After One Month of AIP....

On Friday, I passed the one month mark on the AIP eating plan.  From what I have read, this is about the time that people start to notice a difference.

We've had some crises that basically prohibited me from being able to adhere to AIP for a few meals in the last few weeks.  I wasn't sure how that would set me back, especially after a dicey issue with some Burger King food.

One week I was in the car a lot of hours and unable to prepare food to bring with me.  My blood sugar was starting to drop when I was in a rural area so I pulled off at a Burger King to get some food.  It is extremely unusual for me to eat Burger King.  I probably go there less than once a year. 

Being very short on time, I decided to get anything that could be easily eaten while driving and still give me some protein so I ordered the Chicken Fries meal.

About 10 minutes down the road, my heart started racing and I got light headed.  There weren't really convenient places to pull off the road so I started looking for one, thinking that I didn't know whether I was going to be conscious to drive the car.  The episode lasted about 2 minutes and then cleared up. 

I continued drinking the iced tea with no further episodes so I am fairly confident it was not the tea.  I have no idea what was in the food that caused that reaction but I know that I will never eat Burger King Chicken Fries again.

Early this week, I started to notice that I could walk down the stairs without leaning hard on the railing.  Then I started to notice that I could walk the whole mile with the dog without being in enormous pain at the end.  By Friday night, I was wondering if I might be able to make it through a whole regular work out at the dojo.  I even chased the dog around the house (one of her favorite games) at faster than a walk.

I haven't made it through a whole class in 2 months.  I have found that doing kata forces my joints to move more than just the dog walking and I have less overall pain.  I've been doing partial classes - kata practice and then skipping partner work.  Sometimes the pain has been excruciating and it is all I an do to get through kata.  The exercise has helped enormously, though, as long as I force myself to go through the initial pain. 

For the last 2 weeks, I haven't been able to work out at all.  This was not due to pain but to other circumstances. 

The same circumstances have led to missing my pain meds most days and only hitting one of two doses on the days that I am able to get them in.  Missing the meds is primarily due to an irregular eating schedule.

So, with the lack of medication and the lower level of exercise, I was quite surprised when this past week presented not more pain but less.  In fact, our karate classes during the week are an hour long.  I was often pushing myself to get in 25-30 minutes before hobbling out to sit down. 

Yesterday I went to the Saturday morning advanced class which is scheduled for 90 minutes.  The clock is sometimes ignored and the ending time goes long.  I worked out 1 hour and 40 minutes.  The pain in my ankles started to show up so I ducked out before kick-punch practice. 

With little exercise to help mitigate the pain and no pain meds, I am still trying to get my head around that I could do 100 minutes of exercise before needing to stop.  My muscles are definitely out of practice and I am sore today... but it feels so good.

Sensei commented that the lower pain is evident.  "I can see it in your face." 

So, one month of almost entirely AIP eating is in the books and I am definitely feeling better.  Two more months of experiment to go before my doctor checks everything again.

I am finally starting to get back to regular meals so my meds will get back on track.  My schedule is getting back into the routine so exercise will get back on track.  It should be interesting to see how well I function when everything is working together.