Life is Burrito-full

I don’t know when my obsession with Chipotle began, but I know exactly when it ended. 

“If George Washington or Abraham Lincoln were alive today, they would want me to live life on the edge and have a burrito” – or so I claimed when I invited a group of people to join me for a President’s Day celebration on February 20, 2012 at Chipotle. Do I celebrate President’s Day? No, not really, but it was a day off from work and my first planned foray into eating something that was not a part of the Lyme Inflammation Diet.

Q: Hey Julie, why would you purposely go eat something that you were told to stay away from?

A: Truth be told, changing your diet due to a health crisis is like adding a side of stress to an already heaping plate of stress; and I really wanted a burrito. If you happen to be someone who prefers a pint of blueberries over a pint of ice cream while navigating through a rough spot, than you probably do not understand the point I am trying to make.

Q: Didn’t you have some cake and a beer on your birthday a month earlier?

A: That was my first “unplanned” foray into eating something that was not on my special diet and at that point in time I didn’t understand the importance of the food restrictions because I had been so faithful to my diet and had not experimented enough to fully understand the consequences of straying from it. 

Q: Was the burrito worth it?

A: Does a bear shi…. Keep reading to find out.

In an effort to boost my spirits that took a slight dip at the end of January upon hearing the news I may be on medication for another six months to a year, a brilliant plan was hatched; once a month I was to pick a spot where I could chill with friends and enjoy some good eats from my pre-Lyme disease days. This plan led to a few food-triggered incidents and was abruptly halted in May. Hold on for the ride as I bring us back to President’s Day, 2012.

There I was, like a kid in a candy store, very excited to be at Chipotle; perhaps too excited. In a valiant effort to not break every single one of the food rules I had been following, I ordered a chicken burrito bowl with brown rice, thus keeping my lunch gluten free. On the other hand, my dairy free lifestyle was interrupted by a heaping fistful of cheese. I had yet to discover my sensitivity to tomato, so I ended up with a couple of different salsas in my bowl. I had not attempted to add corn back into my diet at this point in time, yet that did not stop me from telling them to add that to the bowl as well. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the side of chips that I also inhaled.

Half way through lunch I was extremely full but I pushed on because I don’t believe in leftovers. By the end of lunch I was happy, tired and a bit bloated. After running a few errands I was so exhausted that I took up residence on a friends couch. For five hours I sat watching back-to-back episodes of “Idiot Abroad” while guzzling water and marveling at the effect that lunch had on me.  My feet and hands swelled up and my lips started to crack. I was incredibly thirsty, yet drinking water was adding to my bloated feeling without really quenching my thirst. The show was very entertaining and I was battling my body’s desire to nap so I could continue to watch it. I had a rash along the side of my face and the aching and stiffness in my joints got progressively worse as the day wore on. 

The rash and the increased joint aches and stiffness subsided within a day, but for 3 days after lunch I was completely backed up. Despite feeling miserable I was making jokes about carrying around a burrito baby and hoping that I wouldn’t have to go #2 at work when things became unclogged. I thanked the big man upstairs when I passed the “burrito baby” one night after work, and then a funny thing happened. It took another day and a half of me spending a lot of time on the toilet to really get to the point where I could say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was really burrito free. I don’t own a scale, but I am pretty sure I was about five pounds lighter once the whole ordeal ended.

Too much information, I know-I know, but I did it in a G-rated fashion with no swearing or in-depth detail to make a point. Incidents like this highlight the importance of the role that changing my diet is playing in my quest to beat the Lyme. After two+ months of clean eating, cooking my own food and knowing exactly what ingredients went into every dish, I went out to eat and it took me 4.5 days to recover. The flare up in my joints and the rash on my face were a reaction to the food I ate that I had previously eliminated from my diet. The amount of sodium in the food, which caused the major dehydration and bloating and led to my other issue, was alarming. I had never stopped to think about, or even realized the amount of sodium that is consumed while eating out at restaurants, until I started preparing all of my own food. This statement is not limited to my experience at Chipotle. I have been following the Lyme Inflammation Diet for over a year now, and even while sticking to my diet at the few restaurants around town where I can eat within my restrictions, I still get dehydrated. Many will argue it’s because I am sick. I argue it is because I am the healthiest I have ever been in my life, except for this Lyme disease crap, and there is too much sodium in the standard American diet. I have plenty of time to prove my point to you as I continue to write about my journey, so you’ll just have to trust me for now. 

Just because my body can no longer tolerate burritos, doesn’t mean that I still don’t love Chipotle. I’ll still smile every time I pass one, and I will proudly wear my Chipotle bike jersey when I can resume working out. 

*I was never sponsored by Chipotle, I just ordered the bike jersey off of their website many years ago because it was so fashionable.