Quality of Life
A few months ago I posted about some health issues that caused me to make a major shift in my diet. If you don’t feel like reading the post, the short version is, due to chronic digestive health issues I started an extremely limited diet. I basically was restricted to meat, veggies, fruits, nuts, yogurt I made myself, and a couple of hard cheeses. No grains at all. None. Don’t even ask , “could you eat?” the answer is no. I stayed hardcore on this diet for 9 months. 9. I lost 30 lbs. and I started to go slowly insane.
If you look up the diet I was on, Specific Carbohydrate Diet, you will read over and over, “Demands extreme, fanatical adherence” . You make ALL food yourself, you do not eat out. You do not eat any – this includes condiments – packaged food. Early on I joined a FB group for people on this diet. It was supposed to be a place to be supportive and share tips, foods etc. Occasionally people would share prepared foods that were ‘legal’ on the diet. I took the time to e-mail Raye’s of Maine Mustard to see if their yellow mustard was compliant. That simply means contains no additives other than what’s on the label etc etc. They very nicely emailed me back and assured me that their foods contain only what is on the label and only pure spices, which have no additives. I shared this with the group and was immediately shot down because 1. The company didn’t supply the answer to me through the mail on their letterhead and 2. Because companies cannot be trusted to change their formula at anytime. I ended up leaving the group.
The level of attention I paid to my food, and then to any possible reactions my body might have from any food at anytime started to lead to what I think is an extremely disordered way of thinking. Was my headache from my toddler screaming in my ear or had I been contaminated by a rogue gluten molecule? I had to stock my pantry with foods I could eat that were pretty expensive and got snappish with my kids when they ate my snacks. I had to plan out every meal, and it was even worse when we wanted to go on any sort of outing. I started adding in illegals pretty early on, and by illegals I just mean foods that may not be OK, for example getting a 5 Guys burger on lettuce.
A culmination of events this past December put me in a deep funk, and I realized that even though this diet had helped me, it was in no way sustainable for me if I wanted to be a happy person. That’s the simplest way to put it. What happened was this, I started a new job, and was invited to a catered Christmas party. After agonizing for days about what to do, I simply said I couldn’t go. I work for a really great place and they would have been more than accommodating, but I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t send them an email of diet restrictions that was more strict than the one Gwenyth Paltrow is currently being ripped apart for adhering to. Already invites to go out to eat with friends or to their houses had dried up. I didn’t feel like inviting anyone over because it ended up with me making a million different versions of food, much of what I couldn’t eat. Every single phone call I had in relation to getting together with people included, “So, what can you eat?” and resulted in me bringing my own food. My daughter has a keen interest in cooking and baking, and I wasn’t able to try anything she cooked. My family wants to travel, and I couldn’t see myself taking my yogurt maker with me to California, or reading out a list of what I was allowed to eat and making a huge scene everywhere we went. I had enough, I couldn’t take it anymore and tossed the whole diet out the window.
Will I gain weight? Yup, already have. Will I end up with another Colitis flare up? Who knows. You know what else causes Colitis, besides the classic “no one has any idea”? Stress. And this diet was adding so much stress to my life, I think that it is definitely possible that the pros and cons were about 50/50. If I end up sacrificing my social life, quality time with my family, and travel, paired with an unholy obsession with food as well as analyzing every twinge, pang and sniffle, for healthier guts and prescription medication free life, is that an even trade? I don’t know. I’ve thought about it a lot. Right now, I’m eating what I want. Trying not to go too wild with pasta, and continuing to eat healthy amounts of yogurt and other foods that aid gut health. Will I end up back at the doctors? I don’t know. I might have anyway. Right now, I have decided that it’s a quality of life decision, and mine was suffering just as much with the diet as it was with the drugs.
I do not disparage anyone who undertakes this massive change of life for their health. Many people do it and find great success. They are stronger people than I, and I applaud them. But for me, right now, it’s just not in the cards.
Ugg…me too. I’m starting to just give up too. I haven’t been adhering too well though. I was trying to just eat veggies, meat and fish and up to a cup of fruit a day and only drink water. I had digestive issues and skin issues off and on. When I adhered strictly, my blood sugar would plummet. It’s all better, but my face still breaks out in red patches and my immune system takes a hit if I drink alcohol or add in too many carbs. Ugg…