Weigh In Friday - Eyes Wide Open

I'm into my 6th week since my gastritis happened. My doctor has "upgraded" my condition to IBS - irritable bowel syndrome. It means nothing. It just shows she still doesn't have a clue how to treat me. It also says that we have wasted the last 4 weeks having me on gastritis medication which could have potentially made me worse.

Sigh. I'm now on a potent dose of good bacteria to restore my gut and flatugas gel to tackle the wind. The flatugas gel tastes horrible. So far these new medical experimentation (on me) hasn't worked. I read that for good bacteria, it takes a while to build up so I'm going to give it time. My doctor doesn't sound very competent. So why do I still continue seeing her? I do ask myself the same question. Especially when the clinic staff lost my medical records on my last visit. It's like POOF - my entire stack of history disappeared. Not one word of apology. Just the same insistence : It's there. It's there. I put it THERE. Yet no one can find it.

But I don't want to start from scratch with another doctor and be another doctor's guinnea pig. At least with Dr TingTing, she has already experimented with me and knows what don't work. I'm determined to stay with her while she works her way from one organ to another. Plus she sees me as a human being and at this point, I feel I need a little humanity. I know that when she finally surrenders on my case, she will find me someone smarter and very likely much much more expensive to treat me.

Meanwhile I alternate between feeling hopeful and hopeless. When will this torture end? Is this going to be my life from now on? Is this my new normal? When I think about it, I feel so upset yet what's the point of getting upset. It doesn't help the situation. Somewhere this week while wallowing in some self-pity, I had a change of mindset. I decided to see my shitty bowel/gut/gastritis situation as a "when one door closes, another opens" kind of situation.

Firstly, I should enjoy my weight loss - a fortunate side-effect of my gastritis/ibs. After all, I tried many times and I couldn't even lose a single kg. I have plenty of clothes I haven't been able to wear due to an expanding waistline. I should dig them out and wear them while I can squeeze into them. You never know, one of these days I'm going to mysteriously recover and I'm going to gain back all my weight. Secondly, I have the opportunity to eat healthy. My stomach absolutely hates oily food and punishes me immediately if I don't listen. I have to take small meals as well. So no more eating till I want to burst. My stomach also hates rice, noodles and bread. Bread has always been my biggest weakness in the past. In a way, it's great that I can't eat all the bread in the world. For someone like me with little self control, maybe this is the only way to get me to cut down on carbs. I eat fruits and vegetables every day. In the past I wasn't as vigilant. Some fruits and vegetables give me a little problem so I have to constantly try to see what my stomach likes. That gets me to eat a variety of fruits. This experience with my food sensitivity might just end up helping me make better food choices.

This morning I weighed myself and my weight is 58.8kg.

Last Friday I weighed 58.9kg. This means I have lost 100g since last Friday and a grand total of 4kg 200g since 21st July this year.

21st Aug 2015 - 58.8kg
14th Aug 2015 - 58.9kg
7th Aug 2015 - 59.9kg
21st July 2015 - 63kg

I expected my weight to stay the same this week although secretly I had hoped to lose a lot more weight. But I knew it wasn't going to happen because this week I managed to increase my food intake successfully. Also I ate more sweet stuff so I need to watch out. If I hope to lose any more weight, I need to exercise more and cut down the sweets.

Speaking of exercise, this week I was able to achieve at least 8,000 steps continuously from Monday to Thursday. Today I will try my darnest to keep the streak going. I managed to go for one 5km run but I don't see myself running regularly as the stupid haze is back.

I'm constantly on the search for alternative food. This time I tried quinoa milk with kamut cereal. Quinoa milk tastes like crap. It's like drinking detergent, I imagine. I don't think I can ever get used to the taste so this doesn't work for me.

I bought this rye crispbread at the organic section of a supermarket. It looks horrible, doesn't it? The taste is quite lovely especially when you eat it with jam. I can see myself eating this even after I've recovered.

I've noticed my stomach likes food I buy at the organic section. They cost way more than regular food so that's a bit of a concern. Since I could tolerate rye crispbread, I thought I could try freshly made rye bread. See how I'm still trying to find a bread I can eat? I never give up huh? I tried looking for rye bread where I live and it seems every bakery here only sells white bread, multigrain bread or wholemeal bread. Rye doesn't exist. Where are you, rye bread?

Being constantly on the search for food I could eat has opened my eyes to the kind of food that's available here. At supermarkets, I noticed most food are laden with sugar or salt. A lot of flavouring aren't even from natural products. Is that acceptable? Like if you see an image of grapes on a carton of juice, you expect real grapes? I've been reading the labels and most times, it's an artificial flavour. At food courts, try and get a meal without rice or noodles. That's almost impossible. The only healthy food I can find so far is yong tau foo or sliced fish soup and that's because you're allowed to opt out of the carbo.

Next week, my goal is to lose a few more grams, like 800grams. That or at least an amount that's more that what my poop weighs. If I can do that while eating a regular amount of food, that will be great. Plus toning exercises for my tummy.