A few months ago I started to get these really intense headaches and the progressively got worse and became a daily thing to the point where I would wake up with this “headache” and go to sleep with it. I am not one who frequents the doctors office often especially for myself. Generally I am a healthy person and I hate wasting a doctors time for something that is just a virus or needs to just run its course but after weeks and weeks of living in constant pain I gave my doctor a call. After the Cat Scans and tests where done there were still no clear answers what was causing them or how to get them to go away – so fast forward and that is when the elimination diet was suggested. At this point I was willing to give anything a try – after about 3 days of the diet I was seriously reconsidering my decision.

For months now I have felt extremely ill after eating bread of any kind and more recently even pasta was causing me pain and making me feel sick so when the Dr suggested a diet I thought it would be like a gluten free thing and I was sure I could live with that for a few weeks since I practically was already giving a lot of it up on my own. I was not prepared for the long list of foods I could not eat and I was even more unprepared for the very short list of things I could eat. In short I could not eat: gluten, sugar, dairy, caffeine, soy, most meats, some fruits and some vegetables.  I had to do this for 3 weeks – 21 days!! After that we would start reintroducing the foods back slowly – I mean very painfully slowly!

I love to bake I find it fun and enjoyable but when it comes to cooking it is much more work for me. I am not creative enough to come up with my own recipes and I struggle to make my meals exciting and not just boring; sticking to the stuff I know how to make and the foods I know I like. This diet forced me to step out of my comfort zone and try new things, get creative or I would starve. The food I could eat (as limited as it was) got boring very quickly. I forgot to mention my headaches got even worse so now I’m hungry, in more pain and I find myself becoming grumpy over it. A dear friend of mine dropped off a sweet care package late one night at my door step to give me the much needed encouragement to not give up. In the package was the cook book “The oh she glows cookbook“.  Thanks to this book and along with some of my own “experimental” dishes I want to dedicate the next few Fridays to some food posts.

Are you a foodie? Do you love to cook? What is your favourite recipe to make? Has anyone ever taken a cooking class? I have been wanting to but just not sure where to look and how to go about that!? I think it would be a lot of fun to have a chef teach me some tricks to make cooking more enjoyable for myself! Anyone want to join me in a class???