Whole27: Seven (Eight?) Months Later

Breakfast this morning was cinnamon rolls.

In fairness, I'm sick right now with something resembling that monster flu--hopefully it's really just a monster cold, but that's my boundless optimism for ya--and my tastes in food when I'm sick completely regress to what I wanted to eat at the age of 12, so we are now stocked with Chef Boyardee ravioli, english muffins, half a gallon of milk, and spaghettios with meatballs. (Yesterday, I ate all the mac and cheese.) And when I was 12, another favorite item was those cinnamon rolls in a can that my mom would sometimes make on weekend mornings. We recently had an even better version of those at a friend's house (post-Thanksgiving brunch should be more of a thing!), and so I made a trek to her grocery store to buy some this morning. Maybe I could also get them closer to home, but I was taking no chances.

Whole27 really was a significant happening in 2017, it turns out. It doesn't rank as highly as the job changes, of course, but I think it comes just after our two week trip to New Zealand. It might even beat that, depending on your criteria, because there are some things that really did change following it (whereas nothing about our life is really different after a trip to New Zealand, save being in possession of fresh evidence that New Zealand is a phenomenal place to visit).

The most obvious change that Whole27 wrought that has stuck is that I no longer add sugar to coffee: drinking it black is my default. I make exceptions when all that's available is shitty coffee, and I want to mask some of the bite with cream and sugar, but I go easy. And when it comes to cold brew, which is what we drink the majority of the time--it's been a hot year--I never add it, not even to mask shitty cold brew, because we just don't buy shitty cold brew anymore. If you're going to drink it black, you need the good stuff, and I've become pretty persnickety about cold brew. We continue to spend an outsized amount on groceries just because of cold brew, I'd guess: the good ones are $4-5 each, and Austin and I combined drink 2-3 a day. My favorite is Venice Cold Brew: I keep trying cheaper ones to see if I can find one I like that'll cost less, but no luck so far. I did buy a Secret Squirrel latte that was pretty good--they don't put much sugar in--but that's the closest contender.

The other thing that's really changed, either because of Whole27 or because I'm getting old, or both, is that I learned about the benefits of Pepcid AC. One Friday on the way to work, I started feeling some pretty sharp pains in my torso, higher than my stomach, and had no idea what it was. I was in enough pain that I called my doctor and went to see him that afternoon, and he said my symptoms fit with three possible scenarios, two of which were unlikely, but were pretty serious, and to know for sure, he recommended an ER visit because it was Friday afternoon and there'd be no other opportunities to get scanned until the following Monday.

I did not want to go to the ER. That's why I called my doctor. But if your doctor says go to the ER, you should go to the ER.

Seven hours later, I emerged from the ER having undergone ultrasound exams that concluded there was nothing wrong, and feeling much better after having been dosed with anti-nausea medicine and antacid medicine. They recommended taking Pepcid AC for a few days, and staying away from known sources of acid... production, I guess?... like alcohol and caffeine.

Armed with the knowledge of what had caused this pain, I did further research into what things to eat to reduce acid, and what to avoid, and on that latter list... were all the things that had taken on an outsized role in my Whole30 diet: fatty meats, spicy foods (lots of onion and garlic and hot sauce), and caffeine (having a cold brew in the morning was essential).

So, I blame Whole30 for that visit to the ER. Perhaps that's not entirely fair--I probably should have ended the program more gradually than I did--but I had never experienced pain like that before and I haven't since. I do take Pepcid AC on occasion now: we spent this past weekend wine tasting in Sonoma and Healdsburg, and I took some on day 2 after feeling uncomfortable at the end of day 1, but that was still nowhere near the level of what I'd experienced.

It's hard to say if I would have no stomach acid issues at all now if I hadn't done Whole30: that is the sort of thing that becomes more common when you get older, I hear, and given that I've also started a new job, and that job is stressful and requires a fair amount of travel, and I eat like shit when I travel, there were probably going to be consequences regardless. I wouldn't have minded learning about the benefits of Pepcid AC without a $1500 ER bill, though.

Ah well, 2018 is another year.