Endometriosis and nutrition

It's been a busy two weeks which is why I haven't blogged in a while. My endometriosis pain  has been making an appearance more and more lately so I have decided it's time to get back on track with avoiding the foods that trigger more pain. Those foods are meat (chicken, turkey, pork, and beef), dairy and gluten. Last weekend I made a salad for my lunch. I found the recipe on Joyous Health

It's a roasted Cauliflower salad, but I added in some cooked lentils and quinoa to have protein in there. I did two 1/4 cup of lentils and 1/4 cup of quinoa cooked in water. The only other change I did was that I put some walnuts instead of Pecans. I thought I had some on hand but I didn't. This salad was very tasty!

For my breakfast I decided to try her coconut flour banana pancakes found here on her site. These were also delicious!

The texture is a bit grainy I think cause of the coconut flour, but they were still really good.

Since I have been training for my half marathon I also decided that I was way overdo for some new running shoes, which my hubby agreed to buy me as an early birthday gift. I bought these at the running room

For some reason I tend to reach for Nike when I buy runners, and these were very pretty as well. Unfortunately they didn't work out. Thankfully they offer to return the runners if they don't work, as long as I don't wear them outside, which I did not. I tried two 5k on the treadmill and my feet would cramp up cause it seemed like there was extra padding at the heel therefore my heel wouldn't fit snugly in there so my heel would lift up a bit while I ran causing cramping so I brought them back and tried a few of them and came out with these

These are Asics, and they provide a lot of support and they work well. I have tried a 5 km with them on my treadmill and no issues. I then ran 8 km on my treadmill then switched over to the old ones cause the new ones were causing blister type feeling cause I need to break them in a bit more before I do a longer run with them. Here's me at the end of the 15 km run I did last Friday

It was again tough cause it was on the treadmill but my hubby found a video online with a run through London, and then it would automatically start another run through a trail so worked out well. I also did 10's and 1's to help me get through the long run. For those non-runners, that means I ran for 10 minutes then walked for 1 minute the entire way. Towards the end I was having a bit more of a hard time but I accomplished my 15 km run. It took me 1 hour, 47 minutes and 23 seconds. Not my best time but I'm working on it. I still have about 2 months left to train.

I was also not so lucky this weekend, Saturday morning I was hit with very intense endometriosis pain. It started off minimal and it gradually got worse. I was in so much pain that it did bring tears to my eyes. I took out my trusty heating pad and it helped. After a few hours I was able to function again but my stomach was very weak and sensitive. Meaning I couldn't push hard on my stomach cause it hurt and I also had to be careful the way I moved. I haven't experienced this much pain in many years. About 11 years ago I got the major surgery, a hysterectomy, and it was the best decision ever cause I was covered in endometriosis. This helped take away all the pain for so long. My doctor made a good decision and left one of my ovaries in order to avoid me from having to take hormone pills which can be tricky to figure out the right dosage. He said since I'm young, he didn't want me to go through that, so he took away as much endo as he could for that ovary, but just living a tiny spec of endo causes it to keep growing and getting bigger. He said hopefully I'll be ok until I hit menopause but unfortunately pain is back. Still don't regret the decision and I am quite knowledgeable in endo so I'm sure I'll be ok.

So my goal is to stick to a meat free, gluten free and dairy free diet to help lessen the pain. There's something in these foods that cause inflammation, therefore making pain worse. I will be working on eating anti-inflammatory foods to help me, like ginger, turmeric, fish, and more. It means a healthy eating plan for me, which is a good thing. It will help me feel healthier and stronger. The huge amount of pain I got was different from before so I plan on seeing my gynecologist, to see if he knows what that was about, to avoid that from happening again. I'll be sure to mention the pain is back to see what he recommends. I know he said I could go for a laparoscopy surgery if needed, but not sure I want to do one yet. I want to try eating healthy to see how things work out. Maybe I can make it till I hit menopause so I don't have to do surgery again.

So I of course got into my kitchen again and prepared another healthy lunch. I got the idea from a friend at work.

I again cooked up some lentil, 1/4 cup, with 1/4 cup quinoa, but this time I also added 1/4 cup of barley. Barley does have gluten but I added some anti-inflammatory foods in the salad, hoping it won't effect me to much. When I did a cleanse and tested foods, I didn't react very much to gluten so I will have a bit from time to time. I cooked those in water and let it cool. I chopped up a fennel bulb, and used some of the green top of the fennel as well. It almost looks like dill. I then added an apple, and some Brussels sprouts. For my dressing I did about 2 tbps of apple cider vinegar, about 4 tbsp of olive oil, a bit of honey, some Dijon mustard (about a tbsp), I grated in some ginger, added a tsp of turmeric, a bit of salt and pepper and some dill. I tosses everything and tried a bit of it and it was delicious!

I also wanted to have a sweet treat and took out my Joyous Health Cookbook and tried her double chocolate gluten free cookies

It's with coconut flour and some cacao powder. All very healthy ingredients and they taste good. Hubby and I each tried one after our lunch and we both really liked it. It made 23 cookies, so we will have lots to snack on this week. I wanted to make another batch of the carrot cake cookies but I want to take some time to relax as well since my stomach isn't feeling that great. Still feeling weak from all that pain yesterday. While I was in the kitchen I was getting pain from time to time and not feeling great so I didn't want to over do it. I also took care of my new batch of kombucha. Time to take it easy and I can always try to make the other cookies another time. Soon time for supper, which I plan to cook up some shrimp.

Breakfast

One of my new favorite things to eat for breakfast is avo toast. This one is the one I love the most

So I use a sprouted bread, I found one that I absolutely love, and I spread some avocado on each toast, which I ended up using half an avocado. I fried up two eggs, and put that on top and cut up a small cucumber. I added a little bit of salt and some pepper, so yummy! It's my favorite combination.

For a while avo toast have been pretty popular, and there's a variety of them online. I have tried a few others, but not many, I tend to always stick with this one.

I was planning to try this pancake recipe from the Joyous Health website, it's with coconut flour but my weekend ended up being really busy so I didn't get the chance. I do have some coconut yogurt on hand so thinking to just have that for breakfast with some of the granola I made and I have a 4 day weekend coming up so I will try out those pancakes then. I also wanted to make a banana loaf and try out this cauliflower salad but again didn't have time so will make it another time.

I did get the chance to see my niece today. She came with me and hubby to shop for a new pair of running shoes. Mine were causing me some blisters so it was time for a new pair. I did find one so time for me to start breaking them in so they are great for the race. I also got a new pair of pants since weather is still on the cold side. Hubby bought them for me as an early birthday gift.

My niece has never been to Panera so that's where we went for supper, she really liked it. Here's what we had

It was a chipotle, avocado and chicken panini with the broccoli and cheddar soup. It was delicious! I had the green smoothie, which was really tasty and she had the banana strawberry smoothie which was also really good. I picked up a sandwich to bring home to hubby which I got him the turkey avocado BLT sandwich. I love the great healthy options they have and the food is always so good!

Another weekend come and gone, and we unfortunately lost an hour this weekend. I hate the time change that we do twice a year. I'm always so tired for about a week trying to adjust to it. Hope everyone else had a good weekend!

Outside running...finally!

Today I went outside for my run. It was nice enough out there, although I still had to dodge puddles and be careful of the ice/snow. Still felt great to be out there though

So this was my 10 km mark and still had a ways to go to get back home. I ran 12 km in an hour and 28 minutes. Not bad since I had to go around puddles and stuff. My feet still got wet so my runners are now drying on a rack over our heating vent. Felt great to be outside and not on a treadmill for my long run. I do love my treadmill but it's tough to get through a long run. My legs are sore but I feel great to have accomplished a further distance. Still more to go to be ready for the half but I still have some time.

Yesterday we had friends over for supper and I cooked up a nice pot of tomato sauce. I had it in my cast iron pot, and it cooked low and slow all day and it turned out delicious! I cooked up some spaghetti and we had ceasar salad and garlic bread with that. A little later in the evening we had this for dessert

I haven't made it in a long time. It's a raw dessert and from the picture on the left you can see it's with pineapples, which is also delicious but I have made it with blueberries before and it's just as good. The crust is made with cashews, but I did it with half cashews and half almonds, some maple syrup and some vanilla in the food processor. Half for the bottom and the other half for the top. The bottom crust gets patted down. The filling is cashews in my Vitamix, with some maple syrup, coconut oil and water and blend until nice and smooth. Add it to a bowl with some blueberries and mix. Very simple but so delicious! We all really enjoyed dessert, and we played a game that they brought and it was a lot of fun. We played another game after that I got for Christmas and it was also fun.

Didn't get much done today in the kitchen, just cleaned up from the night before, and with my long run I'm feeling quite tired. I'm thinking to take out my other mason jar of the root vegetable soup from my freezer so I have that for my lunch this week, and I do have salad, veggies and dip, and I do have more of the chia pudding and still some of my granola left so I have options for the week. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!