109/126

This morning I got on the scales and discovered that my weight has come down a little bit more to 59.7kg (131 lb). Weight is not my main focus, but the fact that I'm getting leaner is an indication that I'm on the right track. As my trainer used to say 'the scale doesn't show everything but it does show something'. In my case it shows that, if I'm not overeating, I will probably naturally weigh less (oh, the pure logic of it..).

I've been focusing quite hard on 'other' aspects of my life. Getting my house in order, quite literally. I've been living here for about 6 years and it still looks like I just moved in! My things are stacked in boxes and I've given less than my share in terms of keeping the place clean and neat, just because it's taken me this long to feel like it's really mine. As part of claiming my life, I'm claiming my house, my fridge, my cupboard, my bathroom and it's all getting a neatness overhall. The other thing I'm working on is owning my time, rather than just reacting to whatever comes along. It feels unfamiliar to set my day and act like my decisions are just as important as whatever else people may need me to do for them, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

I've been making time for research and while reading some papers on Arthritis, stumbled into a very interesting area. I always thought that the sudden appearance of my symptoms, coinciding so neatly with a severe bout of Mononucleosis (Epstein Barr Virus) was not due to mere bad luck. Now I am convinced of it. I've been reading a lot about what a viral infection can do to a persons ability to absorb nutrients, or more correctly, to avoid absorbing substances that can create havoc when they go where they are not supposed to. I've been reading about certain unhelpful food lectins and have been familiarising myself with which foods contain the most troublesome ones. The idea seems to be to avoid as many of them as possible for a healing period of about a week then test them, in groups, to observe any reaction. The main groups of lectins seem to be - grains/pulses/beans, dairy, nuts/seeds, nightshade veges and eggs. It would be unlikely (and unfortunate) to react to all of them. I'm going to start a seven day elimination tomorrow and I'm prepared for it to be a bit inconvenient. Tonight I went to my sisters for dinner and saw her sprinkling garlic salt on my kumara. On checking the ingredients I saw 'canola oil', which has grain lectins in it. Those little buggers are truly ubiquitous. Between canola oil and soybean oil there is hardly a processed food that is without grain lectins. The other part of healing a virally clobbered system is glyconutrients and I've been deep in research about things like N-Acetyl-D-Glucosamine and D-Mannose, nutrients I have worked with before but had not fully understood them. These nutrients bind to certain lectins, but I'm not sure yet exactly which ones or how I should use the glyconutrients.

Actually, I've become quite obsessed about lectins. I've already bored my friends and family to death about them, so it's probably time to reach out to the world at large. ;)