Food Changes - Day 5

Five days after cutting out sugar (including the majority of my fruit) and alcohol, I gotta say that I'm having a rough time. I cut out alcohol because I realized that it was a daily occurrence that I really felt that I couldn't live without, and that scared me. That and with my crazy blood sugar ups and downs.... Had to do it!
The up-side, though, is that I seem to have a lot more energy than most people do when they begin this. I must, because otherwise I have no other way to explain my "3 hikes in 3 days" phenomenon. So on top of my nightly sugar withdrawal headaches, today I am excruciatingly sore in both legs and especially in my hips.

Many people have reported having dour moods while attempting this, and I have to say that that's been true for me. Which of course makes the urge to eat the naughty foods that much stronger.

I gotta say that watching "Bizarre Foods America" does NOT help. I have never wanted to hop on a plane so badly (uhhh, "Salt & Straw" in Portland, anyone!?!? God help us all).

Frankly, I don't have a lot to say. I've lost two pounds in five days, I have more energy, worse moods, nightly headaches, and wicked cravings. But I've promised myself that I would give it a month, so the real test will be in 25 days - will I go nuts? Will I add some things back in in moderation? Or will I stay basically on this track? Frankly, I have no idea.

Vi skal se!

Food Addiction and Anxiety

In May of 2012 I stopped eating gluten and dairy after years of stomach pain and.... shall we say "gastrointestinal distress".  I felt amazing and lost 35lbs in four months! I fit in jeans that I hadn't worn in four years. I really thought I would keep losing weight as I continued on, even though the first year was really hard. Occasionally I would try to have a beer (my favorite), or use soy sauce, but no - no, that was no good. I am well and truly intolerant of gluten (and, to a lesser extent, dairy). So why didn't I continue to lose weight? Well let's see...

First of all, gluten-free replacement foods are more plentiful and are better-tasting here in Norway where I now live, so although I wasn't making my body fight off gluten, I began eating gluten-free (GF) bread, crackers, and the delicious chocolate soy milk available here. Also, I didn't drink for my first four months in Norway, as a bottle of wine that may cost $6 in the U.S. costs $20 here and I found that terrifying. But eventually I got over it. Unfortunately. And then Norway began importing my favorite American GF beer. At $6 a bottle, I still manage to drink a few a month. So instead of losing more weight, I even started gaining some back. I gained back about 10lbs, but have since lost that weight and another pound or so more. 

But now I'm stuck. 

Every. Single. Day has me wanting to get fit. To see who I would be in a size 8. To see what I would look like with a toned tummy and triceps. I want it so bad that I'm pretty sure it makes me salivate. Although I was a size that I liked shortly after I met my husband (age 20), I was never toned or in good shape. And oh my god do I want it!! So what is stopping me? I'm not really sure. I know that a lot of it is probably based in my anxiety disorders. I feel like I have so many things to fix that it's overwhelming me. I'm managing to get myself through the highs and lows more easily, to be less of a obsessive, crazy whackadoodle. But it takes a TON of concentration. Like, I have to disengage from the moment and sort it out in my head, and then slip back into the situation all calm and rational. And then, of course, I want to shake the person I was interacting with and say: "Do you have any idea what I just DID?! Do you know how HARD that was?! APPLAUD ME!!" because I need so much validation. *sigh*

And there's so much more. I've been here in Norway for almost two years, but I don't have a job. For similar reasons, I suspect. Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. To anybody who doesn't experience it outside of job interviews and first dates, this sounds ridiculous (believe me, my husband's best friend is the most stoically confident person I've ever met, and he thinks I'm making it up). But the truth of the matter is the fear of being rejected, of being told that I'm not good enough and not worth hiring is so incredibly paralyzing. In fact, I stuff my face with something comforting almost every time I think about it. Usually alcohol. 

"But," you might say "you see these problems. So why can't you fix them?" That, my friends, is an excellent question. If I am eating (or drinking. Especially drinking, actually) for comfort, I can see that that is the cause. But do I stop? No! I get indignant, angry, and embarrassed and I finish whatever it is. Like, I eat or drink every example of that item that I have in my house. And that's another thing - the OCD means that eating something new, something that isn't in my usual repertoire is extremely difficult. Sure, I might try different brands of pad Thai-at-home kits, but pad Thai is essential. And, predictably, there are no vegetables IN said repertoire. Sure, I like zucchini, broccoli, peas, and cauliflower well enough, but I recoil from eating them. Every day, I scrunch up my nose and decide to eat something processed instead. But enough of that. Suffice to say: I have a lot bouncing around in my head. 

So today when I stumbled across the blog "Strong Coffey" and read her post "Self-acceptance & Self-love Part One: The Why & The How", I stopped reading, ate a few tablespoons of bleu brie (thanks for that creation, Norway), and made GF snickerdoodle cookie dough to eat straight out of the bowl. And then I felt disgusting, put down the rest of the cookie dough, and thought about why. And obviously, I thought with my finger tips because here it is for you to read. I'm not sure if this is going to generate any answers, but maybe it will make room in my head to ask myself the right questions... 

Negligent Blogger

Firstly in returning to my too-oft-neglected blog, I notice that the name should be "The Norwegian's Wife" -- as it is now, it makes it sound like I'm Norwegian and am a wife. But no, no, no! I am here in Norway, an American in voluntary exile. I've been here for seven months, so far - learning how to live in a completely new environment. New location, new people, new language, new family, new surroundings...... Its been, frankly, awful.
WOO!!
But I'm here still, plugging along. Its been about a year since I wrote (and published) a blog entry and I think that does a lot to convey the turmoil in my life and in my heart. How wonderfully, painfully bittersweet is it that my life takes every turn but the one I had planned? I suppose I'm meant to be learning a lesson about trying too hard to control all those things in life that can't be controlled, but I'm that wonderful combination of pig-headedly stubborn and dense as tule fog and I just won't learn this lesson.
We ended up re-homing our cats with a family local to my tiny Californian town where they live together with nearly 10 other cats and four or five dogs on a ranch just a few properties over from "The Home Ranch" where my maternal family has been born and raised for 150 years. Missing the cats, my first babies, has dulled from the diaphram-wrenching initial pain to a dull ache in the pit of my stomach. Largely, if I don't think about them and how integral they were to my life, I don't miss them too much.
This of course is largely due to my Christmas present this year - a 10 week-old miniature Dachshund/Yorkshire Terrier/Border Collie(!) mix named Alabama. Now about six months old, Bama is a medium-haired, nine-pound, short-legged black-and-tan dog with a silver head and an improbably long tail. She is overly friendly, immensely inquisitive, and a primary bright spot in my life. Currently, she is occupying my lap and forcing me to find other accommodations for the laptop.
But sweet and beautiful puppy aside, my reasons for moving to Norway have not come to fruition or have not remained strong enough to offset the emotional pain the move has caused.
Nobly, I wanted to allow My Husband, The Viking to reunite with his family. We do see his maternal grandparents at least once a week and they are kind, warm, welcoming and loving people who I have come to love dearly. But we rarely see his uncles, who live scant miles away, nor his mother who lives on the other side of the country. Of course, living back in Santa Barbara we would see nobody's family, but we still wouldn't be on even footing - I would be a paltry six hours drive from my home and family while he would be 20 hours and $1300 away from his. If we were to have a child who started to date someone from another country, I would warn them strongly about the pain and complication that would likely result. The idea that one or the other of us must be on the other side of the world from their families and childhood friends, missing birthdays and graduations, births and deaths is staggering, overwhelming, and depressing.
But speaking of that hypothetical child and my hypothetical advice leads me to my next reason for coming to Norway - conceiving and giving birth to a child in the healthcare paradise that is Norway. But although I've lived here for seven months, I still do not have a visa - an extremely rare occurrence, I am given to understand. No visa means that medical care, instead of being very cheap or likely free, is as expensive as having no insurance in the states - if not more so. In addition, an American friend who has lived here for awhile and is also dealing with trouble conceiving has informed me that merely to gain an appointment with a specialist can take up to eight months, with diagnostic testing to take a further six months and each round of treatment taking...... well you get the idea. Even if my visa were approved tomorrow, it could still be easily two years before I deliver a child - and that's presuming only two rounds of treatment. Furthermore, the process of adoption is narrow and prolonged, here. There is a mandatory three-year probation period between applying and being matched with a child. Social services monitors your life and finances in that period, taking a microscopic and detailed look at you and your partner's eligibility to be parents. While I commend their determination which undoubtedly results in impeccable placement and placement success, I tear my hair out that after two years of trying, we are at minimum another two years away from having a child.
The best-laid plans, right?

No visa also means no legal work, so I am at home for the majority of my day and the majority of my days - trying not to think of my friends and family in California, trying not to think about my apparent infertility, trying not to think about how lonely, bored, and restless I am here.

So there is my massively "down" blog - probably riddled with errors of grammar or punctuation  and certainly riddled with a pervasive air or trauma and drama.

Sorry 'bout that.

One Year -- Written June 2012

There's so much going on, these days. Our first wedding anniversary is in two days, and My Husband, The Viking, is already in Norway searching for a job and a home for us. Meanwhile, I'm trying to find the wisdom in us being apart for this first celebration that we have worked so hard towards.
While I'm packing up here on the Golden Coast, I'm thinking a lot about the future and the opportunities afforded me in Norway - especially with their socialized healthcare. The Viking and I have been trying to get pregnant this entire year. Initially something driven almost exclusively by my own wants, he has gotten The Baby Bug too and it is now a dream we share.

Having no insurance while being concerned about fertility problems is daunting, overwhelming, and frankly - terrifying. I find my mind continually wanders to the thought 'What if whatever's wrong with me is only getting worse? What if I become permanently damaged from a defect left un-treated?'. My friends, when I've shared this worry respond in one of two ways: First, they brush it off and tell me straight out not to worry. Their flippant dismissal of my fear is extremely hurtful, no matter what is the motivating factor behind it. The second reaction is to wonder why I assume that the problem is with me. This reaction has a very simple answer in that because men are so much easier to test, he was tested. His contribution was found to be of a normal count and activity level.
As much as I had hoped his getting tested would calm my fears, I'd have to say that it's honestly deepened them because if the hang-up isn't with him........then it must be with me. Being adopted, I know very little about the fertility of my family tree. My biological mother had two children, purportedly while on birth control. My biological maternal Grandmother has three children and my Uncles each have two. In fact, now that I think about it, everybody has very neatly had a boy and a girl (My grandparents had a boy and a girl, and then another boy). Obviously though, my biological father has had children - me, first, and then two girls with his wife. There doesn't seem to be any apparent problems, there.


----Post Never Finished----

Don't Be Scairrrt! Written May 2012

Now that it's May 1, a people are beginning to notice that the countdown clock for The Big Move is getting down to smaller and smaller numbers. Friends and family (and not a few random customers) are asking me how I feel about The Move and if I'm ready for it. It fully crashed home in my head tonight that  I AM SCARED. Like, SCAIRRT-scared!! Scurred, if you will. Norway is:

1. Dark all winter. Like, 2 hours of twilight per day. I haven't read Twilight or seen the movies, but I hear that they are awful (HA! See what I'm doing here? Honestly though, I get the feeling that 2 hours of the Twilight movies per day would be pretty tortuous).  Seriously though, darkness all winter = bad.

2. Very far away from California. Pull up a map online and look (go ahead - I'll wait........................) SEE!?! REALLY far.

3. Unfamiliar. For some reason, every few years I seem to like to shake up the OCD a bit and throw myself into a tizzy. This year's model involves lots of snow. Which brings me to....

4. Cold. 'Nuff said.

5. Disturbingly lacking in a growing season. I will never, ever try to make you believe that I eat vegetables terribly willingly or with gusto, 'cause I'm not a liar. However, when you're eating strawberries while Skype-ing with your brother-in-law and he starts moaning and lamenting about how he gets strawberries once a year..........T.E.R.R.I.F.Y.I.N.G.

Now there's a lot to be said after this little list. Firstly, it has to be mentioned that each of these points has a counter-point -- a positive side to moving to Norway. Let's go straight into that. Norway is also:

1. Bright all summer. Uhhh, hello!??! That's 22 partyable hours in every summer day!! SCHA-WING!

2. & 3. Very far away from California and unfamiliar. I know these seem to be modeled very closely on the negatives listed above. In fact, I'd go farther than that - I'd say they are exactly the same. Because how many other people do you know get to pick up and move to a country as unique and unpublicized as Norway?! Not many, I'd reckon.

4. Well I don't know a positive here, actually. I just really hate being cold and snow kind of scares me. And I'm clumsy enough as it is - I really don't need whatever 'help' ice is bound to offer on that front.

5. SEEEEEAFOOOOOOD! Seafood. YUM YUM YUM YUM YUM YUM. Like, I seriously couldn't care less about vegetables as long as I get all the mackerel and cod and crab and shrimp I could eat. Top it off with Norway's (brief but delicious) wild strawberries and blueberries and you've got one happy Norwegian Wife.

Dairy-Free Yogurt?

There are a few replacements for plain ol', good ol' yogurt - the basics being soy, coconut, and rice. Soy was all I could get at the usual big-brand grocery store (Albertsons') but recently, at my local health-food store, I happened upon both brown rice yogurt and coconut yogurt. Brown rice sounded interesting, and the coconut sounded downright promising after the OUTRAGEOUS non-dairy frozen dessert I tried from Trader Joe's. My Husband, The Viking bought one of each and here I am - currently trying the two. Firstly, the brown rice yogurt looked terrifying. The same kind of murky brown/gray that you find between the flesh and skin of a salmon -- not promising. I got vanilla in both types so better assess - both smell just like vanilla yogurt. The thing is is that the brown rice one tastes like a baby ate some brown rice and then spit it up. It is HORRIBLE. Just absolutely nothing like yogurt.
The coconut yogurt is by the legendary brand "SO Delicious" and while it (obviously) doesn't taste just like dairy yogurt, it's pretty darn ok.

Soy, not tasted tonight but had a few times previously, was the former heavyweight champion, tasting mostly like yogurt, but with a tongue-twisting after-taste and sharp middle flavors. All in all, coconut yogurt is the new winner and has coconut shaping up to be the savior of the dairy-free.

A Review of Gluten-Free Beers

Beer is one of my favorite things. Wine is nice and I've gotten too sick on too many liquors to ever even go there, but beer is. my. favorite! So it's very possibly the hardest thing to do without on the GF (gluten-free) diet. Let's jump right in, shall we?
All beers are made with wheat or barley, both of which have gluten. That means that Corona, Pacifico, Rolling Rock, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Guinness and my favorite, Newcastle are ALL OFF LIMITS. BUMMER! So what are the alternatives? Anheuser Busch has, very kindly, answered the call of gluten-free beer-lovers with their offering of 'Redbridge'. Now before I go into this thoroughly, I have to remind you that without the traditional wheat and/or barley beginnings, all of these beers are going to taste different that your old tried-and-true loves. GF beer is made with sorghum, a type of grain which, according to Wikipedia "has been, for centuries, one of the most important staples foods for millions of poor rural people in the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa. For some impoverished regions of the world, sorghum remains a principal source of energy, protein, vitamins and minerals." As such, sorghum beer tastes different - specifically, it's sweeter. Most GF beers have very evident fruit overtones, almost like a cider.
So. We were at 'Redbridge'. Redbridge is great - I'd have to say my second favorite. One of the best things about it is that, as an Anheuser Busch product, it is widely available - every large grocery store (state or nation-wide) carries it for about $10 per six-pack. Besides the general fruity overtones, I do notice that it tends to have a metallic sort of taste, assumably from the cap, which is a twist-off. I don't really know why some beers have this and others don't. I find that Pacifico has it pretty often, but that's besides the point.
The first GF beer I tried was Green's Gluten Free Dubbel Dark Ale which is bottle fermented and as such, is sweet, top-heavy, and FRUITY. It's sort of like the love child of beer and champagne. It's nose and top flavors are strongly champagne while the finnish mellows out eventually to a beer-like flavor. Another detractor to this beer is its size - as of now, it only comes in 500 mL. 
Next were Bard's and New Grist. Bard's markets itself as 'The Original Sorghum Malt Beer" which it may or may not be. What it IS, though, is fairly true to beer in taste. I was most excited about these two beers because they are widely the best-reveiwed GF beers I've seen. Bard's biggest detractor is a sort of raw pizza dough taste. It's yeasty. Yeasty and young. It's very top is nice and seems very beer-like, but then you get this yeast kick in the mouth that is sort of a deal-breaker for me.
Lastly, New Grist. With a saucy, possibly drunk Moon-chewing-on-some-sorghum image and the ever-popular 19th C "Green Fairy/Le Chat" font, it's easy to distinguish. With it's only mildly sweet, accurately beer-y flavor, it's easy to drink! No pear-high flavors, no metallic what-the-pho?! Just good, drinkable, beer. Winner? NEW GRIST!!!