Out of the Fog and Back on the Soap Box

So, I finally did it.  I succeeded in cutting dairy back out of my diet! Whoohoo! It's been about a week, and most of the withdrawals have worn off.  I'm starting to feel more "normal" again.  ::sigh::

It's funny, in the midst of trying to cut it out, it seems like there is this huge mountain in front of you, and someone just told you that you needed to move it.  Oddly enough, the hardest part is just coming up with the courage to try.  Now that there is momentum, all I need to do is keep up with it.  Sure, it will be annoying to go back to reading labels, and going out to eat is going to be more complicated.  But now I'll have the energy back to deal with it.  It's not the end of the world. 

The other thing that I forgot about from the last time I went dairy free, is how much less I need to eat.  It's almost counter-intuitive for me, since I tend to get a lot of calories from dairy (cheese, cream, etc).  But, the food cravings have almost completely diminished.  Now I am only hungry when I actually need to eat.  Weird, huh?! Part of that is that I have actually been able to get the bread out of my diet too.  I think that is a major contender for the scary withdrawal thing.  I suspect this, because I always have the worst withdrawals/cravings after a burger or a sub.  Those things are EVIL! But oh-so-delicious, and seriously they are the reason why it has taken me so long to get back on "track". 

So where to go from here? Well, first I need to let myself readjust to eating and cooking without dairy or bread.  The one caveat is that I have not cut out butter.  I am making ghee, or clarified butter, since most of the "allergens" are removed, and I need something to cook with other than coconut oil.  (yes, I also started reading about how olive oil goes rancid when used at high temperatures, and now that I can actually smell when that happens, I feel like I need to avoid that too.  there is always something, it never ends!) Once I have that in the bag again (hopefully it won't take too long!), I can start tweaking other issues.  For instance I have been having a somewhat scary reaction to something, and I don't know what it is.  What the food is; the reaction is rather unnerving, and it doesn't feel good at all.  It happens mostly at night, and I feel as though my body is going to jump out of my skin.  I have heart arrhythmia/palpitations, and I actually feel like I convulse.  I believe this is an anaphylactic reaction.  It's something that I used to experience on occasion, but it's happening more and more often and it's getting worse.  I used to think that it was to gluten, but the symptoms showed up even after I cut the gluten out.  I have a feeling that it's related to yeast though. 

Anyway, hooray for fighting through the fog! Maybe now that I am getting through the brain fog, I can attempt to reclaim some control over my house...time to get cleaning!