I hate cashews, and they hate me.

I've went to bed by 9:30 p.m. the past two nights, and feel like my body is exhausted and pre-sickness, so I'm trying to ward that off as best as I can (I think the good diet, coupled with enough exercise and water and fruits has been extremely beneficial to minimizing potential bugs, however).

Yesterday, I introduced an orange in the morning and that seemed to be fine....no weird effects or strange occurrences. But then, I happened into the health food store while waiting for my second job interview and discovered some raw cashews, which are on the "safe" foods list....I just haven't been eating them due to not having a health food store next to where I live. Okay, y'all, I know I'm allergic to peanuts. I also realize that cashews are legumes. What I didn't realize is how my body apparently doesn't like EITHER of them. About an hour after eating those little bastards, my stomach was aching (and I do mean aching), and I had a headache AND the back of my mouth and jaws felt a little numb. My weight this morning sealed the deal. The past three days, my morning weights have been 109.6, 109.2 and 109.4, respectively. (The .2 weight gain is probably due to potatoes.). This morning, I was up to 109.8, and I wholeheartedly blame cashews. Today I'll be taking it easy and only eating the foods on my safe list, although it makes me angry that my diet was sabotaged by a food that should be low-sensitivity. 

Job interviews were....interesting. The first one I went to was for a legal secretary job in a reaaaally small town. The guy expressed surprise at having not one, but THREE lawyers apply for the job. The second interview was crazy. I mean, the guy was cray, the interview was cray, the questions were cray. My mom is convinced I'll get the second job. ::such is my life::

Today I'm studying, then hitting the gym since I couldn't yesterday and because I MISS IT. I need some weights in my life. (I think I'm hitting biceps and calves today.)

Bad ideas

You know how yesterday I said that *since I had broken my diet anyway,* I was going to go out to eat?

BAD IDEA. 

Let me reiterate: it was a 

BAD BAD TERRIBLE NO-GOOD IDEA!

I spent yesterday night huddled in a fetal position, feeling as though I were about to die. So yeah....anyone who thinks that breaking the elimination diet is a good idea should probably think again. I had a headache, felt like throwing up, had gas, a stomachache, and  went to bed three hours earlier than normal. All because of a potato, some butter, and a slab of meat (okay, and some salad dressing and a piece of bread). 

Today I'm back to eating "safe foods," and have a chicken roasting in the oven as I type. I don't think I'll be repeating that mistake again. 

I did take the sodium/potassium bicarbonate mixture yesterday, and it did help get me back to a closer weight (111.8). Hopefully I'll weigh in at my normal weight tomorrow morning, and then can continue testing foods. 

Wish me luck....I'm headed to the gym.

Elimination Diet, Days 5 & 6

I'm combining days 5 and 6 for the sake of not having that much to report. Let's just say that day 5 sucked a big one. I weighed in at 113.4 in the morning following a big BM (TMI, I know) and weighed in at 115.2 during my evening weigh-in. For my Day 6 weigh-in, I tallied 113.0 pounds in the morning (because I starved the day before) and 114.4 pounds in the evening.

Why did day 5 suck so much? I'm starting to get tired of the foods. All of them. I hate lentils. And pineapples. And apples. And spinach. And especially cod (the worst food in the world, I'm convinced). I've tried all food combinations, and I'm not really able to do much with them. I was so tired of them yesterday that I really didn't eat much at all. This didn't impact my weight in the scales too much today, but I think it did impact it SOME. It was so pathetic that I'm not even bothering posting my food tracking from yesterday.

As far as the gym: today (day 6), I took a free day to let my muscles repair. Day 5 gym time was good, though. I almost went 5 miles combined with all my cardio machines (upright, stairmaster, and AMT), mostly because I did them before and after my weight routine. I worked triceps, abs, and worked on my form with squats yesterday.

So yeah, that's pretty much it. I'm stupidly excited about the prospect of adding broccoli to my diet tomorrow. And the next day, I get to add chicken (YAHOOOOO!!) and peppers (not black pepper, unfortunately). I'm SOOOOO glad.

Elimination Diet, Day 4/My Day at the Gym

Yesterday was more of the same diet foods. My morning weigh-in was at 113.8 and my evening weigh-in was 115.2. So far, my chart looks like this:

	Morning Weight	Evening Weight
Night before	---	118.8
Day 1	117.8	114.4
Day 2	114.4	115.4
Day 3	114.4	115.8 (after din)
Day 4	113.8	115.2

My weight is holding pretty steady, and I managed to drink 8 glasses of water yesterday. The corners of my mouth are healing nicely, and I hope that in a couple of days, the cracking will be a distant nightmare. 

So, I alluded to a horrible incident in the gym yesterday. Let me explain....

I already knew it was going to be a shitty day. My littlest brother was running late for school (I drop him off in the morning to ensure that I get up and get my pahookis to the gym), I forgot my breakfast (sliced pineapple) on my way out of the door, and I was starving come gym time. 

Then I get on the only open treadmill to start my fitness test and the woman on the one beside it had the worst imaginable breath ever. I'm talking....rank. It made me want to throw up, except, well, I didn't have anything in my darn stomach to heave! 

I managed to get through my upright bike, my AMT, and my running cardio (my fitness test was better than the last time, so that's a plus!); then I headed to the weight room. Since I had done pecs and lower back the day before, I figured I could do some triceps and abs to balance it out and focus on legs during the latter part of the week. So I grab my bosu ball and I'm heading to set up my station when I hear a guy kinda yell/grunt really loudly by the leg press machine. I figure he smushed his finger between two plates (haven't we all?) and I didn't give it much thought....until he did it again, much louder, and remained hunched by the machine. 

I cautiously approached him from the other side, asking if he was okay (because I thought maybe he had somehow gotten caught under the machine--I had no idea how I was going to help, but I HAD to offer). That's when I notice his hands were curled into claws and that he was seizing. 

At that moment, he fell down and began to convulse. I've seen someone have a seizure before, and luckily there was someone else in the weight room at that time who ran to help assist me. We rolled him over, and then realized this was no normal seizure. He was bleeding from his mouth and his eyes. His eyes actually looked black around the edges because of the blood vessels, and I saw blood coming from them. It wasn't just broken blood vessels, but ACTUAL blood. Now, had it just been coming from his mouth, I would have figured he had bitten his tongue. As it was, we knew something was very VERY wrong. 

I told the guy who was holding him to stay with him, then SPRINTED to the main desk to tell the person to call 911; that a man was having a seizure. Being as she was from another country, I guess she didn't understand me or why I was shouting. I shouted to the rest of the gym that if a medical professional was there, that they needed to come fast, because he needed a doctor or a nurse. By that time, I had already grabbed my phone and started dialing 911. They answered immediately, and after I calmed down, I explained where I was, what was happening, and to send help. A few minutes later, the managers of the facility also came downstairs and attempted to help. There was nothing I could do, and he was having large muscle contractions by this time, and lapsing in and out of consciousness. The police chief arrived, and about ten minutes after making the call, the paramedics (FINALLY) showed up. 

It turns out that this guy (who couldn't have been older than 21 or 22) had a preexisting condition; he wasn't wearing a medical bracelet indicating his propensity for seizures (which I know can be difficult and burdensome to wear in a gym). The medics got him in the bus and started an IV, and he suffered a gash to the head as well when he seized. I gave the police a report, and then went cut my workout short and went home. 

The rest of the day was pretty much wasted. I didn't feel better until I called the hospital, explained who I was (to three separate people), and just asked if he was okay. They told me they couldn't give me a report (which I was okay with and understood, due to HIIPA), but that he was being released (it was noon at that time).

However, it got me thinking....the emergency procedures in this gym were sorely lacking. No one covered this guy to keep him from going into shock (and the weight room was cold). The people behind the front desk were not equipped to handle such an emergency. They didn't even call the ambulance, but instead opted to phone the police, which could have wasted PRECIOUS minutes had this been something worse (not that this wasn't God-awful) and had I not called 911 instead. No one brought a defib in case this guy's heart stopped, and I'm not sure they even had one. It seems to me that every single gym should have an emergency plan in place, particularly at a university. No alarm was raised, no intercom system was used, and no one seemed to be in much of a hurry. 

It also made me think about how fragile life is, how unpredictable your day may be, and how much I hold on to trivial details when I should be thinking about the larger picture. 

Just food for thought....