Day One!

We have lift-off!  We're a few days late, but I spent much of this past week in Portland, OR and you can't visit THE CITY of food and beer without sampling said food and beer. Not me. The Deschutes Brewery actually has a decent gluten-free beer, but the other 5 samples in my variety pack of liquid love were definitely not GF, but they were mighty tasty. And then there was Weinhard's... and Salvadore Molly's..., but I digress. After flying home, we couldn't let all the cheese, bread, and other tasty occupants of our fridge go to waste - could we?  That would be blasphemy! So after multiple attempts, we're finally off and running! There is no turning back if I really want to see if changing my diet affects my thyroid blood work. I'm optimistic that my energy, weight, and sinus issues will decide to come along for the ride.

The challenge is the rotation I'm supposed to magically puzzle together. The food I have mild sensitivities to are not supposed to be eaten more than every four days. The tough ones for me include olives (olive oil!), lime, eggs, and peanuts. This is somehow supposed to be juggled with eating foods I'm NOT sensitive to every other day to avoid building up sensitivity. It's like tricky dance choreography - it easily took twice as long to plan our meals for the week as it normally does. And with this new way of eating, it definitely requires planning! Like most things, I'm hoping it will get easier with time.

Roasted Chile-Lime Cauliflower

We started our morning with scrambled eggs, ham, and a plum that really needed another day or two of ripening - not the best start, but workable. I'm definitely not a fan of eating hard plums. Lunch, however, consisted of an amazing Roasted Chile-Lime Cauliflower recipe (and the only cauliflower I've ever loved), along with a cup of black-eyed peas. The cauliflower recipe came from the Profound Hatred of Meat blog, roasted with chili powder, lime, garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil - then garnished with cilantro. Finally! A reason to buy cauliflower other than an occasional ambition to widen my culinary tastes, but ending up as a biology experiment gone wrong in the fridge. This will make my husband very happy. We've definitely found a new favorite we'll be making again! 

So now that I've had olive oil, which we used to cook with almost daily, I now have to rotate and avoid olives/olive oil tomorrow. I'm not sure how that's going to work out for garlic, onion, and pepper. I'm hoping that skipping them every couple of days will be good enough. But we're going to at least attempt to rotate daily through the following oils: olive, avocado, peanut, occasionally canola, and my all-time favorites - sesame and coconut! We're aiming for four meals a day, since that's supposed to keep your metabolism revved up. So later, we'll be attempting an Asian slaw, followed by salmon with wild rice and roasted zucchini for dinner.

I'm really looking forward to discovering new foods and eating more variety - such as my newly acquired taste for cauliflower - okay, so far only if it's bathed in lime, chili, and garlic. I also discovered Sunflower "Drink" in the not-milk section at Sprout's yesterday! Since I can't drink almond or rice milk for the next few months, and I'm hearing controversy about soy being bad for Hashimoto's sufferers, I'm switching to coconut milk and trying the sunflower milk. We've also decided to avoid alcohol as long as possible, with an occasional glass of wine, GF apple cider, or potato vodka when it comes to the holidays or special events. Let the GF, dairy-free, rice-free, almond-free, chicken-free, black bean & garbanzo bean-free, oh-my-god-what-can-I-eat-that-I-didn't-eat-yesterday-and-when-can-I-have-a-drink rehab begin!!