longer know what to put it on! There's not a rice cake in my house, maybe I'll go buy some.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but Sambazon makes an acerola juice drink that doesn't have any citric acid/ascorbic acid or other additives. It does have sugar in it (cane juice), but I thought it was notable to find something like it without flavorings or additives added, it's flavored with a little ginger juice...nothing extra. Hooray! Despite the sugar, I have tried it, and it tastes a bit like Sunny Delight...which I never liked because it's junk, but I do like this, and it's not junk, it's pure and simple.

My use of calcium citrate may be biting me now, as my scalp is consistently goose-egged these days. It may be a detox reaction. I had a massage on my birthday, and she said afterward to drink lots of water because I may detox and get sore spots. I hadn't been drinking enough already, and later in the day it really flared up even though I didn't eat anything that normally bugs me. Then I noticed some talk of calcium citrate on a corn allergy group, and that it is made with citric acid, and thought "D'oh!" I now take only clearcal and phytocal. I imagine it may take a good deal of detoxing to get the remainder of the citric acid out of my system...if that is how it is. All the corn derivatives that I react to are fermented corn derivatives, so, where it stands now, I need to really avoid those... corn alcohols in natural flavorings, citric acid, corn-derived ascorbic acid, xanthan gum, to name a few.

I'll see my endocrinologist tomorrow, I imagine he'll give me more vitamin Ds to take, since once I ran out I started getting occasional mild symptoms again. He'll look over my thyroid and such as well, and see if anything else needs tuned up.

Anyway, that's all I have for now. Hope you all had a good Valentine's day!

Yes, I did have cake too, but I was almost more excited about a salad I found at a restaurant on my birthday. We went for a day in the city, and hit a few restaurants and shops. I bought two new pairs of shoes, which is highly unusual for me to shop for shoes and find any that fit...then I wear them so long that they fall apart.

We went to Biaggi's, where they serve gluten free pasta, and I indulged on a little goat cheese with my pasta, which was lovely and I actually didn't suffer from it just this once. Then we went shopping and caught a movie, then went to PF Chang's for their gluten free chocolate dome, which I'd wanted to try since they added it to the GF menu. From there we went across the street to a new pizzeria that serves authentic pizza, like they serve in Naples. What on earth is a celiac doing going to a pizza restaurant on her birthday, you ask? They just opened and my husband can't get within a block of there without going in. I was full from the other food, and had my Italian restaurant standby of pellegrino to back me up. All they really do is pizza so I was surprised to see a nice simple salad on the menu, the only ingredients are arugula, lemon juice, olive oil, sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. Wow. It was really good. The server was very approachable about my wheat allergy (despite the irony of me even being there!) and made sure they were careful with the salad in the kitchen.

The world of eating out really has changed for celiacs...to be able to have a choice of restaurants with gluten free menus, and even a dessert option or two. It's great. Gluten free pizza has not arrived in Utah yet, but I have hope that someday it will. Arizona has it, California has it, and of course New York has it...it's just a matter of time. Of course, I'd still order some salad to go with it!

So, all in all it was a great birthday. It's rare to get away for a whole day out, and I loved it!

I haven't blogged in a while. My boys and I had strep last week, and I'm still catching up on sleep whenever possible. I usually don't get strep, but when I do, it really hits me hard...worse than the flu. Caring for two sick children didn't help me get better as fast as I'd hoped.

So, we survived and now we're getting back into the swing of things.

Otherwise, things have been going well for us.