Tales of grains and dairy

Last week we took a trip to visit my father in law. I've always found traveling to be difficult with pretty much any type of dietary restriction but even more so when cheese, bread, and milk are out of the picture and protein is the main staple in your diet.

I tried to plan some stuff out beforehand... I took a load of macadamia nuts with me, several oranges, a couple apples, some uncooked chicken, a sweet potato, and some mayo. I did great up until Sunday at lunch, when I found myself in a seafood restaurant where almost all of the lunch options were breaded and fried.

On a whim I ordered the 'oyster burger'. I'm not usually a fan of cooked oysters, and these ones were pretty heavily breaded in panko and fried. They also came on a thick bun, so I obviously made a bad choice.

I figured one of two things would happen... I'd either feel like crap or I would feel fine. Even though I vowed not to order the oyster burger again, I ended up feeling fine. And the rest of the weekend went well! I ate at Red Robin and had a lettuce wrapped burger and some fries. I ate at Sizzler and had a really, really overcooked steak with broccoli and salad (ordered rare and delivered burnt and well done. Maybe next time I'll tell them not to cook it at all and they'll get it right?), and we ate at a diner where I ordered a chicken sandwich with ham, turkey, bacon and a side salad.

But things have been a bit of a disaster since we got back. I had no meal plan in place for this week so our meals have been sub-par and on a whim. I haven't made the best choices. In fact, I've deliberately made bad choices. Sunday I made rice pasta with italian sausage and tomato sauce. Monday we had peppered beef with roasted potatoes. But we've also had frozen pizza, frozen apple pie, donuts, Hostess pie and mexican food (cheese, beans, grains, chips).

Even though I was eating on plan before we left on our trip, I felt awful while we were gone. I can't really connect this with the way I was eating, so I think something else was going on. I also didn't get the usual mood boost I get after my cycle ends. If I connect this with some other weird things that have been going on (pain, fatigue, really foggy head and spaceyness, bone pain, toothaches, and a general feeling that I'm falling apart), I'm beginning to think that staying off of grains and dairy helped my thyroid become more active, decreasing the need for the medication. Initially I thought that I was deficient in calcium due to not eating any dairy, but I'm starting to think that was incorrect.

So, I don't know what the next step is. I'm going to get back on no grains no dairy starting today and I guess I will decide from there how to proceed.