This is my…Low Iodine Diet-Day 10

Another Thursday without the other half but this time I felt like I better employ some help as my energy levels were seriously in short supply.
But I did still manage to get the little man up and walked in to town to meet my mum so that was something (especially as he decided to treat me to two of the smelliest nappies known to mankind…)
After a quick potter in town we stopped in Costa for a coffee, as they have soya milk, but the piddling drop they give you, I may as well had it black. My poor mum even forgot and offered me her (normal) milk.
Back home and Kal was on good form, no matter how much we think we’ve put stuff out of the way or in front of stuff to stop him destroying things, he always finds something else to climb up, or shred, or eat (I hope it was cheese from lunch!) but I’m so proud of how quickly he’s gone from slow commando crawling to quickly pulling himself up and cruising along furniture. He’s even started letting go to test his own balance, no (initial) encouragement from us, its just like “today I shall walk…*smoosh on nappy*”
I hope I don’t miss anything whilst I’m away 😦

Foods:
Breakfast-Forced myself to have a nkd bar but I’m still not feeling hungry
Lunch-Salad wrap & free from shortbread
Dinner-Fresh chicken strips and sweet potato chips (all bunged in the air fryer, easy peasy)
Snacks-Oranges by the boatload.

This is my…Low Iodine Diet-Day 9

With Kal all safely packed of to nannas again, today was supposed to be a lovely relaxing day where Chris and I could enjoy each others company and get a nice meal and a movie.
So why have I got about 200 more grey hairs than when I started, I hear you ask?
Well.
Started off by the car park only taking coin change (even though it was stupidly expensive to stay there for both movie and meal, but it was closer than a cheaper one to save me walking so far, remember…relaxing!) So Chris had to run over to break into a note at the garage across the road.
Then went over to Eds Easy Diner (if you’ve not been and there’s one near you, seriously go. Now) for our free burgers. We’d just got our drinks when…ah crapola…Chris’ wallet had gone walkabout. So we had to quickly pay for the drinks on my card (good job I had it in there, I don’t always) and scarper minus burger. After retracing steps all the way back, THANKFULLY it was on the floor just outside the car, must have fallen out when he put the ticket in and neither of us noticed but so easily done, and THANKFULLY no one had emptied it of its contents either. However by then we’d have missed the start of the movie (and still not eaten) so we darted across the city (wasting the money on the car park, couldn’t find anyone to give the ticket to) to the other cinema to catch it there. Except we’d got the times muddled up so we had actually just missed the start of a showing there and the next one was in an hour. Quick phone call to the babysitting department to make sure they didn’t mind having him a bit later (and past his bed time) and we at least grabbed some food.
One more annoyance that I won’t go into details on here, but suffice to say it was enough to make me feel pretty stressed out by the time the trailers rolled.
Good job then that it was A) a long film B) I can still have popcorn and C) it was an exceptionally good film.

And…calm!

Only thing I noticed today other than the usual tiredness, is my appetite is pretty much at zero, and not just because I was stressy, even when we got home, we hadn’t had dinner but I didn’t feel like much so just picked at a few bits before bed. I presume this is another lack of tablet side effect as the thyroid controls metabolism, so it starts off with my brain telling my body there’s no fuel to work with, go rest, so I go rest then it tells my body I’m not doing anything so I don’t need as much fuel, so I don’t feel as hungry, so I don’t eat, so my brain tells my body I’m not getting enough fuel and so on…
As long as I force myself to drink plenty I’m not too worried as if my body ain’t using it, I don’t really need to stockpile anymore. Got a few layers already sorted for winter, ta.

Meals
Breakfast-Nothing again. Ooops.
Lunch-Watherspoons BBQ Pulled pork sandwich, chips & onion rings (believe me, I went through the allergens with a fine tooth comb, and this is actually better for me than the planned american diner as some American style buns have milk in them to make them more fluffy and creamy. British ones can’t be bothered with all that fuss!)
Dinner-More fruit salad bits and some cola bottles
Snacks-Salted popcorn (again, not American style so should be safe)

This is my…Low Iodine Diet-Day 8

So far from giving in to the fatigue I decided to clear up a few things that have been cluttering the house up a bit.
Well mainly because that little man of mine won’t stay little (despite the me asking him very nicely) so I have to find places to put his small clothes till it’s carboot weather again. This meant a whole tidy out of the airing cupboard yesterday and I didn’t feel any worse this morning so I guess a lot of fatigue is academic whether I do stuff or not.
Might as well do stuff then!
Even a walk into town today didn’t kill me (might have stopped at a certain fast food restaurant to refuel) and just about managed to make it through rehearsals before hitting the evening wall.
Straight to bed without trying to fight it as I’ve learnt that’s the best thing (and with Kal already in bed I’m not feeling so helpless)

Meals
Breakfast-Might have forgotten to have this in my cleany haste!
Lunch-Mcdonalds Chicken Select meal (Basically just chicken and chips with no dressings or messing about with the meat, and I checked the allergens and there’s nothing in the coating I can’t have either as long as I don’t dip them in anything like the sour cream and chive dip. Treat for me & the little man!)
Dinner-Was going to be Pasta and Cheese ration till I tasted the cheese and thought better of it, ended up just having a big fruit salad an nkd bar and a vanilla soya pot.
Snacks-Dont think I had anything :-\

This is my…Low Iodine Diet-Day 7

I am feeling a lot worse today. Last night, I almost started hallucinating, felt like the floor was moving and struggled to make my legs even get me to bed.
That’ll be the fatigue setting in then.
The problem is, it doesn’t seem to matter what I do or don’t do during the day, its just by 8pm my body has had enough and wants to go to bed and stay there till at least 11am the following day.
Tough titty body, I have a family to run, and even though Chris is amazing with Kal (and domesticated when he has to be) he also has to work to keep clothes on our backs and chips in Kal’s tummy, so I just don’t have the luxury of sleeping in.
Not that I’m convinced it would actually help.
What might help is maybe getting up a bit earlier, getting something done, having a power nap and getting everything else done.
In theory I could time my nap when Kal has his, but as that’s usually when I’m walking in town…I’m not sure the library would take kindly to me kipping on their sofas.

Grub:
Breakfast-Tea &Toast (ain’t broke don’t fix it)
Lunch-Chicken & cucumber sandwich, nkd bar & orange
Dinner-Crumpets & Free from butter (not half bad actually), vanilla custard free from pot & banana.
Snacks-Nkd Fruits bites.

This is my…Low Iodine Diet-Day 6

Thought for the day.
The reason iodine is added to so much, especially in America, is because lack of iodine can cause serious mental health problems, and a simple thing like iodising the salt helped thousands of people. Quite clever really.
It is therefore, in great irony that I am driving myself half insane trying to get things WITHOUT iodine in it…

Anyhoo, tea today tasted a lot blander and less creamy. Just as I remember soya milk of past. Much better. Yerp.

Breakfast-Tea and toast
Lunch-Cheese & Tomato roll (with proper butter, because we were in a cafe and silly me forgot to ask to not have any. The cheese was bad enough)
Dinner-Roast dinner again. But still just as yummy. More veg than meat, and a whole chicken to strip for the rest of the week. Its like Christmas Turkey all over again.

This is my…Low Iodine Diet-Day 5

ARSE BANDITS.
Sorry for that outburst, but I’m so annoyed at myself.
Turns out, the “everything free” milk I had and was happily adding to things…wasn’t dairy free, it was just lactose free, still contained milk. So I have no idea if that makes it OK, as it might just be the lactose enzymes that contain the iodine, or I may have well been drinking proper milk for all the good its doing my body. Can’t believe how unhelpfully labeled the packaging was and sandwiched in between the actual soya milk, I nearly had a meltdown in the middle of Tescos.
Grr.
I’m also, noticing I’m tired all the time, maybe because tesco stressed me (they also broke their tills meaning we were in there about 2 hours) but as that is a symptom of hypothyroidism I’m gonna say the tablets. Might have to start having a nap middle of the day to recharge.
Anyhoo, meals:
Breakfast-Skipped (was too sleepy to eat)
Lunch-Cheese ration and tomato sandwich, nkd bar
Dinner-same as yesterday (as Chris thought it looked so nice I better use up the rest of the chicken in another batch) and vanilla pudding.
Snacks-Grapes, nkd snack fruit bites.

This is my…Low Iodine Diet-Day 4

Ugh, rainy grey yuk.
Nothing like the great British weather to make you feel even worse than you would, and my knees and back are still on strike from yesterday.
Cue, breakfast in bed.
Rest of the day was spent catching up with housework and generally trying to fill the attention and energy of little man without taking him out for his fresh air in the rain. So I decided to use air of a different kind and inflate his ball pit my parents got him for his birthday. Now they were nice enough to supply a foot pump but it only wanted to work on one out of 4 the other 3 had to be blown up using my lung power. Good job I was a singer in a previous life or I may have passed out!
Dinner was inspired by a recipe my dad makes, but when he makes it it goes in the microwave to cook, but as I haven’t got a large enough microwave container I just did the whole lot on the stove. So I present Chicken Pilaf (chicken, rice, mushroom, tomato & a bit of onion & stock)

Meals today:
Breakfast-Toast & cup of tea (in bed, makes it taste 10x better)
Lunch-Chicken Sandwich with yellow pepper
Packet of plain hula hoops, apple juice
Dinner-See above + ORANGE chocolate free from buttons! Nom Nom Nom!

This is my…Low Iodine Diet-Day 3

I was a bit panicky about today because Chris is out and I have to get little man up and out by myself which takes a lot of energy at the best of times.
But we both had a lovely long sleep so Kal was happy and I had enough energy to move, and pack everything up so Nanna Janet could come and sccop him up for the day.
This was because I had a class to teach in Halesworth that evening, so with little man out a bit earlier than I needed to be leaving I decided to treat myself to a £10 wash, cut and blow dry walk in at the crop shop. My poor hair hadn’t seen a pair off scissors in nearly 2 years and had thinned out with baby/stress/treatment and has only just started to grow back in a very straggly manner. This chop has not only tidied it up but made it look so much thicker.
After that a quick hop on the train to teach the lovely Halesworth girls with a nice intensive 2 hour workshop and (in theory) a hop back to Beccles for rehearsals. Except I missed my train and ended up sitting in the cold for an hour at which point I could hardly move, so I decided pain killers, hot water bottle and bed was a good idea.

Today’s hectic menu:
Breakfast-One Round of toast with dairy free butter
Lunch- Chicken salad wrap (with the fresh chicken from last nights dinner) & banana & cup of soya milk tea.
Dinner- Packet of plain hula hoops, big fruit salad pot, cookies and cream nkd bad (still with no milk, nice!) Bottle of sprite
Snacks-white chocolate milk free buttons (even nicer!)

This is my…Low Iodine Diet~Day 2

Not the best nights sleep I’ve ever had. Woke up so many times feeling like someone had set fire to me, I was so hot. This was with the radiator off and the fan on. I can only imagine this is similar to the menopause as it is basically my body doing a readjustment of hormones as it has to do without my tablets again.
Once that had got out of my system I wasn’t too bad again. Very sleepy, but could be because of not sleeping as much as tablet withdrawal. I also felt the hungriest I have for a while, probably because my rations of things are smaller and I’m not snacking as much (because most cakes, crisps and the all important milk chocolate are on the no list)
So today I decided to have a better hunt around for free from food and came home with a pack of dairy free yogurt, dairy free choc buttons and everything free fruit and nut bars, just to keep me sane.
So today’s meal plan:
Breakfast-Bowl of cheerios and dairy free milk
Lunch – Portion of chips (this is the result of walking round about 10 cafes looking to eat out. Not going to happen, I’ll save you the bother) & a strawberry nkd bar, cup of tea with fake milk.
Dinner-Roast dinner with fresh cooked chicken, veg, potatoes and a tiny dribble of gravy (Because the gravy annoyingly contained milk powder, but as I’d had no cheese or anything else that should be that bad I hope a substitute will be OK) and a vanilla dairy free yogurt (tasted just like custard (which I can’t have because of the egg content)) glass of Pepsi
Snacks- Banana and packet of free from choc buttons.

I now also have a fresh chicken to strip down to the bones for sandwich meat and another meal. Result!

This is my…Low Iodine Diet-Day 1

Well, day one over and I don’t feel too bad other than the sheer annoyance over food.

The only thing I’d pre-stockpiled was soya milk, so I needed to think about lunch and dinner with something more than dried bread and plain pasta.
And I now have a LOT of sympathy for people who have to shop like this every week (though I guess if you got into a routine it would get easier) because every single thing I picked up had something I couldn’t eat. If its not cheese its whey powder if its not food colouring its eggs. Eventually I just picked up some more salady bits and some dairy free butter and this was today’s grub:

Breakfast- Cheerios & soya milk
Lunch-Cheese & Tomato Sandwich (25g of cheese and dairy free butter
-Packet of plain hula hoops
-Apple juice
Dinner-2 Sausages & Waffles small amount of baked beans.
-Banana

And in case you were wondering this is what 25g of cheese looks like…

Hardly worth dirtying the plate up with.

In other new it turns out the guidelines for what is a low iodine diet vary not only from country to country but county to county, even hospital to hospital, so please don’t take anything I say as gospel, go with what your own consultant has said, especially if you’re american as you vary A LOT from us.