Food glorious food..

After my rather unexpected hospital stay a couple of years ago I ended up with all sorts of issues with food. Certain things made me feel extremely nauseous, others made me rush to the bathroom (yes, too much info I know). In some ways I'm glad I reached crisis point after ten years of feeling pretty rubbish with no apparent reason. Without putting myself through more invasive tests and rounds of specialists etc. I'm simply left with the art of listening to my body.

I started by cutting out all the food that was giving me a headache, nausea etc. It took six months for things to settle down. It was a period of experimentation. I cut out dairy and gluten and as much sugar as I could. It was quite drastic. I've never really been radical when it comes to healthy eating.

Almost immediately the headaches and nausea disappeared. After two years of following this pretty strict diet I felt fantastic. Two years seems to have also been the point at which I began to get seriously cheesed off with not being able to eat... well cheese among other things. I started to have very small nibble of things that I had on my 'no' list. This led to bigger nibbles and a temporary abandonment of my general food rules and all the symptoms returned. Itchy skin, sparkly dots in my eyes, foggy memory, tiredness, headaches, nausea etc.

I like to blame the kitchen disarray for my 'blip'. At times it is so chaotic. Tomorrow is going to be one of those chaotic days. M is finally devoting an entire day to fit the butler sink. He's not doing it because we need one, he's doing it to make me shut up about it. I call it project management.

Anyway, after Christmas I resolved to sort myself out. It's a right royal pain in the backside but it's the only way forward. Life could be worse. Thank goodness for our organic veg box. Probably our only extravagance at the moment. This week it came with blood oranges. I've never had these before. They taste like orangey grapefruit, very tasty.

I've also been busy making homemade falafel. If you've never tried it, the recipe is on the bbc good food website. It's very simple and the main ingredient is chick peas, very healthy. I had a salad with it and humus, which is also easy to make.

So, I'm back on the straight and narrow and feel much better. I need to keep busy so I don't think about all the food I can't have. I've been sorting out my wardrobe and also trying to turn Jake's bedroom from a toy filled kids room into a teenager's den. The wardrobe was a walk in the park compared to J's room!