I mentioned briefly in my post about crewing for my girlfriends at Yeti 100 that I had started working with a new dietitian to address what had become chronic digestive issues. I also suggested I might write a bit more about that later, this is that post. I’ll start from the beginning…

Earlier this year, I shared in both blog posts and through social media that I was finally getting back to some decent running mileage after a spectacularly terrible couple of years due to ongoing issues with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune thyroid condition. Any hint of the speed I used to enjoy was nowhere to be found, but quite honestly I was thrilled to just be able to put in some mileage. I started dreaming about racing again, feeling that I was finally on the road back to competing. I raced the Tenacious Ten in Seattle in April with some of my Wilder sisters and ran the Lake Run, a local race, a few weeks later in early May. Both were terrible. I don’t think the issues at the Tenacious Ten were digestive related, but at the Lake Run they most definitely were. I wrote it off to the sudden onset of summer, as my body never manages the heat well, especially when we go from snow to 80* in a matter of two weeks as we did this spring. Feeling really discouraged after the Lake Run, I backed off the mileage hoping I to relocate the good groove I was in. It was nowhere to be found.

May slid into June, which dragged into July. The digestive issues only worsened. By late July I wasn’t running much at all. I’d tinkered with my diet, but without the focus to sustain any of the changes I attempted, I understandably made no progress. In early August, my family made our annual pilgrimage to Cape San Blas, FL (which was heavily impacted by Hurricane Michael last week – {{sobs loudly}}) where I hoped the change in scenery would reinvigorate my training and help me get back on track. Instead, the opposite happened. Despite eating quite well while we were there, my digestive system was a wreck. I only ran twice and regretted it both times. Usually I run big mileage while we’re there, in fact my only 80+-mile week was on the Cape in 2013. To not even be able to manage a few short runs without issue was a huge disappointment. And knowing what I do now about what would happen to the Cape just two short months later, I’m even more disappointed about it. By not buckling down and addressing my digestive health earlier this year, I missed what turned out to be my last opportunity to run through St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, to take photos of Eagle Harbor, before they both would be devastated by the hurricane.

It took another few weeks before I would reach out for help, but through the Whole30 instagram page, I found Claire Siegel. With all of the research I’ve done the last few years, coupled with information from my physician, I knew that eating a paleo diet would help. Recovering from autoimmune flares requires reducing inflammation and healing the gut, and for many of us, diet is a huge source of inflammation which only exacerbates digestive issues. Foods that many people digest just fine, people with autoimmune conditions often don’t. Foods such as grains, dairy, and legumes all have the potential to create problems. I’ve experimented with the Whole30 in the past, but being rule-phobic have never finished one. I decided to work with Claire to give myself the best chance at completing the program and to execute a thoughtful reintroduction so I can hopefully nail down exactly what foods are giving me problems. Her program being 12-weeks long meant we’d be working on more than just successfully competing the Whole30, which was exactly what I needed.

Week 1 was a “prep week” for the Whole30. Lots of getting reacquainted with the rules, planning for the first week on the program. Week 1 also included some pretty intentional goal setting, which helped quantify exactly what I wanted from these twelve weeks. I knew I wanted to resolve my digestive issues and lose a few pounds, but what else? I included improving my relationship with food so that I can take care of myself like I need to without feeling deprived. I set some fitness goals that included my getting back to “regular” training mileage again, resuming my dormant yoga practice, and maintaining the strength training I’ve managed to stick with this year (historically, as running mileage goes up, my commitment to strength training goes down). Lastly, I included a daily meditation goal, as I’ve neglected to cultivate a regular meditation practice this year despite several cracks at it.

Week 2 brought the start of the Whole30. I was nervous thanks to past failures in completing the program, but felt I’d given myself the best chance that I could. I was armed with new information that I thought would help, reading in a recent issue of Yoga Journal of all places about how some people have electrolyte issues when switching to a paleo diet due to the body releasing the water that’s stored with carbohydrates. Considering that electrolyte issues have been an ongoing issue for me running and my doc recently noticed that my blood levels run low on the regular, I thought this might explain some of the past trouble I’ve had with Whole30/paleo eating. So I was prepared to salt the heck out of my food and see what happened (this ended up making a tremendous difference). I knew I’d be crewing for my friends in Virginia at the end of the first week of the Whole30, but I planned as much as I’ve planned for anything and was ready for the challenge. Little did I know that driving for 20+ hours on backcountry mountain roads would make me terribly car sick, bringing an unceremonious end to my Whole30 as I snacked on potato chips at 2am on Saturday morning in an attempt to calm my swirling stomach. It helped, my friends finished their race, and I kept all of the food in my stomach. It was a win for the day, but a setback for my own personal goals. Saturday with my friends was not the time to sort through what it all meant, so I did that on the 10-hour drive home on Sunday, deciding that I’d just start over. Redo Week 2 and just move on. What felt like a really big deal, a Terrible Thing on Saturday, seemed like a bump in the road by Monday.

The redo of Week 2 went fine. What lingering frustration I had about the setback was gone by mid-week. We were to see Death Cab for Cutie, one of my favorite bands, in Chicago on Sunday. I focused on preparing for the train ride and planning what we’d eat in the city. It was marathon Sunday, and I knew just being around all of the runners would be energizing, and not necessarily in a helpful way. It was a super-hard day to be in the city and Whole30ing, but thanks to the hubs, me and my Whole30 survived to see Week 3.

Week 3 brought me to the second week of my Whole30, which was getting pretty easy when I was at home. The food I make for myself is usually Whole30-compliant, so I have a lot of familiar recipes to pull from. I was eating plenty of yummy, healthy food and it wasn’t hard. Until we’d eat out. I found myself avoiding eating out as much as I could, which isn’t a bad thing. However, I did manage to attend an engagement party at my favorite brewery without eating any chips or drinking a beer. Major win. Week 3 is when Hurricane Michael devastated the Forgotten Coast, and it was a tense couple of days searching for information on our beloved Cape. During this stretch, I learned that I am not an emotional eater, which was good because I didn’t think that I was. It’s being distracted that is my biggest challenge. So it’s not that I need a cheeseburger because things are terrible, it’s that I eat a cheeseburger because all of my attention is directed elsewhere. This was a huge aha moment. It explains why I’ve had trouble making these changes in the past, and especially why my diet was so terrible when I felt my worst. I was functioning at a such a low level that undertaking something as significant as a dietary overhaul required mental resources I didn’t have. I can give some grace to that girl who was so sick a year or two ago. She was just in survival mode. Week 3 concluded with another concert, this time in St. Louis. We drove so we took dinner with us from home, making a search for a compliant restaurant unnecessary.

Sitting here at the start of Week 4, beginning the third week of my Whole30, the hardest part has been not chewing gum. It’s a bit of a nervous habit, an outlet for the extra energy that’s always bubbling around, but also helps with the dry mouth that accompanies the allergy meds that make life worth living this time of year. I’ve accepted that this is just something to endure, and I’m counting down the days until the end of the Whole30, not so I can have a beer or a cheeseburger, but so I can chew gum again. I’ve also learned that my head isn’t in a great place for meditation right now, so I’ve set that goal aside for the time being. The Kavanaugh confirmation process brought up a lot of stuff that made meditating a bad idea. I’ll try again in a few weeks and work on redeveloping the habit if it feels safe to do so.

Even though I’m only a few weeks into this process, my digestion has already improved significantly. I’ve been able to run comfortably outside again for the first time in months and have had quite a few workouts without any digestive issues. My mileage is still quite low (~20 mpw), but now that I’m through the worst of the fatigue from the transition of the diet (and two of three concerts this month are over), I should be able to start slowly increasing mileage again. I’m cautiously optimistic.