The Small Intestine is Faithless

A little while ago I shared with you my first communion experience at the wonderful & welcoming Saint Thomas the Apostle of Hollywood. To summarize this experience, I took Communion without thinking & didn’t become immediately ill.

I continued to take Communion. I never became immediately ill, ever. I felt like I was the embodiment of perfect faith, or perhaps incredibly lucky.

Then my fibromyalgia seemed to be acting up.

I blamed June gloom, which is a phenomenon in Los Angeles whereby every Beach Boys song becomes a flaming harmonized lie. We start the day, even in the valley, with what in the beach towns is typically a “marine layer”. This sounds like dolphin porn but is actually some meteorological thingy you can Google or whatever. Anyhow, it blankets the whole of SoCal except barometric pressure changes come with it, which every fibromyalgic & migraineur has learned to associate with suicidal ideation inducing pain levels. So I figured it was that.

Then the June gloom stopped, but I was getting worse. I cancelled event after event, plan after plan. People I wanted to see & things I really wanted to do pale in comparison to wishing you were dead because you’re 39 & nothing works properly. You’re having painful spasms everywhere. Your brain stops thinking clearly. Your digestion becomes a kaleidoscope of conflicting complications, all of which are potentially embarrassing. I was conserving all my energy for church & Communion.

Well…the wafers are not gluten free.

I have never been glutened & not had the near immediate urge to teleport to the nearest loo. As this was not happening after Communion, I figured I was fine. My faith in Christ was all like “What up, stupid wheat protein? How you like me now?”

My small intestine was all like “Oh hell no, ho, I ain’t playin’.” Because my small intestine is Wayne Brady & it had to smack a ho the only way it knew how–neuromuscular failure.

I had a very nice chat with our rector on Sunday. He seemed alarmed (in that very gentle Welsh way) that I was essentially tormenting myself & instructed me to chat with the folks in the sacristy before mass & gluten free host will be provided me. “You needn’t worry; it’s already consecrated,” he assured me with a hug.

So.

He didn’t judge my faith nor my intestines, who are jerks. He doesn’t judge the faith of others with celiac or an allergy or autism, either, as the gluten free host is all ready to go. He just wants me to be able to enjoy the sacrament & not make my fibro worse & not get cancer & die. That’s pretty Christ-like.

So anyhow have I said enough times already how much I love St Thomas??

Lazy Ass BBQ Chicken Salad

Errbody with a chronic illness knows that salads are a pain in the ass. You’ve gotta wash, chop, & compose a plate while wielding a knife, which is a special challenge when you’re having a super gimpy day like I am. Below I will describe how I whipped up the above DELICIOUS salad (I crave em when I’m hurty) even while dropping All The Things.

My journey began at Ralph’s. I knew I didn’t want frozen chicken, & I sure as hell didn’t want that weird prepackaged deli roast chicken that tastes like it was raised on a salt farm next to the Chemistry Sea. I also knew I had no energy to roast or even boil a chicken breast.

Behold! Rotisserie chicken! But no. Their regular $8.99 rotisserie chicken lists in the ingredients “natural flavours”, which every celiac knows usually means “We rubbed this chicken with 5 metric assloads of wheat for secret bread illuminati reasons.” Natural flavours are usually the hidden gluten in everything, so I was sad.

Then I noticed the rotisserie barbecue chicken in a bag. At $6.99, it clearly listed every ingredient (chicken, a variety of spices & no mystery “natural flavours”). I got that, a big ass cucumber, some goat cheese, diced onion (cannot dice today without killing myself), a bunch of cilantro, & went home.

I have one of those easy peelers, so peeling one cucumber wasn’t too bad. I then seeded it with a teaspoon & chopped it up. Definitely no perfect cubes today. I then threw on a cup of pre washed, pre cut kale I had in the fridge, a table spoon of onion, an ounce of crumbled chèvre, a handful of torn cilantro, & an entire half a chicken breast, skin on, torn. It’s like a caveman who hates seeds made this salad.

It’s also 427 calories and over 50 grams of proteiny deliciousness! You can use a skinless breast for less calories. I just realized I coulda thrown some chia seeds on there, too. You can also leave off the chèvre for less calories/no dairy.

Lazy food that tastes like I got it from a Santa Monica boutique cafe makes me happy on a lurpy, achy day. If I can do it, anyone can. Experiment!

Jun 10 2013 Workout

You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting workouts. This is because I injured myself due to my own stubborn stupidity. I’ve been walking here & there when I can, but thanks to the miracle of fibromyalgia, it has taken me a loooooong time to recover.

But…I can now walk, bend, & prop myself up on my elbows with less pain than I’ve felt in a while. Although I’m having very unpleasant fibro symptoms today (weakness, lack of coordination, pain in my right arm), I decided to reboot my fitness routine based on a discussion I had a month or so ago with the highly informative Killpundit. I am now doing the same moves (with a couple extra carefully added & instructed new ones) in 15 minute intervals.

Yes, instead of the 30 minutes 3x a week schedule my trainer had me on, I’m going to do 15 minutes every other day. Fibromyalgia lengthens my recovery time significantly, but I still wanted a regular fitness schedule. It made sense to do the same intensity in half the time. Therefore I do less reps & half the exercises, but still have the 30 second cardio bursts in between. I have also added 30 second rest periods, which I was failing to do before. Without a trainer standing over me, I always forget.

Behold:

As always, don’t do a damned thing without talking to your doctor & learning how to properly execute form first. How did I injure my chest & shoulders? By not heeding my own advice. “Oh, I can do bench dips!” I said, promptly tearing everything around my collar bones & then some. Two months & no pounds lost later, I can finally do stuff with em again.

And don’t even ask about my unfortunate “forgetting to count squats” incident & what that did to my chronic gluteal TRP. Yeah, there was no sexy walk for a while, unless you consider lurping about sexy. Weirdo.