Tag Archives: health

Taking It Easy

Honestly, sometimes taking it easy can be harder than going, going, going. It’s easy to add things to your calendar and rush from workout to work to holiday cocktail party to another holiday cocktail party and then wake up and repeat.

It’s hard to miss your favorite Junior League meeting of the year (handing out Christmas flyers in Bryant Park!) because you’re not feeling well and you know it’s better for you.

And while I believe it is important to keep up with one’s regular diet (by diet, I mean how you eat, not dieting) and exercise during the holidays, it’s also okay to be easy on yourself—especially if you’re hard on yourself all year. If you usually run 3 miles in the morning, but you only have time for some yoga before work these days, that’s okay. In fact, your body probably relishes the restorative exercise.

For me, I didn’t get to work out on Monday because of poor timing. Yesterday, I didn’t work out because I was sick. This morning, I woke up still really sore from Sunday’s run, and with my lungs still a wee bit tight. I have something on my calendar for nearly every single day between now and December 23—almost all fun social events (oh and a little move thrown in there), but a little stressful trying to figure out how to fit everything in. (My friend Dorry has a great post about enjoying the holiday season without getting too stressed.)

I decided yoga would do more for my body and mind than a vigorous cardio or strength workout, and I did a half hour of yoga in my apartment, while Bailey did his own downward dogs next to me! (I wish I had taken a picture of this.)

You may call it justification, I call it listening to my body 🙂

And this morning, breakfast was an old fave:

Au revoir au pain.

If you read that in (my intermediate-level) French, it means “Goodbye to bread.”

If you read that in Franglais (French/English), it means goodbye to pain. 

Either way is accurate—I hope.

I had an appointment with a gastro yesterday, and he said that my blood test indicated it was pretty likely I had celiac, and he wanted an endoscopy to know for sure. I maintained my composure, and asked how soon I could get the endoscopy—I just wanted answers, I said. I spoke with his receptionist and she said I could either go in late September or this morning—he’d had some cancelations. I agreed that I’d go right away, that I wanted to get it over with. I stayed strong until she handed me the pamphlet detailing the procedure, but then I started crying. 

I know there are things that are way worse than celiac, but it’s still a scary thing to me. Even if I don’t often eat bread and pasta right now, at least I have the freedom to. The freedom to eat chicken fingers if I want to. To drink beer. (My dad’s already looked up gluten-free beer for me. Also, there’s no gluten in hard cider. FYI.) 

So last night, knowing I had this test on the horizon, I had a wonderful beer with Lacey and then we ate lots of pasta with my mom, who accompanied me to my procedure this morning.

Orecchiette with sausage and broccoli rabe

Penne with vodka. (This is seriously one of my favorite pasta dishes, but it’s usually too rich for me to enjoy. I threw a little caution to the wind last night.)

While I haven’t found out for sure that I have celiac, I’m definitely going to start transitioning to a gluten-free diet to see if I feel better. If you have any tips OR questions, I’d love to hear from you.