How I'm eating a clean diet to improve health, saving money and the planet

My diet has been refined over many years due to intolerances and allergies but in the last 4 months I've taken things to a whole new level.

After my epiphany in France, I realised that my food was making me more sick. I have been careful to eliminate many, many things from my diet for the last 8 years but the improvements were often short lived. I still don't really understand why but suspect it's a side effect of my medication that I can't do without or part of my autoimmune disease.

Marmalade, the bear, shopping at the
 French market

So 4 months ago, I took the decision to eliminate most processed foods from my diet. I didn't eat badly before but I did use some convenience foods, such as jars of sauces or instant gravy to help on the days when I felt too sick to cook.

You will notice that I said that I'm eliminating most, but not all, processed foods. I've found that some things don't make me sick. I guess these items don't contain whatever additives I am sensitive to. One of these foods that I've kept is Schaar gluten-free bread, as I have failed abysmally at making my own. Even Jaws would struggle to bite through these babies!

This wasn't such a big jump as it might sound as for years Missy and I have been restricted to gluten-free and pulses (including soy) free foods. More and more foods have become unsuitable to us as soy (or other pulses) are increasingly being added to foods in place of things like palm oil. Really, we just took out the few things left that we thought were ok.

We started by eliminating all processed foods. Hubby isn't 100% converted in this as he doesn't have to be and I'm sure he's really grateful to his cast iron gut!

After about 2-3 months, amazingly I was getting fewer attacks (autoimmune flares) and my depression has lifted. I feel like the 'real me' again. I can think clearly again and am a lot happier. My anxiety has really dropped. I've even stopped taking CBD oil daily as a result. Heck, the weight is falling off me without trying!

Furthermore, Missy (who has a milder form of the illness) has also commented on how much better she is feeling even though I've not been as strict with her diet (as it was already a strict difficult diet for a child to follow). She says that her pain is a lot better and she is also able to think more clearly. She's also feeling more creative, which is wonderful for an author in the making.

By clearing the foods toxins out of my body I've also learnt just how severe the environmental air bourne toxins are to me. It has been much easier to pin down my triggers as they are nearly always environmental now and in public places where I have no control over them.

So what do we eat now? Mainly, real food. In other words, food that looks like its name. An apple that looks like an apple. A chicken that looks like a chicken, and so on. I cook everything from scratch, including all sauces and gravy. My Crockpot is amazing for this.

The Crockpot I love, but mine is green!

At the moment I have a limited list of meals to choose from but each month I'm adding another one or two to the list. Pinterest has been a great source of inspiration. I've learnt how to adapt recipes for our allergies and most things have worked out quite well. Missy is also getting more into nutrition and cooking with me. She has announced that there is no way she's going back to eating processed muck when she leaves home. Time will tell, I guess.

Apart from the obvious benefits of feeling so much better mentally and pain-wise, there is another huge silver lining. Our food costs have almost halved!! We are currently spending, on average, about £300 per month on groceries for three of us (plus a cat), while still eating meat and buying expensive gluten-free bread. This is our entire food bill as we never eat out any more and take lunches with us. I'm seriously impressed!

We do a lot of our grocery shopping at the market now as 80-90% of what we are eating now is fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy, all of which we can get at the market for a much cheaper price than the supermarket. Twice as much for often half the price!

Baking a gluten-free cake for the
school's bake-off. And there's my
Crockpot hiding on the left!

We do still use supermarkets but most things we buy now are shopping around the edges. 80% of what is in supermarkets is processed and most of that is now off the menu. I might get some tinned fruit and veg, and I still drink tea and coffee (full caffeine too as it has never bothered me). Not everything we want is in the market so we bulk buy about twice a month at the market, prep and freeze what we won't use quickly, then only have to top up things like bread and milk each week at the supermarket.

I think the biggest money saving thing here is no longer looking for gluten-free products. If you look at the ingredients list it's scary. It might be gluten-free (advertised or otherwise) but there are so many more nasty chemicals in them to try to improve taste and longevity that they have been making me ill. Not to mention that they all taste like crap anyway!

Missy ate a ready meal recently and said how awful it was. Her taste buds are no longer used to processed foods so she could actually taste the chemicals in it. Quite an eye-opener.

Another big change is that we are now cooking a lot more as a family. As everything is cooked from scratch, and I'm somewhat limited with the use of my hands, I have become head chef and I now have two sous chefs. It's been fun and a great way to teach Missy how to look after her health for when she leaves home. She starts cookery class in school next week!

Most weekends we batch cook and freeze as many extra portions as we can. This reduces food waste and costs, as well as meaning that I don't have to take on a big meal prep every day. On days when I'm not very good, I can dip into the freezer and we have our own healthy version of a frozen meal.

My sous chefs in action

I'm looking into buying an economical half size chest freezer to go with my two drawer freezers. We freeze ingredients that are cheaper to buy in bulk as well as freezing batch cooked meals. It's far cheaper to do it this way. I really miss my third freezer that died a few years ago.

Last week we noticed another big change. Hubby couldn't work out if it was the week for bin collection or not, as we only have rubbish collected twice a month. Everyone else had put their bins out so it was the right week but we only had 1 black bag of rubbish in our bin... from 2 weeks! We were amazed that a simple change like making food from scratch would have such a huge knock-on effect environmentally. We knew it would help, but not this much!! Amazing! It just goes to show how much packaging we have with our foods. We are probably paying a lot more for processed foods simply to pay for the packaging that is covered in marketing designs.

So this lifestyle change has meant
- better health (our reason for doing this)
-less money spent
-less food waste
-less packaging to recycle (if it can be)
-more family time cooking together as well as eating together at the table.

This is one change that we won't be giving up.

Physiotherapy, a new experience

For some time now I've had autoimmune diseases, including arthropathies. Over 12 years in fact. This year, however, is the first time I've been prescribed physiotherapy. Usually, I'm just prescribed really nasty drugs and we hope for the best.

My right shoulder has flared badly with tendonitis again (frozen shoulder). It's been getting worse since last June and ended up with a massive loss of movement as well as a lot of pain. Over a decade of using a walking stick has taken its toll. I've had tendon problems for well over a decade and I usually have issues somewhere in my body but this has got worse than other flares, compounded by the fact that I'm right handed and can't stop trying to use it.

Missy showing off her flexibility

Back last October, a rheumatologist referred me to physio. I was first seen 3 weeks ago and have had a follow up this week. No x-rays were ordered at the time to check the arthritis component but thankfully my GP ordered them and there doesn't appear to be any major progression. So physio was deemed safe to go ahead with. Thank you to my GP for caring enough to check first.

I didn't have a clue what to expect as I've never had physio on the NHS before. I dosed up on the pain killers before going as I expected to be pulled about in a similar way to my rheumy examination. I needn't have worried though as my physio was really gentle and most the movements I did were under my own steam to access where my limits were and not cause it to get worse. I can't tell you what I relief it was after my previous experience of walking out of rheumy in floods of tears.

The initial assessment showed that I have pretty severe restrictions in movement. I was given 4 non-weight bearing exercises to do 'little and often'. They are quite basic and 3 of them can be done sat down with a cuppa so I did quite well with them.

At least, I did well with them until I had a flare triggered by breathing furniture polish at our local library. Until then, I was actually encouraged and getting a bit of movement back. Sadly, when I flare I get whole body inflammation, most noticeably in my nerves and brain but it's pretty much everywhere. During this flare, I was in such severe pain (not just my shoulder) that physio became impossible. I was forced to rest and wear a sling to take the weight of my arm while I waited out the flare.

I miss being creative. This is a painting I did of
a photo I took in our garden.

Annoyingly, something as simple as someone spraying polish near me in a public place caused me a severe flare (including chemical induced meningitis) that lasted for over 7 days.

I was annoyed, not just by the extreme pain of the flare but also by being put back with my physio after a promising start. When I resumed it was like starting all over again and any benefit from before was lost.

I'm seriously wondering if I need to get another steroid shot into my shoulder to try and bring the inflammation under control. I can't take non-steroidal anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen as my blood doesn't clot and they are very dangerous for me. All I can do is try to avoid triggers meaning that as well as extremely tightly controlling my diet, I also can't go anywhere that there are people. :( The problem here is that our doctor's surgery isn't set up for people like me and involves sitting for hours (Yeah, literally. Last time was 2.5 hours!) in a crowded waiting room with lots of people who wear perfume, aftershave, and other strong scents. Simply trying to see a Dr makes me severely ill. I'm trying to do without steroids at the moment but feel that it's only a matter of time until I might have no choice.

After the flare, I managed to get in about a week of varied intensity physio (dictated by pain and inflammation each day) to try to get back on track.

I saw the physio again this week. I wore a face mask with a carbon filter to reduce chemical exposure. Wow, those things are sweaty but did colour co-ordinate with my purple jumper! Thankfully, there is a little bit of improvement but not as much as hoped. I explained about the flare and he thinks it's just going to take longer because of my illness but can be done.

Missy modelling a dress that
I crocheted for her years ago

Interestingly, that morning before seeing my physio, I must have forced my shoulder while getting out of bed as it crunched really loudly. It was one of those crunching, cracking noises that really makes you feel sick. Yuck! What I did note was that instantly the pain levels halved and I got some movement back. I don't know if I snapped a small bone spur that x-ray missed or what. My physio simply nodded and noted it in my file.

After measuring my range of movement, I have a slight improvement in 2 planes but a drastic reduction in the 3rd plane that makes one of the exercises impossible to do now. I've got some new exercises to carry on increasing the range of movement and one exercise to try to build up a bit of strength in the joint.

I have also noticed that the pain inside the joint itself has gone now but thanks to work from the physio my tendons are much more painful as I'm trying to stretch them out again. I think that's progress though.

I'm now doing the exercises in a bigger session first thing in the morning while in the shower. I find that warming the muscles greatly improves my range of movement so I use this to my advantage. Then I do short stretches throughout the day when I sit down for a cuppa, or to read. I'm hoping this strikes a better balance and I'm sure I overdid things the first few weeks. I also realise now how critical it is to avoid chemical triggers as well as food ones. That is going to be a big challenge.

I'm going back again in 3 weeks for another review. It feels like a challenge now to see how much better my movement can be by better pacing myself. I'm missing my hobbies while my arm is out of commission so the incentive is high. I miss being able to create and I want to get started on planting my garden this month with the seeds I had for my birthday. It has given me plenty of time for reading though and it is World Book Day this week! I quite like that silver lining. Maybe I'll have the incentive to review a couple of the best books that I'm reading. Afterall, I can still type!

This week I am the meaning to life, the universe and everything!

You will know what I mean if you are a Hitchikers fan. Yes, I turned 42 this week. Or 21 again if you like!

Birthdays are so different when you get older. Gone are the days when I get excited about birthdays. Maybe they will return again when I get to life expectancy. Then I will be proud to say I'm 80-and-a-half, just like small children are 5-and-a-half!

Now birthdays come and go and often I can't even remember how old I actually am and have to resort to a quick calculation from my date of birth!

Birthdays, in recent years, have become like Christmas in my mind but not in a good way. I feel pressure to conform to consumerism at these times. What do I want for my birthday/Christmas?

Actually, the answer is 'nothing that money can buy'. But it's really hard to say this as no one wants to hear it. Seriously though, I'm trying to simplify my life and possessions so adding more stuff that I don't need is really the opposite of a gift.

I get that people want to show that they care but they can't see that there are other ways to show that. Well, until this year...

My heroes, who keep me going forward in life

This year was one of my most enjoyable birthdays in decades. It was well and truly centred around family and I loved it. There were no extravagant gifts, only well thought out ones that were tailored to me. They were useful gifts or catering to my bookworm needs. I have an addiction to books!

When hubby asked me over a month ago what I wanted for my birthday I said veggie seeds for the garden as it's that time of year when I start to plant them. He originally looked at me oddly and said, 'That's not a gift!'. I simply said that I didn't want to buy into consumerism anymore and that the seeds were practical and support my fledgeling hobby. Then I just forgot about it.

It turns out that my family took this to heart and I love them for it. I did indeed get my packet of veggie seeds for the garden. Hubby and Missy took things a step further though knowing that I value experiences and memories over material stuff.

Some of last year's seedlings, spinach, beans,
carrots and something else?

Hubby put together a homemade movie of our honeymoon from 5 years ago. I sat in bed with my morning tea and we watched a 30-minute movie of our honeymoon (Familymoon, as Missy came with us) made up of photos and video clips. We went on a cruise around the Western Mediterranean so Hubby also included a map that plotted our journey from port to port. He added regional music ofr each port to the backdrop that really set it off. There were also captions to add a bit about the history of each place, along with a few Daddy jokes, much to Missy's amusement. There were even end credits including 'filmed on location at...' with a list of all the places we went to. It was amazing. I'm not even ashamed to say a tear or two were shed.

On honeymoon.
Wow, those steroids really did a number on me!

Missy also tailored a gift to me. She put together the modern digital version of a mix tape for me. Some of my favourite songs were on there but many more from bands that I don't know but are *my* style. I like background music but music is not really my thing so Missy put together a playlist she thought I would like to save me from bothering to find new artists, because she knows that I won't. And I have to say, that I like every one of the songs and artists that she selected for me. Go, Missy! More tears escaped.

To say I'm touched by the effort and thought that went into these gifts is an understatement. I don't usually cry over gifts! I do love my photo albums (thanks Mam for another really pretty album) but I'd never before considered doing them digitally. I still print them out and stick them into albums. However, the movie version was great for watching together.

We're thinking of putting together another movie each year to watch on New Year's Eve as a recap of what we've done. We already have a rememberlutions jar that we read all the notes from on NYE. Although we have fallen out of this habit in the last 2 years. We've ended up writing the notes on NYE instead.

My custom made playlist will certainly help when I'm doing the mind-numbing tasks like housework. It's always easier to do with something to sing along to. It'll also remind me that I do it to keep a welcome and safe home for Missy.

Familymoon!

My parents and brothers were also part of my birthday celebrations. They all came to visit, which is a gift in itself and I always love. I had more practical garden based gifts and Amazon vouchers to feed my Kindle addiction. They know me so well! I need to get some more soil now and I'm ready to convert the conservatory into my greenhouse. So much more convenient as no wellie boots are needed!

Also, in an anti-consumerism move, I didn't have an over-priced gluten-free (tastes like sawdust) birthday cake. Instead, I made a peach cobbler and poured custard over it. I didn't bother with a candle as it would have needed a life raft with the amount of custard I have! In winter a hot pudding goes down much better anyway!

As for now being the meaning to life, the universe and everything... it's a journey. I'm slowly finding *my* meaning to life and it is all about the journey.