Eating Wheat Makes Bad Things Happen

Sooooo....this weekend. Things didn't really go as planned. What is strange is that I can pinpoint the exact moment where things took a turn for the worst. It was a few hours after I wrote here about continuing to eat well and lift heavy things in preparation for my wedding. It was after my seriously delicious bacon/eggs/greek yogurt breakfast. More importantly, it was right after I had somehow convinced myself that making cornbread was a good idea. You know, to "get the flour/cornmeal/etc. out of the house" "for the bf deluxe" "because corn is gluten free, if I mix it with whole wheat flour, it will only be half-bad" "because I'll only eat one piece" are you laughing yet? I am.

I made the cornbread to accompany the turkey chili I was planning on making. I knew it was probably a bad idea (probably??). I attempted to make it less of a potential disaster by making 1/2 the recipe, and then cutting the amount of sweetneer they called for, and using honey instead of sugar. I also (wrongly) though that somehow whole wheat flour would be better for me then white flour. I poured the batter into my cast iron skillet and started in on the turkey chili. I chopped veggies, pulled all the ingredients together- organic tomato stuff, ground turkey, seasonings. The cornbread was done, and immediately I carved out a piece. It was good. I was really looking forward to having a piece with a ton of chili dumped over it.

To take my mind off the cornbread, I began cooking up my veggies for the chili. Things were looking and smelling great. I grabbed the turkey to brown it, and dumped it on top of the veggies. After about a minute or so, the turkey started to smell "off." I just ignored it, and moved on. The smell was still there, and I began to question the meat. I ignored this further, and dumped in the tomato products and spices. Mmmm. The odd turkey smell was replaced by tomato and chili powder and cumin. That's more like it I thought, mindlessly stealing bites of cornbread edge. After a few minutes of simmering, I figured the turkey was done, and I better try a little bit just to see if the smell was my imagination. I took out the tiniest of bits, blew on it, and OH MY GOD, that turkey was NOT OK. I stopped the pot from cooking, and retreated to the couch with another piece of cornbread and continued my Dawson's Creek marathon. I was pissed. My plan for dinner was ruined, and the thought of eating meat or anything resembling meat turned my stomach after tasting the bad turkey. So, I did what any normal person would do, and just ate more cornbread for my dinner. Wow, a dinner consisting of practically nothing but carbs. I honestly can't remember the last time I did that! I knew I would be paying the consequences, I just didn't know how immediate and far-reaching they would be.

About an hour after my nutrient void dinner, I was hit with a massive wave of exhaustion- no doubt from the insulin release post carb-fest 2012. I fell asleep on the couch (I NEVER do that anymore). I woke up 45min- 1hr later, and forced myself to get up, do the dishes, toss the bad turkey chili and the remainder of the cornbread, give the dog a bath, do laundry, clean the chicken coop, and other weekend tasks. I looked at the wall containing the 50-year old wall paper that I've been trying to scrape off for weeks and told myself "I'll tackle that tomorrow." After all that, it was 8:40pm or so, and I settled down on the couch to resume DC watching, feeling like I'd been somewhat productive, and trying to ignore the fact that I ate cornbread for dinner. I checked my phone and saw that I had a voicemail from the girl that rents my condo. Oh, boy. That's never good.

"Yeah, this is (renter) and I just got home after a trip away, and my kitchen sink was full and looked like it had overflowed...I'm actually on my way to the airport for another trip..." message cuts off. Great. That happened to me once when I lived at the condo, a clog in the sink line downstream makes my sink back up since its a ground floor unit, and anytime someone above uses their sink, the water raises in my sink. If no one is there to catch it, it overflows. I call renter back and get the full story since her message cut off, and it was exactly what I expected, except since she wasn't home, she wasn't there to catch the overflow and has no idea how many times it did overflow. Wonderful. I call the bf deluxe who was at work, getting off at 10pm (then had to work at 7am the next morning) and tell him we needed to do a condo mission.

I gathered a sink overflowing kit- bucket, towels, plunger, etc. and waited patiently for the BF to get home. At about 10:45p, we were off to see what shape the condo was in. My stomach felt like crap. I was stuffed up, and my eyes were watering like crazy. Stupid wheat. We did what we could at the condo that night, emptied the sink as much as possible, cleaned up the obvious water, and placed a bucket under the sink in case of another overflow, as well as towels. Walking around on the Pergo flooring in the kitchen, I heard audible "squishing." Damn. I'm no expert but it sounded like water was benethe the Pergo. I let the bf deluxe hear it, but he just shrugged it was 11:30pm, and he had to get up at 6am. We returned home, and decided we would deal with a plumber on Monday since Sunday rates had to be astronomical. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about water under the Pergo, and how if we waited till Monday, that could be a disaster, especially if the sink overflowed more on Sunday. I decided that I would have the bf deluxe drop me off at the condo first thing in the morning on his way to work so I could mitigate the situation.

How is it that I seemed so awake and with it at 3am to have the presence of mind to come up with the grand scheme of dealing with the issue on Sunday morning, yet when the alarm went off a few hours later at 6am I was beyond groggy and SO tempted to just stay in bed. The fear of the costs of water damage forced me out of bed, and the bf deluxe asked me what I was doing. I said- "you're dropping me off at the condo, I have to deal with this sink thing today." "The rates are going to be overtime, its Father's Day and Sunday." he says. "Well, the potential costs of replacing a kitchen are astronomical if we let mold get growing." We quickly got dressed and ready, and I asked if we had time for a Starbucks visit. Starbucks was approved, and I realized I was SO HUNGRY. Now, practicing IF, I deal with a lot of stomach grumblings. This was not like that. I'm guessing my nutrient poor carb dinner the night before had something to do with how I was feeling (which was crappy with a HUGE side of hunger). It was familiar enough that I remember feeling like that prior to going Paleo (as my 'normal'), yet it had been so long since I felt that way. I always remember how amazing I feel when I'm not eating wheat/sugar. It's almost as if the whole wheat flour exacerbated the feeling. There was no satiating protein or fat in my prior meal like I'm so accustom to. Abandoning my usual 16 hour fast for a 8ish? hour fast, I got a sausage breakfast sammie from Starbucks. And I ate the english muffin. Goddamnit I never learn.

I called a few plumbers on the way to the condo and found one that didn't charge a call-out fee and didn't charge extra for weekends. Score! At 7am, they said they would be there within an hour. At 10am, they still hadn't arrived, but I kept myself plenty busy moving all of my renter's crap out of the kitchen (including her $1,000+ liquor collection on a leaning shelf), made myself at home by procurring 3 fans of hers and setting them up to fan the kitchen, and tore up the Pergo flooring that I clearly remember the bf deluxe and I laying not that long ago. My fears were confirmed and there was water under the Pergo. The Pergo was toast, as it had absorbed some water. The water had wicked up the baseboards as well. Crap. When I had all the flooring pulled up, the plumber showed up at 11 (four hours really?!) and cleared the drain. I did some light cleaning with the opportunity of having to move both the fridge and the stove to get the Pergo up. I found some delicious chocolate cookies in a glass cookie jar on top of the stove (renter is a chef) and helped myself to a few of those (NEVER LEARN!). All I could do was leave the fans running and check on it Monday after work. I finally got out of there around 1pm, and walked to the bus stop. Renter is out of town for a few days, luckily, the place is kinda a mess.

The bus drops me about a mile from my house, so I walked that and planned my clean meal of ground beef tacos and roasted cauliflower. I was pretty hungry again (weird, usually I don't feel this hungry- its the nutrient poor carbs!). Three minutes after I walked in the door, my phone rings, and its the party rentals guy. I forgot I had made an appointment with him to come check out our yard and give us pricing on tent/table/chair rentals for the backyard celebration. He was on his way over, and I had no time to start cooking. By the time the party rental guy left, it was almost time for the BF deluxe to get home, so I started making Sunday dinner- tacos and cauliflower it was! I felt better by finally getting some solid protein and veg into me.

After dinner I settled down and was kind of irriated that my day was spent working at a place I don't live anymore! I began to shift my focus to the work week, and decided that my birthday week/carb excuses/etc. was OVER. I looked to see if Monday's workout was posted, and sure enough, it was. The notorious "FRAN." Great.

So, if you are still with me at this point, do you see how wheat made my condo flood and put FRAN in the minds of the coaches?!?!?!?! I do. Wheat makes bad things happen.

However, on the bright side, some lady in my office went out of her way today to tell me how "utterly amazing" I'm looking. Then, I PR'd on Fran by over a minute, and my eating (fasted, protein, veg post workout as my largest meal) has been picture perfect today. Back on that horse!