Sound Mind, Sound Body

First things first. In my last post, I made my ultrarunning husband sound like kind of an ass:

"The blindness came on suddenly, around 3:30am one morning when I woke up to drive Sean to the start of his first ultra. I suddenly couldn't see out of my right eye, and I had to drive him and Maple about 10 miles in the dark on winding country roads in Vermont, and then back to our hotel." 

I didn't remember that exactly right. Sean drove us to the race and I drove Maple and I back to the hotel. In fact, I had to talk Sean into doing the race. He wanted to DNS since I was like, going blind. At any rate, he is not a monster. Just wanted to clear that up.

I'm feeling better and better and I'm excited to talk about not-autoimmune-disease things. Last week I ran a whopping 16 miles and by the last run I felt pretty good. My feets are not numb anymore. Yay!

When I'm mid-relapse (I know, I said I wouldn't talk about it anymore, I'm almost done), it's hard to focus on anything but not-panicking, but as soon as I start feeling better, I get inspired to Do Things Right, Once and For All. So it was with great hopefulness that I whipped out Nicole's 15-Step Bullshit-Free Goal Setting Formula last weekend and gave some serious thought to how I want to conduct myself over the next six months.

Aside: Nicole is amazing and she runs for Oiselle.

My husband and I have lovingly nicknamed the Goal-Setting Formula "The Packet". Mostly because it is a little thick when you print out all the worksheets and staple them together, and I used to carry it around the house like a security blanket. Also it needs a radical moniker, and "The Holy Bible" was taken. The Packet helps you get very clear on your big life goals and then figure out how to make shit happen. The last time I used it, my "Obsessive Goal" was to move my family to the west coast within six months, and it only took three. That shit really works.

This time around, my theme is "Sound Mind, Sound Body", and my Obsessive Goal is related to getting healthy in um, my mind and body. This will include some combination of dietary experimentation, meditation, thought-provoking reading, journaling, and exercise. One shocking thing for me was that running is not my obsessive goal, as I thought it would be after moving out west. I love running and I'm going to keep running and racing, but overall I'd say my health is slightly more important. Having an autoimmune disease and a stressful 2013 means I need to really focus on being healthy, so I can hopefully get to the point where I can be truly obsessed with running again.

This week I'm planning another 20 or so miles of easy running, while I start to figure out this being-healthy thing. I've been doing a gluten-free no-sugar-or-dairy thing for about a week and I have been uncharacteristically un-bloated. That's been fun. I'm also tracking what I eat and how I feel in what my friend Caroline calls a "food mood poop" journal. Caroline, like Nicole, is what my husband refers to as a power mama. I went to elementary school with her, and we reconnected earlier this year. Lo and behold she's a health coach, yoga teacher, and athlete! I attended her recent Delicious Detox Dinner Party phone call, which was inspiring and fun and a great reminder of why you should treat yourself well with good food and good habits. Cause you know, science!

Are you trying to clean up your diet? How's it going? Anyone have any healthy suggestions for me? Ever tried a "food mood poop" journal?