May 21

 Not quite another 24 hour fast, 22 hour this time. Ehh. Close enough.

Still feeling mostly ok nausea and ill wise. Don't get me wrong here. There are lights that flash on and off. Weird blips. And all sorts of shenanigans, but by and large, they are copeable with. And it's a marked improvement on feeling utterly garbage.

So yesterday I did all the things. Got some groceries. Filled in the form. Took Athena for a nice walk ( pushing my luck here as that's back to back walking 3 days on a trot, which, she's happy to go out for, but you can see her stamina flatlines super quick ). And for a period of around 45 minutes yesterday I felt like my old self. No ill. No crap. No mental fog. I could feel the nice day. Everything was - just about - on the right side of sane.

Oh. Boy.

It's hard to describe the difference. Night and day. It's like. Oh. Wow. This is what normal feels like. Holy shit. This is amazing.

And then slowly, subtly as the minutes trip by it fades. There is a realisation in there that I live almost all of my time in the grey hinterlands of existence if not outright shadowed abyss. Feeling the sun on my face is almost a mythical place at this point. The realisation is eh. It's uhh. Not great. But eh. I'm. Kinda ok with it. It's just.. really jarring.. to suddenly get a taste of what you're missing. Heh.

So I'm still off the stomach meds - and am now getting acid reflux kick in. Which is about par for the course, you can get a bit of a rubber band bounce back effect after dropping the meds. The old stomach acid ramps up a little too strongly. I'm not sure how long I am gonna drop them for. I am thinking possibly of keeping it up until something negative happens. Not exactly a concrete plan.

I've also started diversifying what I am eating again. Eh. Less of a controlled experiment. More of a, fuck it, I've gone grocery shopping, I'm eating a donut, fuck you. But everything is an experiment. Donuts. Yeah or no.

So far as it turns out, it's a yeah.

Which I am sure annoys dieticians no end. Here are the results of my eating tests. Pizza good. Donuts good. Wholemeal bread bad.

Ha ha.

But eh, maybe it's that subtle threshold thing. Tolerate slightly... until you can't. Dunno. I don't think so however in this case. Really no effect from stuffing my mouthbox with donuts.

Which is another bit of a tick in the box for, eh, I don't think I have a wheat sensitivity, or fat sensitivity or sugar sensitivity. Not diabetes. Not blood sugars. Blah yada etc. Which is good information. The more you get the same result for repeated tests, the more sure you can be of it.

Also.

So. As it happens, for a number of years now I am kinda off sugar. It's not some super strict holier than thou bullshit ( rolls eyes ). But a, no sugar in tea, no sugar in cereals ( when I was eating them ), no soda, just, no sugar all round. With an occasional biscuit or bit of chocolate that IS packed with sugar. But by and large. No sugar. And it's something again that is no real big deal to me. I like tea without sugar etc. It's not a fight for me. At all.

Eating a sugar fatty donut on the back of a kinda no sugar diet is like experiencing nirvana.

HOLY SHIT THIS IS GOOD.

I get why kids avoid vegetables and eat sweet things. Boy does your brain give you a super reward for eating the sugary fatty thing. YES. MORE. MORRREEEE. Mood up. Feel good up. Jesus. Ok.

I know its a context relative thing.

But man, do donuts taste like just about the best thing ever at the moment. In all fairness to them, they are freshly cooked, cooked to perfection, with a super yummy just perfect jam in them.

What's not to like ?

It also makes you realise just how... used to shit you get. When you eat sugary stuff every day, it's no big deal. When you don't. The contrast is startling.

Always loved that video. A few seconds of the human relationship with sugar. And secondarily caffeine. Arrrrggggg whattt theee fuckkkkkk. Mmmmm. More ?

Anywho.

Not feeling too bad today. Perhaps my several days of cold turkey and fasting has stabilised the ship a bit. Maybe. Maybe it's a donut high. That being said. I felt that back to my old self blip BEFORE any donuts. So yeah.

Plans. I have some further ideas for diet elimination and experimentation. I might try eating small doses of bread. But watching how much I eat overall. I think that might start to tickle the whole, is it a level of tolerance threshold thing rather than an outright yes or no. I still think its probably fibre. And. Beyond that. I suspect its actually the fault of the meds giving me that sensitivity. But. That's a test for further down the line.

I'm also not 100% concentrating on slicing my life up into experimental partitions. My motivation for it is, not great. Kind of sick of it. So. Eh. Tricky though. It's not something I can just afford to ignore and pretend like nothing is wrong. Ho hum.

Have some nice pictures from walking yesterday.

They don't do justice to the light at all. It was very pretty. We went for a shorter-ish walk. About 35 minutes. Athena was properly pooped by the end. Slow walk. The old lady struggles to do consecutive days of walking like that now. You need to give her a recharge day inbetween of snoozing around the house. But she's been quite active this last week. Energy levels up. Hence I have slightly stepped up our walking. But eh. Time to take it easy again. I always have one eye on her and how she's doing. I adapt our plans to her ups and downs - and mine too.

This is probably the best thing I love about Norwich. Norwich is full of exactly these kind of green spaces. In fact Norwich overall is pretty green wherever you turn. There are streams and woods and all sorts all basically within Norwich. We did a walk around abouts the UEA at the weekend, big green spaces, trees, pretty shallow water full of things to explore and paddle in. Lovely. And if you venture literally 5 minutes outside, you get countryside for 30 miles in all directions before you hit the coast. Full of amazing spaces. It's lovely. Amazing. I could take pictures like the above in a half dozen places without even having to think about it. Easy.

And forever may it continue to be that way. Develop London and the South with concrete if you must. Leave up here alone. Thank you. And goodbye.

It also kind of behooves the rule. The first rule about Norwich, is that you don't talk about Norwich. Sshh. It's a secret. Norwich ? Yeah. I wouldn't go there if I were you. Have you tried London ? Ho ho ho.