Fibromyalgia and Nutrition 2018 – Weeks 2-5

Dearest Readers,

Thank you for all of your kind messages and comments over the past month. My absence on here has not been intentional, rather a necessity to just get through what is left of the winter. This time last year blogging came easy as I was off work having recently been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, and it was all I could to do distract my body and mind.

A year on and I am working full time, in a job that requires a lot of brain power for a fibromyalgia warrior who suffers dreadfully with fog at times and by the time I get home in the evenings I’m pooped. Which doesn’t leave much energy or time for blogging.

But there is something about February that has woken me up a little. Although winter isn’t quite over, and the migrating pain of the fibromyalgia still bothers me terribly, there is a little light at the end of the winter tunnel. The mornings are (very) slowly becoming lighter, making getting up just that little bit easier. The thought of the warm sun on my skin inspires me to work hard to feel good in the spring (although it was chuffing cold today). And March is oh so close… so close.

On the nutrition front I am looking forward to more seasonal fruits and smoothies, and growing our own organic produce in our allotment. Not long now until the ground will be soft enough to dig. Well not me digging, but my husband! Then we can get planting all of the things we love and enjoy our produce in the summer.

January saw me eating significantly less meat and moving ever closer towards a mostly plant based diet (because lets face it, junk food is nice some of the time). I only ate 2 portions of chicken and one of beef throughout January and for that I am super pleased. I didn’t miss it anywhere near as much as I thought I did, and on the beef day I think I must have needed some iron in my diet or something because the urge to eat it overwhelmed me. But compared to where I was this time last year I am pleased with my progress on the meat front. For me I work much better if I do a little at a time, I don’t have the strongest willpower in the world and so baby steps are better than no steps. The aim is to be vegan by the end of the year but saying goodbye to eggs and honey is freaking me out a little at the moment so I’m not quite ready yet!

Sugar remains my nemesis after doing so well before Christmas and then, well, it WAS Christmas and I completely fell off the wagon. Having cut right down on meat in January my plan is to cut right down on sugar again in February. Ive gone back over my old posts and enjoyed recapping with this post as to how I managed to cut it down last time and how good I felt.

Aaaaaaaanyway, I suppose a nutrition post wouldn’t be complete without sharing my recent food adventures, in the. hope of inspiring others to think about how what goes in effects what your body gives you in return, and so here we go!

I really do love pecans on my gluten and dairy free porridge in the mornings!

Gluten and dairy free sweet potato rosti with avocado and eggs

All the fruit and veg!!!

Homemade gluten and dairy free egg fried rice, super delish!

Felt extravagant having this porridge but it was all plant based and super healthy. Made with coconut milk and gluten free oats, and topped with homemade blueberry compote, cherries, almonds, and pumpkin seeds

More of that lovely blueberry compote with dairy free coconut yoghurt and topped with gluten free granola.

That vegan chickpea curry again!

Keeping it simple with gluten and dairy free porridge topped with banana and pumpkin seeds.

And thats me! Hoping that the new energy found in February so far lasts and that I can post much more over the coming weeks. But for now thank you so much for all of your support as always. I hope that you have been able to draw even just a little inspiration from my cooking adventures to make a positive change to your diet to help you feel good! I also just want to remind people that as I am usually tired in the evenings all the meals I cook are super quick and easy to make, but with a bit of love can be made to look super pretty, and we all love pretty food!

If you would like any advice or have any questions about how you can change your diet to benefit your chronic illness then please do get in touch. You can find me over on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, where I not only share my foodie adventures but also my daily life living with the F word.