Simple Does Not Equal Boring

Nuwave Baked Chicken

Recently my health has taken a turn for the worse. After a deep cleaning at the dentist, I had a scary night of a weird set of symptoms that landed me in the ER, poked full of holes until they finally managed to get some blood to test and get an IV in me. They sent me home with no real answers, and they told me to see my primary care doctor for follow up. My doctor told me to avoid dairy, nuts, fatty meat, and to stick to the "bland foods diet" and specifically limited my foods to "things that are easy on the stomach" such as chicken, chicken or turkey broth, wheat bread, brown rice, diabetic friendly pasta, sweet potatoes, the occasional other type of potato, bananas and apples. Normally bananas are on my food intolerance list, but since there's so little on my list of foods I am currently allowed to eat, I decided to try them out again.

I also decided to think of it as another step on the path towards simplifying my life. After all, much like Project 333 makes deciding what to wear that much easier, limiting what foods I can eat to such a small list really does make things simpler too. I figured I might as well embrace it.

Vegan Banana Soft Serve Ice Cream

At first I thought of it as "bland food" and made boring things to eat like a plain sweet potato. But then I started to get a bit more creative. Last night I froze smashed banana and ate it as ice cream. (I neglected to take a picture but found this one on healthyrecipes.com) This morning for breakfast I had whole wheat egg free pancakes with apple sauce. And for dinner carlie cooked up some "fried potatoes" without oil and baked some chicken in the nu wave oven with just salt and juicy, crispy baked goodness. Simple, but delicious. I look forward to being able to eat my nut butters and green smoothies again, but in the mean time I have been making the most of what I can eat. And hopefully some time soon my body will click back into gear and I won't be forced to eat such a limited diet. But in the mean time, it has been a good reminder of what one can do with so little. Simple does not have to equal boring.