Diet

One of the suggestions made by many people, both in healthcare and not, has been to change my diet.  I've tried diet changes before and was uninspired.  However I know changes are necessary.  Due to newfound food allergies, I have been avoiding most sesame, sunflower, and almond products.  This was hard because I like almonds and they are in a lot of dairy-free products.  Speaking of dairy-free, it has also been recommended that I avoid dairy, gluten, sugar, alcohol, and many other inflammatory foods and products.  Torture.  I'm a food person and I find these restrictions really difficult.  I've made changes to easy things, but others are harder.  I find a lot of the so-called substitute products hard to swallow (so to speak).  But some are good and worth the extra money and effort.  I've also been trying to eat more whole foods and avoid processed food...although the two boxes of girl scout cookies I got recently are making that tough!  Right now I'm going for the 80/20 rule and allowing a certain number of "cheats" per day to make it a little easier and more realistic.  Maybe someday I'll hit 100%...