How not to take a self-portrait

Yesterday I was given a picture of Geekster and me which was taken at a wedding in late August. It's a nice picture and one that is now on my fridge for me to smile at as I hurriedly prepare meals at least one family member will loudly decline with a grossed out look on his face (It varies as to who will make said face, which makes it somewhat exciting. Kind of like a lottery, or bingo.)

August 2010

What I immediately noticed - and what shocked me more than anything - is how big I am in the picture. And I'm not a fat-hater - really I'm not. I've been overweight most of my life. In that time, I've been a healthier fatty and an unhealthier fatty. I don't think being skinny necessarily equals health, just as being un-skinny doesn't necessarily mean one's heart is going to explode in a mess of Cheetos. But in this particular picture, I realized just how sick I look; the bad kind of overweight. The bloated, tired, sluggish kind of fat. I was a few weeks away from hitting the proverbial wall and desperately attempting something that would end up changing everything for me. But at that time, I just felt like ass.

Liking this photo - and having it on the fridge for all to see - is a big step for me. Generally speaking, I hate pictures of myself. I loathe, despise, am disturbed by pictures of me. Ironically, this means I take a lot of them (more on that in a bit).  You'd think that years of being tagged in sometimes less-than-perfect poses on social networking sites would make me more accepting of myself. Sadly, not so. I'm a girl, after all, and I have self-esteem issues. They're a lot better than they were ten - or even five - years ago, but there's still that nagging voice in my head that likes to tell me I'm far uglier than you.

The big difference yesterday, however, was not only that I liked a photo of me at one of my heaviest weights, but that it was the first time Geekster and I really saw how far I've come in the last three months of gluten-free eating and, more recently, natural adrenal gland support. The first thing I did, after picking my jaw up off the floor, was drag my hubby over to the camera and snap a current picture of the two of us to compare it to:

January 2011

Not too shabby, right? I should of gazed in amazement, made it my Facebook profile picture and stopped there.

But you know I didn't.

I'm an addict. Most of my addictions haven't been exercised in several years. However, there are a few - like chocolate and caffeine, for example - that I drag out to a dirty motel and make sweet love to whenever the mood strikes. But there is another nasty habit that I simply can't stop doing once I get started. It's so bad that I keep checking for hair on my palms for days afterwards. While less frequent a guest star in my situational sitcom than the aforementioned yummy food, it still likes to come out and play every month or so: taking pictures.

Now, as I mentioned before, I'm not too keen on Maven photos. Self-esteem issues = a fear of flashes and full-length mirrors. When I take pictures of myself, I generally snap a few dozen, then dig through them until I find one that doesn't want to make me want to eat a bucket of ice cream. Sometimes I get one - and furiously edit out everything I possibly can until it looks passable enough to share - and sometimes I dislike every single one and await the little black rain cloud that will follow me for the rest of the day.

But something happened yesterday. I actually liked the pictures I took.

I mean, sort of.

I liked the difference I could see in my eyes, my skin, my shrinking double chin. There was just one problem: the hair. I'm long overdue for a hair cut and the coif wasn't cooperating. Observe:

In this picture, I'm trying to show myself the difference between August and January. But I have a scarf on, and my hair is different, so I figured I should probably let the hair down and get my neck naked. It was all downhill from there.

Alright, not too bad. Angled shots are funky and make me look like I'm not aging from stress far too quickly as a stay-at-home-mom. Smile's good, not too much shine or makeup. But, um... The hair is kind of plain. I should probably try doing something with it, so I attempt to give it a little bit more body with my fingers...

Anyone read Dilbert cartoons? I do because my doppleganger is regularly featured. Alice is one of Dilbert's coworkers. And when I don't get a haircut, I look just like her (this is not a good thing):

Alice and I even think alike

Next, I tried ridding myself of the Alice 'do by holding my hair up, all cute-like:

There is bird watchers' club in my neighbourhood, and I may just invite them over to have a look at whatever just made a home behind my neck.

I was getting desperate. It was tussle time. Let the hair go a little wild and crazy, like a supermodel's. Yes, I could be a supermodel! So that's exactly what I did.

Canada's Next Top Inmate

Dear god. All I need is a pair of fishnets and a sign with numbers and this could be a mugshot. Note to self: supermodel hair is styled to look messy. This looks more like I'm trying to find my missing pipe.

The whole ridiculous attempt at boosting my own ego made me laugh. Did you catch that? It made me laugh instead of cry. How cool is that? I'm thirty-four and I finally find this vain excursion hilarious. That's growth. Growth as I shrink. Ironic, isn't it?

And then, finally, unexpectedly, the picture. I like this picture. It's not edited. It's not posed. It was effortless, and it was what I needed to see after all that (hot) mess:

I'm getting healthy. It looks good. It feels amazing. And I'm going to keep documenting it every so often so I can remind myself of how far I've come.

I deserve that for all the bagels I'm giving up.

Not Feeling So New Year's

It's January 5th. It's the last day of holidays before two-thirds of the Gremlins Three make their way back into the public education system. It's been several days since New Year's, and even longer since I last blogged.

I've been feeling a little stuck; writer's block, if you will. It's something that happens to writers for various reasons, including being completely mentally and emotionally drained - due, say, to the great doses of fatigue and chaos that happen when you have little horned ones underfoot for two weeks. But there's more than that. I've been trying to come up with some resolutions for 2011 and having a hell of a time doing so. Every time I think about writing them out here, I come up with absolute butkus.

I had the best Christmas in a very, very long time. I enjoyed every minute with my boys, had good family and friends over, and I swear I did not squeal like a little girl when I opened season 1 of Glee (thanks, honey).

It was just a really nice time. I loved it, I felt it, and I embraced the season as the proud agnostic I am. Jesus and I get along just fine over Christmas. When we can, we like to have brunch with Santa and Buddha on Boxing Day. Planning the whole thing over TweetUp works best, because Santa gets the notification on his Blackberry no matter where he is.

But then New Year's came. I mean, it was suddenly just there. I didn't feel it coming on like I did Christmas. There was no major preparation other than a bit of a grocery shop. We planned nothing, we had nobody over. The youngest two were asleep by 10:30 and Intrepid was upstairs chatting with other bored teens on Facebook. We decided to play some World of Warcraft, because what the hell else were we going to do? No excitement means no interest in watching the ball drop as we shove h'ors d'oeuvres down our gullets and reminisce over the year gone by. My blood elf paladin could use some company as the clock struck midnight, anyway.

I guess maybe our lack of excitement was due to a difficult year that followed an even more challenging one. They were a little sucktastic, those two. We had fires, financial issues, a stressed child, a sick child - and, eventually, a sick me. For a lot of 2010, we gritted our teeth and braved a storm. It could have been worse, but it could have been a heck of a lot better, too. So, one would think that perhaps we'd be excited to see a shiny new year, but that wasn't the case, either. I can't speak for Geekster, but I walked into it kind of indifferent. No feeling of new promise, new hope. No feeling of ominous scary stuff either, mind you. Just... indifference.

It took me a few days to figure it out, but now I know why: I already feel like I had my New Year. In October, when I changed my diet, I changed everything. Finally, I'm losing weight I've been trying to take off for years. Finally, I have the calmness and clarity to handle situations that I was too anxious to deal with before (like fighting children - all day every day). Finally, I have the energy to keep my house clean(ish - three boys, remember?) and de-cluttered. Finally, I have clarity of thought to write and not be tripping all over my words. As a writer, that's kind of important.

Finally. I have my life back. Changing calendars couldn't possibly top that. And I have no plans to change my life any further than I have in the last little while, because there's no need. Everything is starting to fall into place on its own. I'll eventually add in some exercise, I'll likely cut back on sugar, but those are progressions of the path I'm already on.

So, it's not like I'm unhappy about 2011. It's not as if I'm not excited to be starting fresh. It's just that the timing was about two months late. The Maven, as always, is a trendsetter.

At 11:45, Intrepid came downstairs and asked if we could watch the ball drop. The three of us sat on the couch and had a look at the controlled chaos in Times Square. And I felt happy to be with them - as I always am on New Year's Eve - and that's good enough.

Buddha sent me a text wishing me a happy 2011. So nice of him, but Jesus sent an edible gift basket, so he might want to step up his game if he wants to pick the brunch venue next year.

The Maven of Christmas Past

Spawnling and Gutsy: So cute with their claws retracted

Greetings from the other side of the fray.

It was a wonderful, crazy, stressful, harried, mostly enjoyable Christmas. The gremlins were spoiled, of course. We had a large family dinner, then went out of town on the 27th for another family dinner. Gutsy came home with some adorable African dwarf frogs, which I promise to get a picture of soon. They're named Bubbles and Squishee, and I pray every day that they're both males who will never figure out how to impregnate each other. Gutsy is quite smitten with them, and when he's not fighting with his brothers or telling us how bored he is, he sits contentedly in his room and watches them swim around. I must admit, they're rather captivating. Soothing, even. I've sat on his bed and stared at them myself when no one's around. They're my little amphibi-friends.

My husband and I are tired from the crazy, and are sometimes at the point of barely speaking after a long day of refereeing loud arguments and enduring even louder cooperative games, but we're managing. We still love each other, we just love each other from different rooms. It's like this every year.  Nerves run raw and we all walk on eggshells. After nearly a decade-and-a-half of parenting, I've learned that you just. get. through. it. And when you get to the other side, you can safely remove the cyanide pill you've been hiding under your tongue for emergencies and enjoy some back-to-school quiet.

I had my first ever gluten-free Christmas, which was not only manageable but surprisingly delicious. The husband I barely speak to some days went out of his way to make a Maven-friendly version of my dad's tortiere (which, for the non-french, is the most amazing meat pie on the face of the planet). It was so good and much appreciated. Christmas isn't Christmas unless there's half a tortiere in my belly.

I ate everything and anything I could safely manage, stuffing my waist full of artery-ravaging cholesterol and loving every mouthful. I did have to pass on a lot of homemade goodies that made their way to our place, but I expected that. My aunt brought over freshly baked bread, and I stayed away from that, too, as difficult as it was. Instead, I ate some shitty store-bought cheese bread and wished I had taken the time to bake something at home. 

And I would feel sorry for myself for having to pass all that up, except I've lost... oh, about ten pounds.

That's right, kittens: TEN POUNDS in as many weeks. I'm a freaking toothpick! Well, if there were size 18 toothpicks. I guess I'm more of a redwood cedar trunk, but not one you can drive a car through anymore. It's progress.

But how on earth did I lose weight? What did I do? Nothing, actually. I still eat chocolate, chips and the gluten-free varieties of my favourite breads and pastas (albeit fewer servings as they get expensive and some of them just aren't palatable). Still, I'm not exactly training for my next triathlon or anything - unless I can strap wheels and a speedo on the couch. My body just likes that I'm not poisoning it, I guess. Imagine that. 

It's motivating, refreshing, totally awesome. I feel like I'm going into the new year with a healthier mind and body. My energy levels are incredible. In fact, I've even cut my coffee consumption down by about two-thirds. Yep, you heard right. There are paddles to the right if you need to start your heart up again. I figure if I add some exercise in I'll be on my way to some kind of serious hotness. It's hard to believe that exercise might actually result in a decent amount of weight loss now, but my body doesn't seem to be holding on to fat for dear life anymore, so I'm going to tentatively try to nudge it along a little faster.

In short, I'm even more amazing than I used to be. And to think scientists always assumed it was impossible to reach this level of greatness. But I suppose breaking down barriers is what The Maven is all about. I'll be smacking 2011 with a big bag of rice flour and making it my bitch. I will own it, and it will buy me smaller pants because it is afraid to anger me. 

I like where this is going.  I might just get myself a fur-lined trench coat and a cane. Word up.

I like to Smell Old Food (a gluten-free update)

Can I confess something in the deep, dark recesses of the internet where no one will ever see it?

I really miss wheat.

Wheat, barley and rye, to be exact. Glutenous substances I have banned from my life - most likely forever. Gods, how I miss them! Every day, I remember something else I can't eat. It makes for an often surly Maven.

On Canadian Thanksgiving in mid-October, I bid farewell to my old friend, Gluten. We had a long history together, but it turned bad toward the end and I had to take a break and see if he was the one causing the problems. I wrote about previously, but to put it in a nutshell, I was falling apart in multiple ways.

My dietary equivalent of  a bad boyfriend: Yummy, but no good for me.

Mentally, I was both anxious and depressed (neat trick), unable to to focus, quick to anger, and I forgot words and complete sentence more than I'd like to admit. I had writer's block 95% of the time, which is no good when you're, like, a writer. My brain and I all but stopped speaking to each other. Thankfully, she was kind enough to remind me to breathe and keep my heart beating, but not much else. She didn't do the Facebook equivalent of de-friending me, but she pretty much blocked me from seeing her Facebook wall and new photo albums. Bitch.

The rest of my body was not much better. A painful, itchy rash on my hands; pitted, ridged fingernails with white lines on them; unexplained elevated liver enzymes; acne; borderline anemia; the obvious weight issues; fatigue; digestive problems; and likely many other things I'm forgetting. My body was going into shutdown mode, and we couldn't figure out why. Every month was worse than the last, to the point where I thought I must be dying.

(The inner hypochondriac emerges. She comes out when my brain isn't staying on top of the whole logic thing. Hello, nice to meet you. By the way, you're probably dying.)

So, like I mentioned before, I found out through the wonders of the internet that all these scary/annoying things can be symptoms of celiac disease or, some, to a lesser extent, can be attributed to the less worrisome gluten intolerance fan club. They can also be cancer, liver or kidney failure and a few other scary things that might send my inner hypochondriac running for the nearest bar, but first things first: take out the gluten, and see how I felt. So that's what I did.

It's been about a month-and-a-half, so I thought I should do some updating. Status: I feel a lot better. Like, a lot better. I look a lot better. I have a glow to my skin again. I have more energy. I have less anxiety, and no signs of depression anymore. I have creativity again. My hair has shine to it (I feel like a commercial). My nails are growing in strong and healthy for the first time in years -which is a good indicator that my organs are getting what they need to work efficiently. About half my nail bed is new growth from the last few weeks. There are no pits, no white spots in that part of the nail, and they're not brittle anymore. When I eat, I feel energized instead of tired.

I feel alive. My non-medical opinion through a great deal of talk and research, is that my digestive system is repairing itself enough to absorb the nutrients my body has been lacking for a long time. That's why everything is slowly getting better, and why I suddenly feel ten years younger. How frightening, and yet how very exciting. It's worth a damn parade, I tell you.

But I still miss wheat. Not enough to eat it, but I miss it. Soft bread, freshly made bakery goodies, all those other carb-filled calorie killers that used to kindly stuff fat around my hips and heart to keep me warm in these cold Canadian winters. Any bread I make is either too wet or to dry. Buying it at the store costs twice as much for half the amount, and some of it is puke-bucket-worthy from the first bite (I have yet to actually barf, but come on: forcing someone to eat an entire slice of some of this stuff might be considered torture in some countries). All of it needs to be toasted or warmed, or it tastes like cardboard.

When I make pizza crust, there's no stretching or rolling. I mix it in a bowl and slap it on the pizza tray, smooth it out with a wooden spoon, and put it in the oven to "pre-bake". What on earth is pre-baking? It sounds like pre-drinking, but a lot less fun. I then take the hard, misshapen mishap of a crust out the oven, slap some ingredients on it - lots and lots of ingredients so that I can pretend the crust doesn't exist - and put it back in. If I'm lucky, it wont' fall apart the minute I try to cut it, let alone pick up a slice.

I now eat my pizza with a knife and fork. How dignified. I could practically be royalty. Bitter, gluten-free royalty.

My friend Robyn and I talked about this a couple of weeks ago. As humans - and especially women - we have attachments to certain foods. So, there's something a little sad and unfair about having to say goodbye to foods that have been a part of our lives for, say, about thirty-four years. I'm going to go through a grieving process over Montreal-style bagels and Honey Nut Cheerios, as lame as that makes me.

Believe me, I know this is for the best. The way I feel today is definitely worth getting rid of what ailed me before. And, if my suspicions are correct, this decision will not only prolong my life, but return a quality to it that I've been missing for years. In the end, this not a huge sacrifice for the sake my of my health.

So, when I make something glutenous for my kids (including Gutsy, as the gluten-free thing had no effect on him whatsoever), I now do something so lame, so embarrassing, that I can't believe I'm even writing it:

I smell it.

I can't believe I just typed that out. As if I'm not a big enough loser. But I'm nothing if not honest, so this honest loser admits to smelling the bread, the cake, the bagel, the cereal, the crackers... anything I can't have anymore. I take one giant whiff, and for some reason that seems to be enough. My brain - who is now on speaking terms with me after some couples counselling - then remembers what it tasted like, and it almost feels like I just had a big bite. I'm relatively satisfied, and I go on with my life filled with shitteous substitutes.

As soon as I figure out how to make this work with chocolate, I'll be a very slim woman.

So, here's my dilemma: I can be tested for gluten intolerance and celiac disease. However, I'll have to go back on gluten for up to three months before the testing, and even at that point may not get accurate results. Is it worth doing, since it's obvious I'm at least gluten intolerant if not full-blown celiac based on the changes I'm already seeing? If I test positive, I go on a gluten-free diet as that's the only thing that manages this condition. But then I have to go through feeling like crap all over again just go to back on the diet I'm already on. I'll need to detox all over again, which was no fun the first time (three days of painful aching all over my body. Yuck.)

My alternative is to see my doctor in a few weeks and get an overall blood workup to see if I'm still borderline anemic and if my liver likes me again. If everything looks good, it's sort of a roundabout way of getting the same answer, but less official and possibly less accurate. So what do I do?

Yes, I'm asking. Give me your opinion. You know you wanna.

Anyway, that's my update. I don't really have time to start a gluten-free blog right now, so a post about my boring ol' dietary issues is going to come up every now and then. You've been warned.

On the plus side, Geekster recently challenged me to write a short children's fable with the title "Horny the Unicorn and the Gigantic Sack." You know how I love a challenge. And you know you're at least a little bit excited about how I'm going to pull that off.

Onward, Horny!

I Think My Bread Hates Me

An Array of Maven Haters

I was catching up with a friend by phone this afternoon - and by "catching up," I mean stealthily sneaking into Gutsy's room in a (quickly foiled) attempt to get away from my sugar-spun gremlins so I could actually hear said friend on the phone.

Anyone who says sugar doesn't make kids hyper has never been to my house after a family party involving heartily-iced cupcakes.

"I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to talk lately," said I to my friend, and proceeded to list off my regular excuses of too many responsibilities and not enough birth control. "It's not you, I swear. I ignore everybody the same."

"It's okay, Maven. I get it," She said reassuringly. "You're an equal opportunity hater."

At last, someone really gets me.

It's true, I do hate on - or at least simply can't find the time to get in touch with - the vast majority of people in my life. I have a lot of patient and understanding homeys in my posse. Thank goodness, or I'd have lost so many Facebook connections my friends list would be in the negatives.

I've been busy, true. That's a given. But worse than that, I was feeling so run down and very, very stupid - like more than usual. I was forgetting names of people, things, events.  I couldn't read an entire article without getting antsy and distracted. I felt gross and bloated and and gassy and anxious and miserable nearly all the time. It took every ounce of strength I had to get up in the morning and get through the day without falling asleep. I wanted to exercise, but couldn't bring myself to go for even a short walk. I wanted to play outside with the kids, but didn't even have the patience or energy to play on the floor with them. My menstrual cycles were wonky, my acne was getting worse, and when I got a virus of any kind, it was kicking my ass. And let's not forget the unexplained mystery rash on both my hands and my strangely pitted, ridged fingernails.  The Maven was a not-so-hot mess, and it was getting worse, month by month.

Something was wrong. I wasn't just a hater anymore; I was an unwell hater.  The worst kind; We can't even enjoy hating on everyone.

And then, one day, when I was feeling particularly shitty, I was on Twitter. I'm not a regular Tweeter, as I find it far too distracting while I'm trying to do paid work on my computer (which is quite often the only time I'm online these days). But when I do go on, I grab a little bit of info here and there from those people or organizations I follow. Sometimes, it's just about who slept with who on what hospital equipment on last night's Grey's Anatomy, but other times it's something important.

And just once, it's been something life-changing - possibly even life-saving.

@EarthCafe - makers of vegan cakes I only wish they sold in Canada - tweeted something along the lines of "If you have symptoms a, b, c, x, y and z, you could have a gluten intolerance."

Interesting.  I had all of those symptoms. And when I checked out the link they provided, I realized I had not only the main symptoms, but practically the entire alphabet.

Gluten intolerance is the baby brother to big, bad Celiac - an auto-immune disease that afflicts about 1 in 133 people, including my mother-in-law, one of my best friends and her mom, too. It means that foods containing gluten act like toxins in the body, killing the villi in the small intestine and potentially causing everything from serious vitamin and mineral deficiencies to cancer. And now I could have this lovely disease, too. Or maybe just a gluten intolerance, which isn't as bad. Or maybe neither - I just don't know. The only way to know for sure is to have a piece of my small intestine biopsied, which is not high on my to-do list. Thankfully, there's a somewhat less-conclusive blood-test that checks for gluten antibodies and is often good enough for a diagnosis. When I see my doctor in the spring, we'll order the test.

In the meantime, this Maven is strictly gluten-free.

The first week sucked. Do you have any idea how many things contain gluten? It's the stuff found in wheat, barley and rye, so you can imagine the joy I felt at avoiding those and the vast amount of products that contain them. It's enough to make my frail thread of sanity unravel far faster than anyone in the "When is The Maven going to finally lose her shit?" pool could have anticipated (I bet on July 12, 2011).

I went through what could best be described as withdrawal. It was so weird that I Googled it - and you know how I hate Googling medical stuff. As a former hypochondriac, any kind of health inquiry is best not typed into a search engine. Whether you have yellow fingernails or stink eye, all symptoms to the possibility of death. I learned that the hard way.

But search I did as my bones and joints ached for three straight days, and I expected I'd get the flu at any moment but found nothing but a strong craving for french baguette. This is common, apparently. What the body craves is often bad for it, and I was paying a most uncomfortable price for depriving it. Moreover, gluten can have an opiate affect in sensitive people, which could explain my carb addiction and how hard I was "coming down" off the junk.

Since I decided to put Gutsy on the gluten-free train as well to see if it would help his anxiety, I gave away over $100 worth of groceries and replaced them with a multitude of expensive, pre-packaged health foods and wheat-less flours. I put aside the old recipes and have figured out how to make pizza crust, cupcakes and bread.

Bread. Can we talk about that for a minute? Gluten-free bread is a bitch. The first one tasted like sawdust and the second looked like someone shat in my bread machine. I was about ready to cry because a nice slice of toast is really all I want in life sometimes. But I sucked it up, put my big girl panties on and tried it a third time. It was delicious, and I suddenly felt a little more hopeful.

My friend with Celiac had me over last week and loaded me up with supplies from her pantry. She gave me a lot of advice on what to buy, what to avoid, and how it's not the end of the world (so no need to contemplate a bridge dive? Good. The water and spiky rocks are really cold in October). She also listened to my list of symptoms and basically told me that she's suspected I have issues with gluten for a long time, but didn't want to say anything.

Funny; my mother-in-law basically said the same thing. But they know me well enough to understand that I had to come to this on my own terms. Denial courses amply through this addict's veins.

Anyway, I feel so much better. I can't even put into words how much more awake, alive and alert I've felt since those aches and pains stopped. I feel like myself again. The cravings are gone, the rash on my hands is gone, the anxiety has lessened dramatically. I no longer feel bloated and sickly. I can go a whole day without needing to lie down, and I have a lot more patience and focus to deal with unruly little gremlins.

Gutsy, however, is far less unruly in the last week. In fact, this is the best few days we've had in ages with him. I'm hoping it's not just coincidence, and that maybe his body just needed to detox along with mine. It sucks not eating wheat, but it sucks more to feel out-of-control.

We'll get tested, but in the meantime I will be 100% gluten-free, Gutsy will be about 95%, and the rest of them will eat primarily gluten-free, even though it would be rather amusing to watch me run around making two separate meals at at once.

It's a good thing, too, because that would definitely drive up my full-fledged insanity date to mid-winter and none of us would win the pool.