The Diet and Me (and Lentil Soup Recipe!)

So diets and I have a love-hate relationship. This anti-inflammatory diet might be the best thing I've ever done, or it might be the thing that pushes me over the edge. You'll have to stay tuned.

Backing up...I think of my high school/early college years as a time of "pseudo-anorexia." I never lost a ton of weight, but just based on being relatively skinny and only 5 feet tall, hovered around the 95 lb mark for that era. I read a lot about anorexia. I watched what I ate. I had my mother worried enough that she was getting self-help literature (the irony that my sister was ACTUALLY bulimic during this period, unbeknowst to my parents, is sort of hilarious, or pathetic, or something). The bottom line is that I have historically had food "issues" and probably shouldn't ever be on anything called a "diet."

In graduate school I started cooking and eating like a normal person, but one who has a serious carb fetish. I ate bagels and pasta, and more bagels and pasta. And then I started getting migraines. Debilitating. My doctor put me on a ton of drugs. I stopped taking the drugs because I wanted to get pregnant. I started fiddling with my diet and went wheat and dairy free (and cut out other major migraine triggers). And I felt moderately better. And I also lost five pounds in the first week or so I was on it, until I figured out that I could eat potatoes. Ah, potatoes.

I got sort of obsessive watching my diet when trying to conceive LG because I read about a connection between gluten intolerance and miscarriage and while I don't think I'm clinically gluten-sensitive, I certainly feel better, in all kinds of ways, when not eating wheat. Then I got pregnant and felt better eating ginger cookies, so I ate a lot of ginger cookies and a lot of cheese and a lot of things I wouldn't ordinarily eat. I gained 40 lbs and gave birth to a healthy kid, despite being APA+ which adds a substantial risk for IUGR (not to mention stillbirth).

But by 2 weeks or so, it seemed pretty clear to me (though not her ped) that LG wasn't tolerating breastmilk and had chronic diarrhea. I started cutting my diet obsessively. Top 8 allergens, tomatoes, and I can't remember what else. When we finally saw a peds GI (at 4 months), he forbade me to eat anything that came from a package or a restaurant. Things got a bit crazy. I spent most of that first summer eating, pumping, cooking, and carrying around a fussy baby. LG didn't get much better but I was literally starving, despite eating 4 meals + snacks. 93 pounds isn't great for a nursing mom, to put it mildly. When the allergist asked me to stop eating rice, I realized the diet couldn't go on for much longer. I gave up breastfeeding and put LG on wickedly expensive prescription-only formula; her GI system slowly recovered, I gained weight almost instantly and now, six years later, I've got a kid who can have trace amounts of dairy (possibly more, we haven't really experimented) without any noticeable difficulty. (Oh, to buy that girl a slice of cake at a pastry shop!) And courtesy of the diet, I figured out that soy is actually my major migraine trigger, not dairy. Thus began a life largely wheat/dairy/soy-free. I respected it, but I wasn't compulsive about it, and I knew with a reliable amount of certainty that I could have a splash of cream in my decaf without causing any major problems. Ditto eating an occasional slice of bread, or, heaven forbid, a piece of pizza.

So when the acupuncturist put me on this low inflammatory diet, my reaction was somewhat mixed. I can get obsessive. And the last thing I need is to think that if I have a single cup of decaf, or eat a piece of chocolate, I won't get pregnant. Infertility sucks. But don't put it on me for doing things wrong. Because really, if you're telling me that I've dealt with two years of fertility treatment and RPL because I've been cheating on my diet, well, I might go crazy. I've had periods I watched my diet obsessively (the IVF cycles, in particular) and it certainly hasn't made a damn bit of difference. I'm certainly feeling better. But am I feeling better because of this diet or because I'm at a point in my cycle I tend to feel okay, and (other than Lovenox and Prometrium) I'm pretty much drug-free? When the scale hit 99.2 the other day, I sort of wigged out. And, as A told me last night, adding stress and losing weight can't be good for any of this process. And to follow this diet strictly? It's hard core. I mean, I'm not even supposed to have soy lecithin; do you know how much crap has soy lecithin in it?! We'll see how long this lasts.

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As I said, lentils are okay, and I happen to love them. Here is a Red Lentil and Rice soup recipe that I got from somewhere online but can't find again. I tinker with it; it's a very forgiving recipe. This is enough to feed LG and me one big meal plus multiple leftovers.

5 c. liquid (I use chicken stock, but you could probably use water or a mild veggie broth)
1/2 c. chopped onion
1/4 c. rice (I often use more)
1 and 1/4 c. red lentils
3/4 tsp. Arabic seven spice
1 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste
juice of one lemon

Saute onion until soft (~5 min). Add rice, lentils, and broth. Bring to a boil. Lower heat to simmer. Add spices after 10 min or s0. Let simmer for another 15-20 minutes, until lentils are very soft (they start to lose their shape). Add lemon juice and serve!

(I really like this with lamb chops. Or maybe spiced ground lamb, which we're having tonight. Mmmmm....)