I want Toast!

Leftover green beans, cauliflower and butternut squash mixed into 2 scrambled eggs...cooked in Ghee. I just ate that for breakfast. Oh, and lest I forget, freshly brewed coffee with coconut milk. 

I am on Day 27 of the Whole 30 program (gawd help we call it a diet!) and I swear if I have to eat one more f___king egg, I am going to vomit. Only 3 more days of this regimen and then I can introduce ONE forbidden food at a time and see if it bothers me in any way. 

How did I end up in this dysfunctional relationship with food? I'll tell you how. I grew up popping antibiotics like candies the day after Halloween, (I was plagued with ear and throat infections as a kid), then I took tetracycline all through my teen years to stave off acne, ran to the doctor for every bloody sniffle or sore throat in young adulthood (more antibiotics) and then in more recent times, I overdosed on NAISIDs  (Advil and Aleve) for a too long stretch of time as I suffered through some nasty dental issues and that was the tipping point. My gut lining finally cried uncle.

And so the journey began. It has been a long and arduous trek and it ain't over yet. I have quit sugar, quit meat, quit grains, quit dairy, quit additives, quit alcohol...essentially quit enjoying food. A few years ago when I went cold turkey with sugar, I lost a bunch of weight and felt amazing. Slowly the weight and the digestive issues crept back on and into my life. So then I decided that I would go vegan, thinking that the elimination of dairy and animal protein would be the answer. I gave veganism an entire year of my life. I spent every night listening to a chorus of stomach rumbling that sang out from my abdomen (make that "bloated abdomen") and was rewarded with the addition of 10 pounds and out of control hypoglycaemia. Thank you grains and sugar. Now what? So, I added fish and eggs back into my repertoire of allowable food. The rumbling subsided but the weight stubbornly remained.

On my recent adventure to New Zealand, I just decided to throw caution to the wind and ate what ever I bloody felt like eating. Meat, cheese, bread, sugar....wine - lots of wine - and came home with another 5 lbs attached to my ass. It was time to break out the big guns. My bff had tried Whole 30 twice in the past and she suggested we do it together when we got home from our indulgent vacay. Of course, this was like going from vegan to paleo for me. Not only would I have to eat meat, but I would have to eat it everyday. Sure, you can have fish, and I love fish, but even as much of a mermaid as I am, daily delights from the sea can get a bit monotonous. I had been reading Dr. Google for months and every article I have read about healing your gut insists it is impossible to do so eating a vegan diet. I had pretty much already proved that theory myself, so a return to eating carcass seemed my last and final hope to return to the land of perfect pooping.

I was in. For those of you who do not know about Whole 30, it is essentially a reset diet - an elimination diet. For 30 days you cannot have dairy, grains, legumes, sugar, alcohol, preservatives or additives. You can have most nuts,  animal protein (organic or grass-fed preferred) and veggies with the exception of a few like corn and peas. Today I reached Day 27. I feel a tiny bit lighter, my hypoglycaemia is vastly diminished and I feel happier and clearer-headed. Those are the positive benefits. Sadly, it has not led me to the Disney of Digestive health. Nothing has changed in that regard other than I no longer sound like the percussion section of the orchestra after dinner each night, and the bloated belly has vanished. It's a start I suppose, but I am far from out of the crapper on this aspect for now.

I still have a few options. I can try the FODMAP diet, the SCD diet (Specific Carbohydrate Diet) and the Candida diet. Most of them are similar to Whole 30 but some even further eliminate veggies and fruits. I have tried bone broth and fermented veggies and Kombucha and probiotics and am at a point now where I am so, so weary of trying to heal my gut lining that I am wondering if I should just go and buy some Captain Crunch, a package of Kraft Cheese Slices, a loaf of Wonder Bread, some margarine, some sliced Bologna, a bag of Cheezies, some Twinkies and wash it all down with an extra large Coke and see what happens. 

Oddly, when I think about eating crap like that (and as a kid, I did), I had no weight issues, lots of energy and actually liked what I was eating. (there may have been the occasional constipation), but it was sure YUMMY! I have given much thought to "eating to live", vs. "living to eat". I know people who give little thought to their daily noshings. They tend to be a healthy weight and spend far less time in the kitchen. Perhaps taking the focus off food is the answer. Meat and three veg. The English way. The boring way. Is that the answer? I don't know. It's not anti-cancer. Meat is cancer causing. Sugar feeds cancer cells. Grains make you fat and cause brain fog. Dairy causes inflammation. The advice is endless and the studies are questionable. 

It's tiring. It's exhausting. It's tedious. 

And so it goes on and on and on...my dysfunctional relationship...with food.

It may not be killing you...Yet!

There seems to be this old school thinking that if what you eat has not "killed you", then it is safe to eat. I had this conversation one day with my aging parents. They are adamant about using their artificial sweeteners. Apparently one of their many doctors told them it was safe to use them, so that was all they needed to hear. Despite my encouragements to try Stevia or honey or maple syrup or agave, they insist on using them. They even said to me - "it hasn't hurt us". Well, that is where I beg to differ. No, I said, you are certainly still alive, but do you honestly think you are in good health? There was a slight pause as I put that thought out there for them. But, it was not enough to get them to change their ways. 

My father has had several illnesses over the past decade or more. He has had a quadruple bypass surgery. He is diabetic. He is currently battling lymphoma and just endured 7 weeks of chemo. He chalks all this up to the luck of the draw. Some people just get sick he reckons.  He has never even considered that what he eats might have an impact on his health. I don't get it. I also don't get anyone else who thinks this way. He does not consider for a moment that a lifetime of artificial sweeteners, sugar, alcohol, meat and dairy consumption and massive quantities of prescription drugs have had anything to do with his countless health issues. His health issues have been frequent and many since his early 50's. He has seen dozens of doctors and endured many surgeries. Not once has he put two and two together.

What is even more tragic in all of this is that not ONE of those doctors over the last 20 years has ever given him any nutritional advice. NOT ONE! This is more than tragic. It is criminal. It is criminal that our doctors do not study nutrition. It is criminal that they do not consider it in their diagnosis of patients. It is criminal that they are undereducated in the field of nutrition. They see thousands of patients and by the time they see them, it is all about treating the symptoms and trying to stop the disease that has already set in due to lack of proper nutrition. There are countless research studies available that have linked cancer and meat consumption. There are as many linking inflammatory diseases like arthritis to dairy consumption. There is even a new study that has linked diabetes to meat consumption, not sugar as many believe. The information available to everyone including doctors is overwhelming, and yet they still do not advise their patients to try changing their diets. 

My own personal experience very recently is what finally pushed me to change to a plant-based diet. I went to see a doctor about some serious digestive issues. I was astounded that this doctor did not ask me one single question about what I was eating. NOT ONE! He was quick to write a prescription for tablets and testing as though what I was eating mattered not. That is when the light bulb finally went on for me. I always knew deep down inside me that it was the key, but now I was ready to really make the necessary changes to test my theory. I stopped eating meat and dairy and have been eating a plant-based diet for over two months now. I have had the odd glass of wine or beer, but did find that it did not always agree with me. I quit coffee and tea and added more fermented foods. I eat very little sugar.  I stopped taking the meds he prescribed after 3 days. They were making me feel worse.

I have been sleeping better. I have more energy. All of my Achilles and ankle swelling is gone. My arthritic hands are 80% better. I do not take any medications whatsoever. I try to eat organic as much as possible. I have to wonder how my father's health may have been had he adopted some of these strategies in his 50's. 

So, the next time you say that the food you eat is fine; that it is not affecting your health and it does not matter, then turn to me, and tell me about this ailment and that ailment, I urge you to make some changes and just see what happens. It makes more sense to me to give your diet an overhaul rather than run to the pharmacy and scarf down pills to ease  your symptoms. Your symptoms are trying to tell you something. Masking them does not get rid of the root causes. 

None of this is new. Hippocrates had it figured out a long time ago. 

"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."

"Walking is a man's best medicine."

"If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health."

-Hippocrates