Day -15: Introduction

A few weeks ago, in the middle of one of my tougher migraine periods (translation: 3 or more in a week), I said to D,

"Hey, I'm thinking of radically changing my diet. Any time I've read about anti-headache diets, they focus a lot on staying away from certain meats and cheeses, and on eating more fresh food and fewer additives. I wonder if it would work for me."

D's initial reaction was one of skepticism ... but, after a few days, he said out of the blue,

"You know, I've been thinking about what you said about changing your diet. I'd like to try it with you. But let's wait until after the holidays."

And so the one-month vegan(ish) experiment was born. We aren't doing it for ethical reasons, so we'll be cheating occasionally. I doubt that D will give up milk (he has a glass of skim milk with dinner every day), and we aren't asking Molly to give it up either.

A little bit of research has shown me that a macrobiotic diet is almost what I'm looking for. I tend to be a Western-Empirical-Science-type, and am not particularly into the yin/yang approach taken by macrobiotic theory, but the diet does a great job of balancing foods. I won't cut out nightshade vegetables (couldn't live without tomatoes, peppers, etc.) or avocados. But we will use a lot of macro guidelines so that we can make sure we're getting all the nutrients we need, and we'll use lots of macro recipes because there's a ton of yummy ones out there.

I've ordered a couple of books: The Hip Chick's Guide to Macrobiotics and The Self-Healing Cookbook. They should arrive by the end of this week or the beginning of next, and I'll blog about them as I'm reading them.

So welcome, readers, and thanks for supporting us in our experiment!

12/18/08: Edited because I'd misremembered one of the books I ordered!