Travel

I will be going to Iceland tomorrow

I won't have computer for a month

I will be cold

I don't want to be sick

Ég vil ekki vera veik

I don't want to be sick

Ég vil ekki verða veikari

I don't want to be more sick than I'm now 

I often feel like this is all my fault. If I would live a healthier life I would be better. 

I don't want to be sick

Sadly I feel like I can't stay away from sugar. Why can't I live a life without sugar? I feel like I'm always trying to eat healthy food and exercise but never succeeding. I feel like it should be so easy for me to stay away from sugar and live a VERY healthy life. I feel it because of I have arthritis. If I would every single day make smart decisions regarding food and my health there is a good chance that I can get better. Then why doesn't I do it?

What's wrong with me?

Why can't I do it?     

When I started this blog about one month ago I honestly thought "this is it, from now on I will live so healthy live, make smart decisions about my health and then blog about the journey"  Sounds easy!  

I feel like a such a looser. Last month I was taking fertility drugs (perotime/clomid). That didn't go well and for four weeks I had a very bad pain in my right side. So bad that we went to the E.R. It wasn't very pleasant and I used it as a excuse to stop eating healthy food. When the pain started to get better, I figured out a new excuse to continue to eat unhealthy food. Obviously I can't eat healthy food when I'm packing down my stuff, right?

Now

I want to start planing again how to eat right and exercise but my plans never seems to work out. Why don't they work out? Well, mainly because I give up. I know that I have to start again  

but I'm afraid that  I will fail again.

I want to cook

My husband is a vegetarian. When we started to live together, he took care of the cooking because of his special needs.  I had a lot of free time first when we moved to Chapel Hill so I slowly started to take over in the kitchen. My favorite part of cooking is browsing through cooking books and food blogs. I love discovering new recipes and looking at pictures of food. I have a lot of recipes on my TO-DO-LIST, here are few recipes that I'm planning to make. 

Almond Veggie Pate Nori Rolls

I'm in love with raw sushi rolls. This recipe is from Ani Phyo. I have two raw cooking books from here and I love her recipe's. 

Cristina from Buenos Aires to Paris

is a wonderful food blog. The pictures and the food are so lovely. I just hope that one day I can cook food that looks as nice as hers. Here are Pistachio/Raspberry Mini-Cakes that she made.

 

Moroccan Quinoa Bites

is a recipe that I found on Julie's raw ambition When I cook everything turns to a mess. I think I will never be able to cook like Julie. Just see how amazing the picture is. I just want to run to store and buy the ingredients straight away. 

Chocolate-souffle

This one seems so tasty.

Raw Orange Chia Seed Breakfast Pudding

from rawmazing

 

 

Moving to Iceland

After one week I will go back to Iceland. When we first moved here to North-Carolina, we planned to stay here for four to five years. We quickly realized that I wasn't going to survive being here not able to work and away from my friends and family for four years. So we decided that we would take year off. Originally the plan was to get pregnant, have the baby in Iceland and take one year off. Unfortunately that didn't work out. I feel like it was ages ago that we decided to try to have a family. I started to ween of my medication in December 2009, six months later we started to try. Therefore it has been more than 10 months since we started to try. I thought that I would be pregnant by now. Some days I get so sad and angry about this. The thing is I feel like because I have arthritis and had to give up a lot of things therefore it's only fair that I would be able to get pregnant quickly.

Now we're starting a new chapter. We have our first appointment with a fertility clinic in Iceland later this month. It was so expensive to do it here in USA that we couldn't afford  it. Hence we're moving back to Iceland for one year. There we will get pregnant with the help of the fertility clinic or at least that is what we hope to do.

Food that kicks arthritis butt UPDATE

These berries are supposed to be good to eat if you have arthritis

Acaiberry

Blueberries

Black currants

Cherry berries

Raspberry 

Strawberries

These vegetable have been recommend if you're dealing with arthritis

Cuccumber

Carrots

Cellery

Broccoli

Spinach

Onion

Sweet potatoes

Beetroot

These fruits are suggested to help with arthritis

apples

Apparently spices can have good effects on arthritis

Curry

Fennel

Turmeric

Then we have

Ginger

Garlic

Chili

Chinnamon

I think it's good to eat a lot of fish (if you're into fish)

Cod

Salmon

I'm always looking for food that's supposed to have good effects on arthritis. Anything you could think of that should be on this list

Tired of being in pain!

Last two weeks haven't been good. I'm taking this fertility drugs that are supposed to be almost harmless compare to some stuff you can get. Even though the fertility drugs I'm taking aren't strong, I still manged to get some storng side affects. In my last cycle I took 50 mg pergotime and that went well apart from the part that I didn't get pregnant. The next cycle my doctor told me to take double dozeses if I didn't get pregnant, so I took 100 mg of pergotime. (Pergotime is similar to Clomid). This time around I had less pain in the beginning which was nice. A little more than two weeks ago I started to feel pain

in my right side. The pain gradually got worse until two days ago I woke up my husband and we decided to go to the hospital. We went even though I don't have an American health insurance. I have Icelandic insurance and travel insurance and I do hope that will cover the cost. We haven't got the bill yet but I think it's going to huge number on that bill.

Anyhow we went to hospital, stayed the whole night and they examine me. Everything seemed to be okay and they discharged me and said that they couldn't find anything seriousley wrong with me and they couldn't explain why I was having so much pain in my right side.

I can't barley move because of the pain, I can't concentrate and I feel like I can't do anything. It is not all bad because the arthritis pain hasn't been bothering me since the right side started to hurt so much. It is kind of funny because I still have difficulty moving me hands and feet and I'm very tired in the hands and legs but it doesn't hurt.

I'M SO SICK OF BEING SICK!

 

I haven't been able to anything past two weeks. In addition my periods started. Which is a good thing because if it was over stimulation of the ovaries it's not good to get pregnant. Nevertheless I'm devastated of getting NO one more time. I'm specially upset because I'm leaving in two weeks so we ain't going to be together on the fertil period. So nothing is going to happened next cycle. And since my cycle is so, so, so long (36 days or more) it is ages until we can try again.

EVERYTHING SUCKS TODAY!

Therefore I went downtown to EAT! That's my thing when I get upset I go and stuff my face with unhealthy food. It can't be normal to always turn to food whenever things don't work up.

I'm feeling sorry for myself today and complaining. Tomorrow I will stop complaining and crying, today I'm going to sulk a little bit more.

Food that fights arthritis

My arthritis journey has led me to the place where I look at food and think "Would this benefit my arthritis" or "is that a good arthritis food". I firmly believe that food can be helpful to keep arthritis down. I even have an excel-sheet where I write down food that kicks arthritis butt. 

I don't whether it is all true what you read about the healing power of food but I don't care. I will rather eat food that some odds are that will keep the arthritis down than not. 

These berries are supposed to be good to eat if you have arthritis

Acaiberry

Blueberries

Cherry berries

Raspberry 

Strawberries

These vegetable have been recommend if you're dealing with arthritis

Cuccumber

Carrots

Cellery

Broccoli

Spinach

Onion

Sweet potatoes

These fruits are suggested to help with arthritis

apples

Apparently spices can have good effects on arthritis

Curry

Fennel

Turmeric

Then we have

Ginger

Garlic

Chili

I'm always looking for food that's supposed to have good effects on arthritis. Anything you could think of that should be on this list

Knitting

My mom is a big knitter, her sister knit and her friends. Sadly I never learned to knit in school. My grandma taught me a little bit but I never really got the hang of it. The recession winter (2008-2009) everyone started to knit again in Iceland, me included. 


My first project wasn't pretty and I have never had any use of it. My second project was a red dress, it was pretty but at the time when I finally finished I was too fat for the dress. Or the dress didn't fit any longer. When I fit in the dress, I will post a picture. 

My third project is this lovely sweater.  I really like knitting and I really like showing off my knitting projects. I just hope when I finish this sweater that she will fit me.  

This is supposed to be a sweater one day

Feeling fatigued on raw diet

So I ate raw food for three days and felt terrific. My only complain was that I felt very fatigued those days. So when I woke up on the third day, still felling fatigued. I decided that I would eat cooked food that day.  Turned out that was a good decision, I felt great that day. I even manged to get back on track with my exercises. However I didn't do as well yesterday. My husband made pizza and I couldn't resist so I had two slices. Then today I had cookie, cake and three bites of quality chocolate. 

 

I tend to this, eat nothing but spinach and coconut water for days and then eat all the cakes and chocolate that I can get my hands on. Worst of all was that after I ate the cakes and chocolate the pain came back. I'm a little bit mad at myself now. Specially since this weekend is packed with events containing unhealthy food. There's birthday dinner at Friday night, wedding on Saturday and brunch on Sunday. 

Well at least I know that I should stay away from

sugar

and wheat

Which diet does the magic trick for arthritis suffers

I have tried different kind of diets in hope that it would ease the pain from the arthritis. I haven't been able to stick to one specific. Sadly I need my candy day and diversity when it comes to food. But that doesn't stop me from looking up different diets that could be beneficial. Gradually me diet habits are getting more and more healthy. I eat whole foods, don't eat red meat, try to stay away from candy and sodas. Which is okay to do when I'm taking medicines for the arthritis. Now when I'm not taking any I think I have to do some drastic change in my eating habits. One thing is to try to find out what foods are triggering flares.  Other thing is learning to eat healthy even though I'm going out with friends or partying or something similar. I have to admit I find it so difficult to eat healthy and clean food when I go out with my friends or attending a party.

Back to the diets. I find it to say at least overwhelming to choose what diet should I follow. There are so many diet's out there that could be an aid to fight the arthritis. The problem is to choose one and stick to it.

There's the option going raw. 

or turning a vegan

Instead of vegan I could try to become a vegetarian 

Then there are the something-free diets like Gluten-free diet

This one, Sugar-free diet, I think is very important for people with arthritis to follow.

I have seen people recommending the Eat to live diet

This one I find a little bit scary, Food Elimination

Fasting, is something that I could do. People have been fasting for centuries  

There's this diet which I'm going to call alkaline

The Gerson therapy seems to be challenge to follow but I think could be very beneficial. 

At last but not least there is the macrobiotic diet. 

I'm leaning towards going raw and vegetarian. But I definitively have to a lot more research  on these diet to see what of those diet's seems to fit me and my arthritis.

 

Eating raw

For three days I only ate raw food

For three days I didn't have the pain that has been keeping me up on nights

For three days I have been very tired

For three days I made some great raw food including these awesome desserts

For three days I knitted the I-Pad cover

This one is made by me

I'm almost done with I-Pad cover

I got this recipe from rawdorable

 

Going raw

I decided to try the raw diet. My pain is going worse by every day and I need to do something to ease the pain. I have been reading on the internet, raw success stories, e.g. people with arthritis that went on raw food diet and got better. In the beginning I will try to be 100% raw but I don't think it is going to be possible to 100% raw there. It's just so cold there and the selection of fruits and vegetables aren't great.

I have been doing a lot of reading about healing arthritis with food. I gain a little bit more knowledge about what is wise to do when you have arthritis. However I'm also getting confused there is so much information out there. Some of the information contradict other information. So the more I read, the more I get confused.

Raw diet, juicing and fasting are however things that I think could be benefical.

• I don't have a juicer right now but I will have one after three weeks
• Today was my first day on 100% raw diet
• I'm planing to fast (with juices) this week

Raw diet

Is thinking very seriously about going raw

Day 14, week no. 2

It's been two weeks since I started the blog, two weeks since I decided to eat healthy food for 30 days minus 4 candy-days. Week number two did not go as I planned. I didn't eat healthy food and I didn't exercise. I'm going to do better. 

Recap of the week

For four days, I ate unhealthy food

I ate good food for three days, sigh. 

I only walked twice this week

I bicycled twice

I never made it to the gym nor did yoga, not good at all.

I WILL do better next week

My husband and I spent the whole day at a coffee shop. I had white tea, it doesn't have a great taste but it's mild and suits the warm spring days, we're having now.  I made some progress on the I-Pad cover.

Vitamins, supplements and other remedies for arthritis

Currently I'm taking D-vitamin, B-12 vitamin, C-vitamin, MSM for my arthritis. To increase fertility I'm taking folic acid and Freyja. Freyja is herbal tablets which I bought in Iceland at Jurtaapótek. 

Another vitamins that have been recommending for RA are:

B-6 vitamin

B-5 vitamin

Calcium

Magnesium

Zinc

Alfafla

Cetyl myrist-oleat

My concern is do I have to take all these vitamins or is it possible for me to get enough from my food?

I always thought that antioxidants where for people who were trying to keep their youth. After I read more on the internet about RA, antioxidants seems to keep popping up. Therefore that's another thing that I'm wondering whether I should add to my growing vitamin cabin.

E-vitamin

C-vitamin

Beta-carotene 

Selenium

I don't know, it's sounds so overwhelming. I eat a lot of berries, almost every day. Is it necessary for my to take antioxidants vitamins?

When I lived in Iceland, I ate fish at least once a week. My goal was always to try to eat it at least three times a week, didn't always work. Sadly when I moved to USA I stopped eating fish. Partly because it's more expensive here than in Iceland but also I don't  know how to cook the fish they're selling here in NC. Therefore when I was living in Iceland I wasn't so worry about my omega-3. I also took fish oil so I was pretty sure I was getting some omega-3 in my body. Since I moved to USA I eat those seeds to get my omega-3

flax-seeds

chia-seeds

But I suspect that I'm not getting enough omega-3 which isn't good.

I found on an Icelandic website heilsa that they recommended this oil

náttljósaolíur (I have no idea what that is in English)

Is there any more vitamins or supplements that you think would benefit RA patient?