Taking It Easy

I’m always on the go. It’s the kind of person I am. I think that’s why, once I finally started, I took to exercise so well. It was something to do, something else to keep me busy. I’m the kind of person that usually enjoys having a calendar full of plans—with a few random days to let unfold as they will.

So now that I exercise regularly, it’s hard to take a break. But I haven’t been feeling well lately. Almost everything I eat bothers my stomach lately. (I might have celiac—I’m waiting for more testing.) This really stresses me out, because I have no idea what to eat. Sometimes a certain meal will be just fine, and sometimes the same meal will have me feeling sick for hours. Last weekend when I was in Chicago, I still ate some gluten and dairy—but I felt mostly fine all weekend.

This week, I’ve been going back and forth about giving up gluten before hearing whether I have celiac or not. Technically, you’re not supposed to totally give it up before you’re tested, so that they can see how it’s affecting you. But I’ve been wanting to see if giving it up makes me feel any better. It doesn’t seem like giving it up has made me feel any better. 

I was supposed to run with Ashley and Katie this morning, but I decided last night to bail and see if sleeping in and giving my stomach a rest would help. I haven’t decided if it will do me better to just bag my run for this week (or just today? and do it tomorrow?) and rest, or if I should give it a try later if I’m feeling okay.

The hardest part about facing this potential celiac diagnosis is the lack of control. For the year-ish that I was trying to lose weight, I ate a fairly restrictive diet. It worked. Once I started trying to maintain my weight, I was excited to not have to limit certain foods any more—just limiting the non-healthy foods to once in a while. I know that if I do have celiac, I will feel better giving up gluten-containing foods, and that it’s relatively common and relatively easy to deal with, but it still won’t be easy.

So I had a bagel for breakfast. While I still can. And a banana and a diet Snapple. I need to balance listening to my body’s needs for rest and the food it needs with living my life.