Alpha Nutrition Diet.....No More

Well, I didn't make it through the ten days of the diet again.  Seven was as far as I got.  Yesterday I was so discouraged and worn out I just gave up and ate almost an entire box of cookies.  Boy, did it taste good after seven days of rice, water & ENF. 

I'm not really sure if the diet was helping me or not.  It seemed like it was during the first couple days but after that I'm just not sure.  It certainly didn't make anything worse.  I do recommend though, for anyone trying the diet, to mix the ENF with water not juice.  It tastes much better with juice but gave me horrible heart burn.  I wish I could report something more conclusive. 

The idea of delayed pattern food allergies still seems to make sense to me.  I do believe that all the chemicals in our food supply must be having repercussions of some kind.  The idea that the constant ingestion of these chemicals into our bodies is screwing up our immune systems makes perfect sense.  Let's face it, during millions of years of evolution, our immune systems have never encountered such a bombardment of chemicals (pesticides, preservatives, hormones) and they don't know how to process them.  They attack them, but these are not like the viruses and bacteria the immune system evolved to destroy.  It's no wonder the immune system goes crazy and starts attacking things it's not supposed to.  It's no wonder that we become allergic to foods that, in the past, we weren't really allergic to much.  I think it also accounts for why so many more people are reportedly getting autoimmune diseases.

My mom is a retired grammar school teacher, now substitute teacher.  She tells me that there are classrooms that are classified as "NO PEANUT ZONES".  This indicates that a child in the class is so allergic to peanuts that they will go into anaphylactic shock if they're even around peanuts.  This means that no child in that class can bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to school, and their parents receive a notice at the beginning of the year indicating this.  I remember kids being allergic to bee stings and poison ivy but nothing like what my mom tells me about.  Does anyone else find this strange?  Why are so many children so deathly allergic to foods? 

Maybe one of these days I'll get up the will-power to try the Alpha Nutrition Diet again.  We'll see.

Alpha Nutrition Diet - Day 7

OK - I'm really starting to get sick of this diet.  I want real food!  But, being that I've made it through seven days, I suppose I should hold out for three more.  I know I'd be really mad at myself if I quit now.  Anyway, I want to be able to cross "food allergies" off my "Why Am I Sick?" list.

I think I over-did it, exercising though, as I was afraid of.  I've felt so run-down today.  I'm so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open.  I think, tomorrow, I'll take a break from exercise or I'll do a short very low-impact walk.  This is so frustrating!  I want to get back in shape so I can be healthy but when I try to exercise it sets me back even more.  It goes against common instinct and logic.

Alpha Nutrition Diet - Day 6

I have actually made it through six days of the Alpha Nutrition Program.  I may be feeling better but I'm not really sure.  Six days of ingesting only Alpha ENF, white rice, rice crackers, water and apple juice.  It's definitely getting harder to resist other foods.  Especially when I have to prepare meals for my daughter.  I went for a walk this morning and I felt a little stronger than usual.  I pushed myself to walk a little faster than normal and although I had to keep pushing the entire time, I was able to maintain a fairly decent (for me) pace.  I just hope I didn't push myself too hard and become useless for the next three days.  It has happened before.  In fact, the very first time I got really sick was the day after I had totally over-exerted myself.

Before I got sick, I used to walk about two miles a day up (and down) slopes with an average grade of 9.5%, which I think is pretty steep.  I would say I was in better shape than the average person but not an athlete by any means.  While I was pregnant with my daughter I wasn't able to exercise at all due to extreme fatigue - like, couldn't stand up long enough to take a shower, fatigue.  Because I wasn't exercising and I was eating the same or more than average, I gained weight.  I gained fifty pounds during my pregnancy!  Miraculously, when I left the hospital, thirty of those pounds had disappeared (ten of which was my beautiful daughter) but I still had twenty to go and I was determined to loose them. 

About two months after my daughter was born, I started to get my energy back.  It was very short-lived though.  I started exercising again, struggling up those same hills I used to walk with ease.  One day, determined to get out for a walk, I took my daughter in her stroller, since my husband was at work and walked up an even steeper hill than I usually do.  My muscles and lungs burned the whole time but I kept pushing that stroller higher and higher with thoughts of me in my pre-pregnancy jeans as a motivation.  I had clearly over-done it.  When I got to the top my face was bright red, I was covered with sweat and could hardly catch my breath.

The very next morning I woke up feeling like I had the flu.  My whole body ached, I felt like I had a fever (but didn't) and I could hardly get out of bed from weakness.  That was two years ago and those symptoms are still here and more have joined the repertoire along the way.  Although the severity of my illness has increased and decreased over the last two years, it has never gone away.  I have always thought, maybe that uphill climb while pushing the stroller had set something off, but I'll never really know. 

Alpha Nutrition Diet - Take Two

Now that I'm finally feeling a little more stable, mentally, it's time to get back to my "I'll try anything..." mode.  Researching this stuff and trying new things is the only thing that keeps me from slipping down "the black hole" of hopelessness.  Maybe I haven't fully accepted that I'm chronically ill.  I still have a feeling deep down that if I keep trying different things, I'll eventually find what's causing this and continue leading my life where I left off two years ago.  Maybe this is naive but I'm not to the stage yet where I can accept that this is how I will possibly feel for the rest of my life. 

So......I'm trying the "Alpha Nutrition Diet for Aching and Fatigue" again.  I posted about it some months ago and made it to day two, I think.  The timeline is ten days and I'm on day three this time.  I've ingested nothing but Alpha ENF, white rice, water and juice.  Surprisingly, I feel pretty good (relatively speaking of course).  My energy level seems better than normal, which, I didn't expect so early on.  It's hard to resist the few holiday treats still lingering around but it is nice not having to think about what to eat. 

The Delayed Pattern Food Allergy hypothesis did make a lot of sense to me when I read about it.  One of the things researchers think might be causing these unusual food allergies, are all the chemicals, like pesticides, that are in the food we eat.  Our immune systems go into overdrive trying to attack them then get stuck in this hypersensitive mode and begin attacking things that aren't harmful to your body.  Some theories add that this hypersensitivity is what eventually causes autoimmune disease, when your immune system starts attacking your organs.  Personally, I'm sure I've ingested enough chemicals to easily make my immune system crazy.  I don't do much cooking (to put it mildly) and I've been know to eat every meal of my day out of a box.

Well, I hope I make it to day ten this time.  Who knows, maybe it'll actually make me feel better.  I have to have the hope that it will.  For more information about the Alpha Nutrition Program here's the link:  http://www.nutramed.com/alpha/index.htm

Day 4 - 10/22/11 - Alpha Nutrition Diet for Aching and Fatigue

Still feeling like crap...

Symptoms
(0=mild to no discomfort 10=most severe discomfort/ pain)

3:00pm
Shortness of Breath - 4
Fatigue - 7
Headache - 2
Backache - 7
Eye Pain - 2
All-Over Body Pain - 6

Food Log
9:00am - 1 cup rice cereal, 1/2 cup rice milk,
10:00am - 1/3 cup ENF Formula
3:00pm - 6 peach slices, fruit ice pop
1:00pm - 1 cup rice, 1 cup broccoli & carrots, 1/3 cup ENF Formula
4:30pm - 2.5oz can salmon, large mango smoothie
6:00pm - 1cup rice, 1 cup broccoli & carrots, 1 cup rice cereal & 1/2 cup rice milk
9:00pm - 5 rice crackers

Medications taken at bedtime:
Cymbalta: 20mg, Welbutrin: 150mg, Lorazepam: 2mg

Day 1 - 10/19/11 - Alpha Nutrition Diet for Aching and Fatigue

Slept until around 10am.  Woke up feeling bad:

Symptoms (0=mild to no discomfort 10=most severe discomfort/ pain)
                        12:00pm |  5:00pm
Shortness of Breath - 4  |  4
Fatigue - 6  |  6
Headache - 2  |  0
Backache - 6  |  3
Heart Murmurs - 5  |5
Eye Pain - 3  |  3
All-Over Body Pain - 4  |  4
Joint Pain - 5  |  4

Food Log
11:30am  -  6 peach slices, 3/4 cup white rice
12:30pm  -  1 cup cooked broccoli & carrots, 1tbsp olive oil, 1tsp salt
1:00pm  -  1 baked sweet potato
3:00pm  -  1 cup rice cereal, 1/2 cup rice milk
5:00pm  -  6 peach slices, 1/3 cup ENF formula
6:00pm  -  1 cup rice, 1 cup broccoli & carrots
7:30pm  -  1 cup rice cereal, 1 cup rice milk
9:00pm  -  1 cup rice

Medications taken at bedtime:
Cymbalta: 20mg, Welbutrin: 150mg, Lorazepam: 2mg