It’s been about a week and a half since my first visit to my “witch doctor” Dr. Dana. While I certainly wouldn’t go all hyperbolic and say I’m a new woman, that I’m cured and I’ve never felt better, it is true that I feel much healthier than I did two weeks ago, and it’s largely thanks to her and her magical homeopathic drops, as well as the recognition and understanding that I was slowly destroying my body with the wrong foods and prolonged prescription use. So, in addition to the oils that have slowly been repairing my insides, I’ve had to make some bold changes to the foods I’ve been putting into my body all these years. It hasn’t been easy, and will continue to be a struggle for awhile, I’m sure. But I can already feel the difference, and why shouldn’t I want my body to feel content and well cared for? I’ve spent so long feeling like my insides were dying, it’s probably about time I start nurturing them instead of torturing them. After all, I am going to be 30 soon. As unbelievable as that is to me. But moving on.
For starters, sugar had to go. I figured this would be the easiest of the three, as I’ve never really had a sweet tooth the way the rest of my family has. It would just mean forgoing that Coke with my lunch, and canceling any and all outstanding ice cream dates. I could survive without the deliciousness of birthday cake ice cream, right? It isn’t worth it anymore; while it temporarily pleased my palate in the moment, it was destroying my body in the long run. If only it were so simple though.
Once you actually start reading labels, you realize how many non-sugary foods have sugar added to them, things you wouldn’t assume would need sugar added. Like, why is there sugar in tomato sauce? And who added it to my gluten-free pretzels? Sugar is a drug, the worst kind, and unless it’s natural from fruit or something, I can’t keep letting my body stay addicted. So, while it’s going to take some effort on my end, I need to get as far away from it as possible. Now if I could only convince my students to stop bringing me sweet treats as presents.
The next item up? Gluten. I’d already cut gluten out of my diet for the most part since last summer, as recommended by my endocrinologist, but apparently eating even the roughly 20% of gluten I was still eating was ruining me. Again, other than having to be a bit smarter with my shopping and ordering when out at restaurants, it’s really not the end of the world for me. They make a ton of gluten-free options at the grocery store, so I’m still able to get my crunchy snack fix (although, again, I really have to read the label well, because salty/crunchy snacks you wouldn’t think have sugar in them actually do). Popcorn is naturally gluten-free, so I can continue having that as a snack, I just have to make peace with the fact that the overly salted version, the kind I like to drench in synthetic butter sauce at the movies, will have to RIP, at least for the foreseeable future. I was probably headed toward a heart attack from that butter anyway, so it’s just as well. It seems a small price to pay for not feeling like I’m dying every second of the day. Because, even when I was “mostly” gluten free, I could still tell immediately after I ate gluten. I would feel more sluggish, more lethargic than I already am thanks to my thyroid, my stomach would hurt and I’d feel bloated; I could just tell something was off.
I feel the same way about dairy. I can tell after I’d eat a piece of cheese or a dairy-based salad dressing that my body wasn’t happy. But this one has been incredibly difficult because I love cheese. I’ve never been a huge milk drinker so that wasn’t hard to cut out. I’ve even started putting almond milk and coconut milk in my smoothies instead of yogurt, so I’m finding ways around all these limitations and restrictions, but giving up cheese I’ve done so begrudgingly. I used to put cheese on tacos, sandwiches, eggs, and salads. I used to eat hunks of cheese by themselves as snacks when I was feeling a bit peckish. I could devour a plate of cheese fries without help any day of the week. Did I mention I love cheese? This one has made me want to cry. But I guess if my insides are no longer roiling in agony, then it’s worth it.
The last change I need to make will be the biggest struggle, but will also reap the most rewards, I think, because at 29 years old, I am livid with how many medications I am on. I assume I am on the prescription equivalent of someone two or three times my age (okay, that time I was a bit hyperbolic, but I’m trying to make a point here). To come back to my Band-Aid analogy that I made on a previous post, prescriptions are the medical equivalent of putting a Band-Aid on a giant gaping wound, hoping that it will heal the wound when all it’s doing is causing the wound to become infected and disgusting, which requires more Band-Aids to be piled on until you can no longer see the source of the original pain, because now you’re too busy trying to fix the slew of other problems the now-infected original wound has created. Er, or something like that. It was more eloquent the last time I said it (I think). Basically, stop giving me drugs and vitamins, my body can heal itself if I just let it.
Your body has ways of telling you the things it likes and doesn’t like, so I guess it’s time I start listening to my body and really making an effort to heal it from the inside out. After devouring Your Tastebuds are A**holes by Unique Hammond (who also happens to be a family friend), it really started to click that my health shouldn’t be dictated by what my “asshole” tastebuds wanted. Unique compares our tastebuds to children; they want what is yummy, but what is yummy isn’t always good for them, it isn’t what they need. So basically, I have to stop feeding them what they want because it tastes good and start giving them what they need because it’s good for me (although most of it tastes good, too, you just have to retrain your body into remembering that). The whole time I was reading her book, I felt like she was in my head (or I guess, I was in hers?). Everything she was saying was exactly what I’d come to realize on my own through this whole process: my whole life, I’ve tried to make good choices when it came to food and if I looked good on the outside, I thought that meant I was healthy on the inside. But years of making choices based on what I wanted in that moment, instead of what’s good for my body long-term, has finally caught up to me. And the only advocate for my health who is really going to make a difference is me. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and I’m finally starting to recognize and accept this, because it’s probably the only way I’m going to reverse the problems I’ve caused and keep my body alive.
Need a dinner dish that meets all dietary constraints? Lemon garlic shrimp and zucchini noodles for the win.
mind over madness 