Five on Friday (2)

Hello.......... Today I'm going to be joining in with Amy's Five on Friday. Life with a Chronic illness is pretty tough and you try to do anything that might improve symptoms.  For many years now I've been trying to eat a healthy diet in the hope, it might help me recover.

In a way it is helping, as last Summer I had a very bad brush with Diabetes, that was very rare and very odd effectively my pancreas just stopped working for about 3 months, which was a bit of a shock, but by the time all the tests came back and I was give a glucose monitor and about to start on insulin, my levels were back to normal, spontaneous recovery in Diabetes is rare (mostly unheard of)

Since then I've been baffling doctors, who say even though my levels are back to normal ' I must be a diabetic', as when I had a glucose challenge test, the result were really bad and I was brought in to the hospital again to start insulin, only for my home monitor readings to be checked and be fine.   So eating clean appears to be keeping me off insulin and long may that continue. Fingers crossed at some point they will figure out what's going on as at the moment it's not even clear what type of Diabetes I have.

So today for my five things I thought I'd post about eating clean, I mostly eat a organic diet with lots of fresh vegetables, I eat fish and chicken, no red meat, I don't eat any yeast (bread how I miss you) and I eat very limited wheat and dairy, I could do better, but life's for living so I'm the first person to admit to the occasional slip, so my first picture is a quick shot of the pantry. Lots of nuts and seeds, quinoa, almond flour and lovely raw cacao powder and some sneaky brown rice pasta on the upper shelf.

Picture two, is a soup from last Saturday, Roasted Red Pepper, Tomato and Red Onion with Cannellini beans, which was really yummy we always make a big batch and put some in the freezer for days when I don't have the energy to get out of bed let alone think about food.

As I said I don't eat much dairy, but I do occasionally have a organic natural yogurt, along with lots of probiotics as I've been taking antibiotics since 2008 for suspected Lyme disease. It's a tricky one as I have not recovered on them, but I am better while taking them and relapse further without. I think they are keeping it at bay rather than killing it. If that's even what I have, I still don't have a definitive diagnosis, It could be Lyme disease, my official diagnosis was ME/CFS (but now that doesn't fit) or it could be a yet to be discovered autoimmune condition, the doctors just don't know, any road I've got a bit off track, this was breakfast one morning in the week yogurt, cherries almonds and mixed seeds.

Another thing that is recommended for Lyme Disease is bone broth, so when we have a roast on Sundays we always make stock and soup the next day, this was chicken noodle, I've shared the recipe 'here'

I eat lots of soups and salads as they are easy and good for you this was yesterdays lunch, Salmon Salad with green beans.  I've been struggling a lot this week with this continuing relapse plus a six hour round trip for a hospital appointment, so there has been lots of soups as they are easy to eat in fact when I looked back at the photo's of the week I could have done a entire post just on soup as I've eaten it most days.

So that's my five things for this week, wishing you a wonderful week ahead.

Clare xx