Amber L. Carter's Blog, page 24
March 16, 2014
March 13, 2014
Brought To You By the Letter A and the Number 1. (The Candida Diaries, Week 7)
The thing that I'm so quick to forget when I slip in my treatment for candida overgrowth are the mental effects of slipping. About a year ago, I started plotting on a calendar when things felt good and when things felt dark, as I was starting to suspect there was a pattern. At first, the darkness seemed to come and go for no discernible reason - nothing major had really changed in my life, everything was the same as it always was, and yet I would wake up under a dark cloud that I couldn't seem to shake for the next day or two. Being someone who considers themselves a naturally happy person, feeling like that is kind of the worst. So, suspecting that it might be a hormonal thing (or, kind of like with my writing productivity, something I could attribute to the phases of the moon) I started keeping a diary. What my mood was that day, what I was eating, how I was sleeping, and if there were any new stressors.
I started to discover just how epically affected I was by sugar and starchy carbs. If the effects weren't immediate (and most of the time they were, like wanting to take a straight-up nap after eating anything bread-related) then they usually hit the next day in the form of a complete sucktown mood funk. And it wasn't just, "Oh hey, I'm kind of in a bad mood today"...it was straight-up, can't-shake-this, what-is-wrong-with-me-today type depression.
This was when I made my first effort to really clean up my diet. Which worked well at first, and it was a sort of I-didn't-even-know-when-I-knew preview of what my life would be like now...I ordered salads sans dressings when I went out, stuck to water, left the bun off burgers, etc. Any action I could take to avoid sugar, I took it. It was the first time when I realized that I was motivated to eat better because it made me feel better, rather than simply wanting to look better. I've never been a big health person...issues of health were just never something that motivated me, and in fact, most of the time I rebelled against the idea. A lifetime of being lectured on how and what I should be eating and how "they say" that what I'm doing to work out isn't as good as this other thing, etc., had ingrained an automatic response of eye roll + deaf ears. Plus, it always seemed so boring to pass up the Snickers in favor of the banana, you know? Why would you actively give up the joy that is Snickers?!
If you are what you eat, Autumn was healthy, smart, and fresh. I was fast, easy, and cheap.And it worked. I started to feel better, and every day I woke up my usual happy, sprightly, optimistic self, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Yet, the weird thing about feeling better is that sooner or later, you start to forget about how crappy you felt before.
The thing that these past few weeks have taught me is that there really is a particular sort of genius behind Cheat Days, as advocated by Jackie Warner and a number of other diet gurus. I remember reading Jackie's book a couple years ago and digging into the chapter of the cheat day...she advocated two cheat days instead of just one, which sounded good to my sugar-loving heart but really scary to my All or Nothing diet brain. The logic was something like this: Instead of being tempted to sneak in small cheats throughout the week because you're in an All or Nothing mentality, you already have permission to pack in all your fantasy foods into one (or two) magical day(s), which makes it that much easier to stick to the 5 or 6 days of eating clean. The other beauty of this idea is that, at the end of the cheat day, after you've stuffed yourself with every sugary and fatty thing you can get your grubby little hands on, you're probably going to feel so gross and bloated that you can't wait to get back to eating clean for the rest of the week.
The one big con, however, for people like me, is the coming down from the Cheat Day sugar high, which can last anywhere from one to three days. And those days are the absolute worst. You just don't feel good...you feel awful, like your life is the worst, like nothing is going to make you feel better, like it's not even worth trying to feel better.
I had a big Come-To-Jesus moment this past week when I finally realized that I'm probably never going to be able to indulge in sugar again without feeling like absolute crap afterward. This epiphany was also brought to me by the Letters A(lcohol) and the Number 1, which is the number of drinks I can have without being tempted to cheat on my treatment even more. I keep playin', playa! I keep trying to just have *one* drink on a special occasion (in this case, it was the Fat Bike Birkie, when I shared a small beer with my friend Jen), which in the long view of things should be totally fine for me in the future, but in the immediate moment, all it does is make me want to chuck my treatment to the wind.
And I do that stuff in the moment and I think, "Eh, not a big deal," but then I write about it here (my dedication to honesty and transparency winning over my desire to look like I'm nailing this thing) and I'm like, WHAT ARE YOU DOING, AMBER?! WHY DO YOU KEEP MESSING AROUND WITH THIS SHIZ?
And my body finally paid me back in full for it. After a day here and there in February of feeling like crap after a cheat, I had a looong week of feeling horrible. My sleep was off (soooo off. Like insomnia one night and then 12 hours of sleep the next night, rinse and repeat), and I had string of days where I felt like I had been drugged with a downer. While I suspect there might have also been a potent combo in affect - Daylight Savings messing with my circadian rhythms, already feeling down because of the never-ending cold weather, etc - it was awful, you guys. I never wanna go back to that again.
Which is why my new focus is to record and remind myself of how good I feel when I'm not coming down from a sugar/carb high.
For instance, I'm gonna start doing shout-outs of Wins:
Right now I'm moving back into the groove of feeling good. I've officially lost 19 pounds since starting my treatment on January 15th (and broke into the 180s! YAAAAAAAAAY! Fucking GOODBYE 190s, I hope you always change and don't achieve your dreams and die alone).
Even shot a selfie to commemorate the occasion! Can't be mad at that, right? And it's the perfect timing, too, as I prepare to face-off a whole new set of challenges while on a week-long vaca in sunny California (omgIcantwaititsgonnabesosunnyandwarmthere). I needed that Win to help bolster my resolve and motivate me to stack up the Wins while in LA, 'cause I already know it's going to be tough to stick to my treatment when faced with so many things I used to love (Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, In-&-Out Burger, etc).
One thing I've learned to do this week is enact the power of logic. At the brewpub where I push beer, we have a rather famous rotation of Mexican specials. I'm a sucker for Mexican food: It speaks to every part of my food-lovin' soul. But this week, as I was whining inwardly about missing the special, I realized...you know what? The culinary delight that is the burrito or the fish taco is not going to go away. It's still going to be here in a year or two, when my gut is healed and I've got the okay again to have something like that once in a blue moon. And besides that, I can count on my hand the number of times I remembered how good a dish or drink was (the Pumpkin Spice Latte at Big Water Coffee in Bayfield...a french vanilla cupcake at Sweet Retreat in Edina...the fish tacos at the Bayfront Lounge in Bayfield...my first meal at Brasa in Minneapolis...). I only really remember how I feel when I'm eating or drinking something. And right now, it makes me feel better in the long run to successfully stick to my treatment and better ways of eating.
So yeah. Learning.
I started to discover just how epically affected I was by sugar and starchy carbs. If the effects weren't immediate (and most of the time they were, like wanting to take a straight-up nap after eating anything bread-related) then they usually hit the next day in the form of a complete sucktown mood funk. And it wasn't just, "Oh hey, I'm kind of in a bad mood today"...it was straight-up, can't-shake-this, what-is-wrong-with-me-today type depression.
This was when I made my first effort to really clean up my diet. Which worked well at first, and it was a sort of I-didn't-even-know-when-I-knew preview of what my life would be like now...I ordered salads sans dressings when I went out, stuck to water, left the bun off burgers, etc. Any action I could take to avoid sugar, I took it. It was the first time when I realized that I was motivated to eat better because it made me feel better, rather than simply wanting to look better. I've never been a big health person...issues of health were just never something that motivated me, and in fact, most of the time I rebelled against the idea. A lifetime of being lectured on how and what I should be eating and how "they say" that what I'm doing to work out isn't as good as this other thing, etc., had ingrained an automatic response of eye roll + deaf ears. Plus, it always seemed so boring to pass up the Snickers in favor of the banana, you know? Why would you actively give up the joy that is Snickers?!
If you are what you eat, Autumn was healthy, smart, and fresh. I was fast, easy, and cheap.And it worked. I started to feel better, and every day I woke up my usual happy, sprightly, optimistic self, I breathed a sigh of relief.Yet, the weird thing about feeling better is that sooner or later, you start to forget about how crappy you felt before.
The thing that these past few weeks have taught me is that there really is a particular sort of genius behind Cheat Days, as advocated by Jackie Warner and a number of other diet gurus. I remember reading Jackie's book a couple years ago and digging into the chapter of the cheat day...she advocated two cheat days instead of just one, which sounded good to my sugar-loving heart but really scary to my All or Nothing diet brain. The logic was something like this: Instead of being tempted to sneak in small cheats throughout the week because you're in an All or Nothing mentality, you already have permission to pack in all your fantasy foods into one (or two) magical day(s), which makes it that much easier to stick to the 5 or 6 days of eating clean. The other beauty of this idea is that, at the end of the cheat day, after you've stuffed yourself with every sugary and fatty thing you can get your grubby little hands on, you're probably going to feel so gross and bloated that you can't wait to get back to eating clean for the rest of the week.
The one big con, however, for people like me, is the coming down from the Cheat Day sugar high, which can last anywhere from one to three days. And those days are the absolute worst. You just don't feel good...you feel awful, like your life is the worst, like nothing is going to make you feel better, like it's not even worth trying to feel better.
I had a big Come-To-Jesus moment this past week when I finally realized that I'm probably never going to be able to indulge in sugar again without feeling like absolute crap afterward. This epiphany was also brought to me by the Letters A(lcohol) and the Number 1, which is the number of drinks I can have without being tempted to cheat on my treatment even more. I keep playin', playa! I keep trying to just have *one* drink on a special occasion (in this case, it was the Fat Bike Birkie, when I shared a small beer with my friend Jen), which in the long view of things should be totally fine for me in the future, but in the immediate moment, all it does is make me want to chuck my treatment to the wind.
And I do that stuff in the moment and I think, "Eh, not a big deal," but then I write about it here (my dedication to honesty and transparency winning over my desire to look like I'm nailing this thing) and I'm like, WHAT ARE YOU DOING, AMBER?! WHY DO YOU KEEP MESSING AROUND WITH THIS SHIZ?
And my body finally paid me back in full for it. After a day here and there in February of feeling like crap after a cheat, I had a looong week of feeling horrible. My sleep was off (soooo off. Like insomnia one night and then 12 hours of sleep the next night, rinse and repeat), and I had string of days where I felt like I had been drugged with a downer. While I suspect there might have also been a potent combo in affect - Daylight Savings messing with my circadian rhythms, already feeling down because of the never-ending cold weather, etc - it was awful, you guys. I never wanna go back to that again.
Which is why my new focus is to record and remind myself of how good I feel when I'm not coming down from a sugar/carb high.
For instance, I'm gonna start doing shout-outs of Wins:
This morning I stared down the barrel of new Irish-themed mochas and still resisted. Decaf Americano FTW. #LittleWins #CandidaDiariesBecause if I write it down, if I record it and then send it out, I register and remember it. And that helps me for the next morning, when I'm tired and cranky and know I should order a decaf coffee but am still tempted to get a Nutty Irishman (gross!) Mocha.
— Amber L. Carter (@ambercolorlife) March 8, 2014
Right now I'm moving back into the groove of feeling good. I've officially lost 19 pounds since starting my treatment on January 15th (and broke into the 180s! YAAAAAAAAAY! Fucking GOODBYE 190s, I hope you always change and don't achieve your dreams and die alone).
Even shot a selfie to commemorate the occasion! Can't be mad at that, right? And it's the perfect timing, too, as I prepare to face-off a whole new set of challenges while on a week-long vaca in sunny California (omgIcantwaititsgonnabesosunnyandwarmthere). I needed that Win to help bolster my resolve and motivate me to stack up the Wins while in LA, 'cause I already know it's going to be tough to stick to my treatment when faced with so many things I used to love (Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, In-&-Out Burger, etc). One thing I've learned to do this week is enact the power of logic. At the brewpub where I push beer, we have a rather famous rotation of Mexican specials. I'm a sucker for Mexican food: It speaks to every part of my food-lovin' soul. But this week, as I was whining inwardly about missing the special, I realized...you know what? The culinary delight that is the burrito or the fish taco is not going to go away. It's still going to be here in a year or two, when my gut is healed and I've got the okay again to have something like that once in a blue moon. And besides that, I can count on my hand the number of times I remembered how good a dish or drink was (the Pumpkin Spice Latte at Big Water Coffee in Bayfield...a french vanilla cupcake at Sweet Retreat in Edina...the fish tacos at the Bayfront Lounge in Bayfield...my first meal at Brasa in Minneapolis...). I only really remember how I feel when I'm eating or drinking something. And right now, it makes me feel better in the long run to successfully stick to my treatment and better ways of eating.
So yeah. Learning.
March 11, 2014
March 6, 2014
On Lattes & The Gap (The Candida Diaries, Week 6)
Now that we're sliding into March, it kind of amazes me, how far things have come since just January. January was all about how difficult this candida stuff was...February was about struggling with slips...and I feel like March...March is going to finally be about how much better this stuff makes me feel. Now that I finally feel free from the sugar withdrawal after a short month of stops and starts, I feel like I have more perspective on why I want to keep doing this, instead of just why I kind of have to.
A handful of months ago, I wrote about my quest to start loving my body. Really loving it. I had no idea what lay in store for me in the new year...that a sucktown diagnosis would eventually force me to get serious about what I was putting into my body, and why. It was kind of a roundabout process, but today it struck me that it did the trick. I care about my body, now. I care about the way it feels, and I care about that waaaaay more than I care about how it looks. That is revolutionary for me. A lot of that caring, that vanity, has been tossed out of the window because now I can tell the difference between when my body feels healthy and when it doesn't. And that feeling of healthy, of knowing how good it can feel be inside my own body, has become way more affirming and reinforcing than whether or not I can fit into my jeans (although, don't get me wrong...the fact that almost of all of my jeans fall off me now without a belt? That's a super rad feeling).
The really, really great part about this? Is that it also relates to an even bigger issue that I've been talking about all year, which is the tendency to look for affirmation and stimulation outside of myself. Last week I talked about old habits like always wanting to watch TV or read when I ate a meal, because I'm always looking to pair one reinforcing stimuli with another in order to create the ultimate reinforcing feels. This week, I noticed that the more I sat down and just concentrated on my food, the more it was just enough. It's kind of like meditation, in a way...what am I trying to drown out? What am I trying to actively *not* pay attention to? When I stop trying to crowd out what I'm doing with other stimuli, I learn to pay attention to the present moment, and slowly, that present moment, that present stimuli, it becomes enough. And when I'm feeling good inside my own body, I'm not actively looking for other things to make me feel good. I'm not trying to grab onto chocolate, or make out with the next hot guy, or buy another pair of great boots. Everything I need, I already have inside of myself.
Kind of trippy, and the idea probably deserves a post of its own. But. Moving on...
This week I challenged myself to think about the above and use it to help me stare down some more of my weird food addictions/habits, esp. when I was tempted to cheat/slip in my treatment.
Sometimes it's the dumbest things...like reading an article about project management and seeing the author's bio:
And then thinking/whining to myself, "I find joy in lattes, TOO! And I want that joy RIGHT NOW!"
It's so weird, how psychological associations can totally trip us up. I had to remind myself that I used to find joy in lattes...and if I think long and hard about it, I can trace that joy back to a GAP spring commercial from 2006.
See, when this commercial first came out, I had just moved to Minneapolis that spring. And this commercial, for me, was about new possibilities...metropolitan possibilities. Of walking down city sidewalks, going to coffee shops every day if I wanted to, running through parks, bein' fresh. That girl(s) with that latte was who I wanted to be at the time: Joyful, colorful, spring-y, on my way to meet someone totally hot and make out in a park.
(This is how my mind works, people. Welcome to my amazing mental world)
And that association has become totally and completely ingrained in my psyche: When I think of lattes, I think of sitting in front of my awesome desk and being motivated to do great work/writing all day long, or taking a sunny stroll through a park somewhere with my best friend, or grabbing one just before I set off on another adventure with my girl Meg. Lattes are not my joy. It's the images and experiences and memories that those lattes conjure up for me.
But reality is...now, lattes literally make my throat hurt. And instead of motivating me to do great work, they make me tired, zoned out. They ruin my gut. They don't even taste that great anymore, not even when they're flavored (with the exception of a Pumpkin Spice Latte. I think there's something in the way that our female parts are wired that ensures that Pumpkin Spice Lattes will always taste like heaven to us. Maybe all of us girls have a chip that was implanted in us during our gyno visits, which is controlled by the government and sets off some weird type of simulation response to Pumpkin Spice Lattes, which also, conveniently, helps keep the scarf and knee-high boot industries in business. I don't know! All I know is that I'm a girl and I LOVE THEM).
The point is: If it was that easy for me to create such an ingrained physical craving and psychological response to lattes based on a few images, I should also be able to create something else to replace it with...something that is actually (still) really good for me.
For instance, when I sat down to write this post, I was drinking a strong cup of Lemon Ginger tea. Now, whenever I think of spring or how much I want it to get here, I wanna drink a cup of that fuckin' awesome tea.
See? My mind - and yours, too, probably, even if you don't know it - is a super powerful association machine. Rather than fighting that and all the old associations I've built up - Reeces Pieces mean a more a fun movie experience, a glass of white wine means relaxation, a pint of beer means happy hours - I'm going to focus on playing with creative ones that I can use to my new - healthier - advantage.
A handful of months ago, I wrote about my quest to start loving my body. Really loving it. I had no idea what lay in store for me in the new year...that a sucktown diagnosis would eventually force me to get serious about what I was putting into my body, and why. It was kind of a roundabout process, but today it struck me that it did the trick. I care about my body, now. I care about the way it feels, and I care about that waaaaay more than I care about how it looks. That is revolutionary for me. A lot of that caring, that vanity, has been tossed out of the window because now I can tell the difference between when my body feels healthy and when it doesn't. And that feeling of healthy, of knowing how good it can feel be inside my own body, has become way more affirming and reinforcing than whether or not I can fit into my jeans (although, don't get me wrong...the fact that almost of all of my jeans fall off me now without a belt? That's a super rad feeling).
The really, really great part about this? Is that it also relates to an even bigger issue that I've been talking about all year, which is the tendency to look for affirmation and stimulation outside of myself. Last week I talked about old habits like always wanting to watch TV or read when I ate a meal, because I'm always looking to pair one reinforcing stimuli with another in order to create the ultimate reinforcing feels. This week, I noticed that the more I sat down and just concentrated on my food, the more it was just enough. It's kind of like meditation, in a way...what am I trying to drown out? What am I trying to actively *not* pay attention to? When I stop trying to crowd out what I'm doing with other stimuli, I learn to pay attention to the present moment, and slowly, that present moment, that present stimuli, it becomes enough. And when I'm feeling good inside my own body, I'm not actively looking for other things to make me feel good. I'm not trying to grab onto chocolate, or make out with the next hot guy, or buy another pair of great boots. Everything I need, I already have inside of myself.
Kind of trippy, and the idea probably deserves a post of its own. But. Moving on...
This week I challenged myself to think about the above and use it to help me stare down some more of my weird food addictions/habits, esp. when I was tempted to cheat/slip in my treatment.
Sometimes it's the dumbest things...like reading an article about project management and seeing the author's bio:
And then thinking/whining to myself, "I find joy in lattes, TOO! And I want that joy RIGHT NOW!" It's so weird, how psychological associations can totally trip us up. I had to remind myself that I used to find joy in lattes...and if I think long and hard about it, I can trace that joy back to a GAP spring commercial from 2006.
See, when this commercial first came out, I had just moved to Minneapolis that spring. And this commercial, for me, was about new possibilities...metropolitan possibilities. Of walking down city sidewalks, going to coffee shops every day if I wanted to, running through parks, bein' fresh. That girl(s) with that latte was who I wanted to be at the time: Joyful, colorful, spring-y, on my way to meet someone totally hot and make out in a park.
(This is how my mind works, people. Welcome to my amazing mental world)
And that association has become totally and completely ingrained in my psyche: When I think of lattes, I think of sitting in front of my awesome desk and being motivated to do great work/writing all day long, or taking a sunny stroll through a park somewhere with my best friend, or grabbing one just before I set off on another adventure with my girl Meg. Lattes are not my joy. It's the images and experiences and memories that those lattes conjure up for me.
But reality is...now, lattes literally make my throat hurt. And instead of motivating me to do great work, they make me tired, zoned out. They ruin my gut. They don't even taste that great anymore, not even when they're flavored (with the exception of a Pumpkin Spice Latte. I think there's something in the way that our female parts are wired that ensures that Pumpkin Spice Lattes will always taste like heaven to us. Maybe all of us girls have a chip that was implanted in us during our gyno visits, which is controlled by the government and sets off some weird type of simulation response to Pumpkin Spice Lattes, which also, conveniently, helps keep the scarf and knee-high boot industries in business. I don't know! All I know is that I'm a girl and I LOVE THEM).
The point is: If it was that easy for me to create such an ingrained physical craving and psychological response to lattes based on a few images, I should also be able to create something else to replace it with...something that is actually (still) really good for me.
For instance, when I sat down to write this post, I was drinking a strong cup of Lemon Ginger tea. Now, whenever I think of spring or how much I want it to get here, I wanna drink a cup of that fuckin' awesome tea.
See? My mind - and yours, too, probably, even if you don't know it - is a super powerful association machine. Rather than fighting that and all the old associations I've built up - Reeces Pieces mean a more a fun movie experience, a glass of white wine means relaxation, a pint of beer means happy hours - I'm going to focus on playing with creative ones that I can use to my new - healthier - advantage.
March 5, 2014
My favorite word of the day.
Even just writing it makes me feel jaunty.
February 28, 2014
The Candida Diaries: Week 5 (Day 28 - 34)
I'm pretty ready to be done with February.
It's been a month of challenges. Of stops and starts - of cheats and refocusing, stumbling blocks and triumphs, of trying to convince myself that my body can handle a small veer off the path, then waking up the next day with proof that it can't.
The first thing that happened during this most eventful week was that my oven/stove got turned off thanks in part to a midnight visit by the police, public works, and the firemen. They were responding to a call from a fellow citizen who noticed water gushing down into the courtyard from my building (it was during the warm part of the week, so the snow was all melting off the roof and deck and basically became a waterfall). When the policeman and public works guy arrived, they immediately smelled gas, and called the fireman. I tried to explain that I had just finished running the gas fireplaces and boiling water on the gas stove, but...anyway. A gas guy came the next day and found a leaky valve in the oven, and turned both the oven and the stove off until it could be fixed.
As you can imagine, that threw a bit of a wrench into my food preparation.
I was partially saved by the fact that I happen to work at a place that serves the healthiest food in Hayward, but a couple of times I had to resort to the best option available, which may not have been the best option for me.
Also during Week 5, Birkie hit the town. After an already long week of work, and with the arrival of friends that I hadn't seen in almost a year, I made the executive decision to have a couple of drinks one evening. Stuff like this is hard, because it's Birkie - the biggest and arguably one of the most fun weeks of the year up here - and you want to celebrate, right? You just want to go out, have a glass of wine, and for a few hours *not* be that girl who has to ask the bartender if he has any hot water for tea or if I can see the label on that bottle of tonic water. In the long-run of my treatment, I know I should question *why* I don't feel like I can fully celebrate without a glass of wine and why I keep rationalizing that cheating on my treatment is okay, but I did it and it's done and I actually learned something about it, so get off my back already everybody okay!
And here's the discovery that I made: After spending so many weeks listening to and being in tune with my body, it struck me later that night that drinking? Didn't *feel* good. I didn't get drunk or even a little buzzed, and still I laid in bed later that night, thinking to myself that I didn't like the way my body felt, right then. When I'm following my treatment, there's this distinctive feeling within my body that I love - it's like this vibration, this humming, this feeling of clean and light and good energy. It's hard to explain, but the biggest thing about this week and the cheats before is that, when I veer off my treatment, I lose that feeling for a day or two, and I miss it. It's kind of like being sick and realizing that you never really appreciate how great it feels to *not* be sick, you know?
I thought about this concept a lot the next day. One of my teachers, Gabrielle, talks a lot about how, the more you start to get into meditation and practiced at listening to your inner voice and your body, the less you want substances that alter it. She's been sober for a handful of years now; last year she totally gave up coffee/caffeine (which, I gotta say - she's probably one of the only people I know who loved coffee as fervently as I do); and this year, she's been totally sugar-free for 180 days. It took me a diagnosis to give (most of) that shiz up, but Gabrielle did it because she caught on early to what I noticed above...that when you're vibing with your body, you start noticing what substances are causing it to go out of tune. It's the most incredible experience when you stumble upon it, but it's also frustrating when you realize that many of the things you love mentally are also the same things that don't produce love in your physical self.
Another issue that came up for me this week is the issue of food addiction. I started experimenting with greek yogurt and 100% pure cocoa (zero sugar) as a way to stave off sugar cravings.
One tablespoon of raw baking cocoa and three spoonfuls of plain greek yogurt.At first, I was freaking DELIGHTED with this newfound addition - my body didn't seem to react negatively to it, and it was the perfect stand-in for other sweet stuff - it's like the best chocolate mousse you've ever had. It also seemed to be a really great way to get those probiotics in during a week when I couldn't bake flax seed because my oven wasn't working.
So at first I had it maybe every other day, when I was craving something sweet. And then I started having it once every day, to cap off the evening meal. And then I started having it more than once a day: Sometimes as a snack, sometimes as dessert, and sometimes as a quick substitute meal. And I would do it almost mindlessly, too - it was as if something registered in me that I wanted it, and so I would make it and then eat it without even questioning whether or not it was good for me to have this for the third time that day.
And that's when I realized that I actually had a problem.
Like I said last week, I kind of feel like that recovering alcoholic who needs their sober companion to enter every room before they do to make sure there's no substances present that could tempt them. For me, I'm starting to realize that it's simply my new reality that I can't have stuff that even remotely tastes like or reminds me of sugar or chocolate, or I'll go crazy. I can't have it in my house, or I'll want it all the time. I also can't pair food with other things - like, for instance, a Law & Order SVU marathon - because my brain will immediately lock in on that stimulus, making it doubly hard for me to break the craving to have it every time I sit down to watch that certain show (or any other).
I feel like I've come pretty far in terms of using food to comfort or self-soothe - like I said, it's hard to use food as a reward/comfort when my treatment diet contains almost nothing that would even work as that - but this week's experience showed me that there's still some stuff lurking under the surface that I need to take care of. Mainly, that I'm so used to this behavior and such a sucker for the reinforcement of it that my subconscious actively seeks out substitutions for it.
So I've got some new rules. The first one is that I'm actually going to start instituting a practice of eating without watching a show or reading a book. For almost my entire adult life, I've barely eaten a meal by myself without simultaneously watching TV or reading a book or flipping through a magazine or newspaper. Again, it's the pairing thing - food itself doesn't provide a high enough stimulation for me, so I look to up the ante by pairing it with something as equally or more reinforcing/entertaining. But that also causes an array of messes in the way our brains and bodies respond to food: Mindless eating, eating too much, eating when you're not actually hungry, eating as a way to entertain, etc.
I'm also throwing out the raw cocoa. In a few months I'll probably be ready for it again, especially when it comes to using it in baking and trying out new recipes, etc. For now, though, even though my body doesn't respond negatively to it, my mind does, and so it's gots to GO.
The third rule is this: No more fucking around. Every time I veered off my treatment in February, my body was like, "WHAT THE FUCK, YO." And it would show me, through various methods, that it didn't actually want me to do that. So in March, my goal is to actually listen to my body and honor what it tells me. I definitely foresee some challenges when I go to L.A. toward the end of March (because Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, In & Out Burger, and fish tacos on every corner in Venice Beach), but I'm also determined to find as many workarounds as I can. And until then, practice makes perfect, yeah?
Also, my stove just got fixed by a hot repairman, so we're back, at least, on that front.
------------------
Safe Sharing Circle: Got a favorite way to give a sucktown food habit/addiction a roundhouse kick to the face? (like, I don't know...lighting candles and taping a photo of Tom Hiddleston to the chair across the table from you so you can start learning how to eat without the TV on, maybe?). Share 'em up and let's spread some smarts!
It's been a month of challenges. Of stops and starts - of cheats and refocusing, stumbling blocks and triumphs, of trying to convince myself that my body can handle a small veer off the path, then waking up the next day with proof that it can't.
The first thing that happened during this most eventful week was that my oven/stove got turned off thanks in part to a midnight visit by the police, public works, and the firemen. They were responding to a call from a fellow citizen who noticed water gushing down into the courtyard from my building (it was during the warm part of the week, so the snow was all melting off the roof and deck and basically became a waterfall). When the policeman and public works guy arrived, they immediately smelled gas, and called the fireman. I tried to explain that I had just finished running the gas fireplaces and boiling water on the gas stove, but...anyway. A gas guy came the next day and found a leaky valve in the oven, and turned both the oven and the stove off until it could be fixed.
As you can imagine, that threw a bit of a wrench into my food preparation.
I was partially saved by the fact that I happen to work at a place that serves the healthiest food in Hayward, but a couple of times I had to resort to the best option available, which may not have been the best option for me.
Also during Week 5, Birkie hit the town. After an already long week of work, and with the arrival of friends that I hadn't seen in almost a year, I made the executive decision to have a couple of drinks one evening. Stuff like this is hard, because it's Birkie - the biggest and arguably one of the most fun weeks of the year up here - and you want to celebrate, right? You just want to go out, have a glass of wine, and for a few hours *not* be that girl who has to ask the bartender if he has any hot water for tea or if I can see the label on that bottle of tonic water. In the long-run of my treatment, I know I should question *why* I don't feel like I can fully celebrate without a glass of wine and why I keep rationalizing that cheating on my treatment is okay, but I did it and it's done and I actually learned something about it, so get off my back already everybody okay!
And here's the discovery that I made: After spending so many weeks listening to and being in tune with my body, it struck me later that night that drinking? Didn't *feel* good. I didn't get drunk or even a little buzzed, and still I laid in bed later that night, thinking to myself that I didn't like the way my body felt, right then. When I'm following my treatment, there's this distinctive feeling within my body that I love - it's like this vibration, this humming, this feeling of clean and light and good energy. It's hard to explain, but the biggest thing about this week and the cheats before is that, when I veer off my treatment, I lose that feeling for a day or two, and I miss it. It's kind of like being sick and realizing that you never really appreciate how great it feels to *not* be sick, you know?
I thought about this concept a lot the next day. One of my teachers, Gabrielle, talks a lot about how, the more you start to get into meditation and practiced at listening to your inner voice and your body, the less you want substances that alter it. She's been sober for a handful of years now; last year she totally gave up coffee/caffeine (which, I gotta say - she's probably one of the only people I know who loved coffee as fervently as I do); and this year, she's been totally sugar-free for 180 days. It took me a diagnosis to give (most of) that shiz up, but Gabrielle did it because she caught on early to what I noticed above...that when you're vibing with your body, you start noticing what substances are causing it to go out of tune. It's the most incredible experience when you stumble upon it, but it's also frustrating when you realize that many of the things you love mentally are also the same things that don't produce love in your physical self.
Another issue that came up for me this week is the issue of food addiction. I started experimenting with greek yogurt and 100% pure cocoa (zero sugar) as a way to stave off sugar cravings.
One tablespoon of raw baking cocoa and three spoonfuls of plain greek yogurt.At first, I was freaking DELIGHTED with this newfound addition - my body didn't seem to react negatively to it, and it was the perfect stand-in for other sweet stuff - it's like the best chocolate mousse you've ever had. It also seemed to be a really great way to get those probiotics in during a week when I couldn't bake flax seed because my oven wasn't working. So at first I had it maybe every other day, when I was craving something sweet. And then I started having it once every day, to cap off the evening meal. And then I started having it more than once a day: Sometimes as a snack, sometimes as dessert, and sometimes as a quick substitute meal. And I would do it almost mindlessly, too - it was as if something registered in me that I wanted it, and so I would make it and then eat it without even questioning whether or not it was good for me to have this for the third time that day.
And that's when I realized that I actually had a problem.
Like I said last week, I kind of feel like that recovering alcoholic who needs their sober companion to enter every room before they do to make sure there's no substances present that could tempt them. For me, I'm starting to realize that it's simply my new reality that I can't have stuff that even remotely tastes like or reminds me of sugar or chocolate, or I'll go crazy. I can't have it in my house, or I'll want it all the time. I also can't pair food with other things - like, for instance, a Law & Order SVU marathon - because my brain will immediately lock in on that stimulus, making it doubly hard for me to break the craving to have it every time I sit down to watch that certain show (or any other).
I feel like I've come pretty far in terms of using food to comfort or self-soothe - like I said, it's hard to use food as a reward/comfort when my treatment diet contains almost nothing that would even work as that - but this week's experience showed me that there's still some stuff lurking under the surface that I need to take care of. Mainly, that I'm so used to this behavior and such a sucker for the reinforcement of it that my subconscious actively seeks out substitutions for it.
So I've got some new rules. The first one is that I'm actually going to start instituting a practice of eating without watching a show or reading a book. For almost my entire adult life, I've barely eaten a meal by myself without simultaneously watching TV or reading a book or flipping through a magazine or newspaper. Again, it's the pairing thing - food itself doesn't provide a high enough stimulation for me, so I look to up the ante by pairing it with something as equally or more reinforcing/entertaining. But that also causes an array of messes in the way our brains and bodies respond to food: Mindless eating, eating too much, eating when you're not actually hungry, eating as a way to entertain, etc.
I'm also throwing out the raw cocoa. In a few months I'll probably be ready for it again, especially when it comes to using it in baking and trying out new recipes, etc. For now, though, even though my body doesn't respond negatively to it, my mind does, and so it's gots to GO.
The third rule is this: No more fucking around. Every time I veered off my treatment in February, my body was like, "WHAT THE FUCK, YO." And it would show me, through various methods, that it didn't actually want me to do that. So in March, my goal is to actually listen to my body and honor what it tells me. I definitely foresee some challenges when I go to L.A. toward the end of March (because Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, In & Out Burger, and fish tacos on every corner in Venice Beach), but I'm also determined to find as many workarounds as I can. And until then, practice makes perfect, yeah?
Also, my stove just got fixed by a hot repairman, so we're back, at least, on that front.
------------------
Safe Sharing Circle: Got a favorite way to give a sucktown food habit/addiction a roundhouse kick to the face? (like, I don't know...lighting candles and taping a photo of Tom Hiddleston to the chair across the table from you so you can start learning how to eat without the TV on, maybe?). Share 'em up and let's spread some smarts!
February 27, 2014
Waiting For Spring.
Today, I am desperate for spring.
I bought this candle yesterday, the first scented one I've bought in a while…and I bought it because it reminded me of the smell of grass after a spring rain. Of budding trees and the way wet dirt can smell so lovely, after long, hard months nothing but of snowy winds and white mountains and icy tracks. I want it in the worst way today, spring. I want muddy trails and budding trees and melting lakes…cool air and long walks and rainy clouds. Too early mornings out on the deck, bundled up in blankets and sitting outside with my coffee because I finally can. Of throwing on a down vest or a cardigan before walking out instead of spending ten minutes prepping for the cold with scarves, mittens, hats, heavy coat, and boots. Of opening my window to let the air in instead of battening down the hatches.
In a sentence, I am fucking done with winter.
I find myself getting increasingly maddened by the small things. Crabby with them. I get annoyed when my tea gets cold after only three sips. Irritated when my neck feels tight. Frustrated when the sentences won't lie down the way I want them to. Tired of being tired all the time. I haven't written anything substantial in weeks because I just don't want to, because it seems like so much work to go deep when it's so much easier to hunker down with a Netflix marathon. I resent my To-Do list: I don't want to be productive, I don't want to answer your emails, I just want to crawl into the hole that is my white downy bed and not come out until the snow is all gone and things are colorful again.
Which is, obviously, not an option. That is the hardest part of waiting for spring: No matter how much hope gathers in my chest and rises up through my throat and bursts out of my mouth, it will not make it come any sooner.
I can only manifest it on the inside.
So, the candle. And the daily effort to draw out some brightness, to keep things warm. I'm striving to take a page from my h.s. friend Sara's blog and add more color to my life. Verdant greens and bright purples and stunning blues. Maybe even a plush pink somewhere in there. Lemon Ginger tea is also the best thing…pungent and sunny and tart, like you're growing a citrus garden on the inside. Yoga and meditation…always, even when I don't want to, even when they feel like they're just one more thing to do in a too-short day. And the writing…I've had this curious, guilt-ridden block to writing lately (actually, all winter, if I'm honest). I just don't want to do it. Lately I'd rather write blog posts or journal entries than get to work on another book…it feels like this huge, mountainous project that I just don't have the energy for. I find myself thinking of the work it takes, instead of the all-encompassing, life-affirming joy it gives. Yet then, earlier today, I saw this on Pinterest and it was like a river gushed forth. I want to be swung up in the fervor of a new book, of every day creating something, of getting closer to having that thing in my hands, by the time spring comes. I want it to be the way I open my days and close my nights. And I realized that the want is there, but it's as if the dark and the snow and cold has tramped it down. Like a writing hypothermia. It makes me want to lie down and go to sleep instead of searching for warmth.
But I want that bursting, you know? I'm tired of hiding out. I'm tired of hibernating. I want things to be born instead of having them die off. Even if I have to birth them myself.
I'm also moving somewhere eternally sunny in the next couple years. Because this four seasons crap can fucking suck it.
February 19, 2014
The Candida Diaries: Week 4 (Day 21 - Day 27)
So, this week kind of started off as an epic fail, then rounded out with some pretty great stuff.
And then REALLY paying for it.
The way it happened was almost exactly what my doctor warned me about: One small cheat and suddenly I was battling major cravings…and worse, since I had already had a small cheat, having ALL THE THINGS didn't seem like a big deal anymore. If cheating with a small thing was already going to prolong my treatment, why not cheat with all the things and make the reprieve epically worth it?
Aside from the Pumpkin Spice Latte I had at Big Water Coffee Roasters after visiting the Ice Caves (because being in Big Water and turning down that latte would be basically like turning down Tom Hiddleston as he's leaning in to kiss you), it was not epically worth it.
Funny thing about being on the overgrowth diet for almost a month: Sugar and starchy carbs do not taste as awesome as they used to. I had a glass of white wine during dinner out with friends for my birthday, and immediately had cotton mouth. I had a small piece of cheesecake for dessert, and it messed up my stomach for the rest of the night. Giving into the sugar cravings the next day, I kind of went off the rails with a latte in the morning, a cupcake in the afternoon, and a couple of pieces of chocolate in the evening (which used to be, like, a standard day for me when it came to holidays) and my face puffed up, my throat felt sore, I got majority congested, and my stomach felt weird for the rest of the night. Speaking of the night, all that sugar and possibly caffeine had me up and full of energy until about 3:15 a.m.
In a word: Yowza.
It was pretty incredible, you guys, the immediate and dramatic effects that stuff had on my body. Since starting, I've had lots of people asking if the overgrowth diet made me feel better, and I didn't really know what to say…did it clear up some minor symptoms, like congestion and brain fog? Yeah. Was my metabolism finally working and not being such a little bitch all the time? Yep! Did I wake up every day and yell out, "I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER THAN BEFORE!"? Not really. But seeing effects like this and realizing just how much better I really did feel when I wasn't eating stuff like this…shit yeah, dudes. I literally couldn't wait to get back to the diet the next day.
It also really opened my eyes to the fact that, before this overgrowth thing, I was probably severely addicted to both the inherent properties of sugar as well as the act of consuming them to self-soothe and reinforce. I'm that kind of girl and behavioral creature that likes to pair highly-reinforcing things with other highly-reinforcing things, for maximum, radical reinforcement…like, say, I don't want to watch my favorite show unless I'm drinking a glass of wine while watching it. And I noticed that, when doing the candida diet thing, that kind of habit had kind of disappeared. I couldn't use food or drink to comfort or soothe or reinforce because, frankly, I could no longer consume any of the substances that I would ordinarily look to do that with. And while losing that sense of joy in food has been hard, it's been pretty radical for me, to now regard food as simply a means to energy instead of looking at it as my stand-in best friend.
I now eat to live, everyone! Not live to eat! #pretentiousdietersmantra
(Though the latter was pretty freaking fun while it lasted)
The other thing that the cheating experience showed me was that I actually can't handle just a *small* cheat. My response to sugar is like traveling celebrities who are recovering alcoholics…I practically need someone to go into the room ahead of me and remove any tempting substances in order to ensure I won't slip in a moment of weakness. And once I have a small slip, I want to take a running jump into a flood of sweet, sugary everything. That small little permission is something I can't handle, either - my mind wants to immediately go back to playing the old dieters game of, "Well, since this day is ruined anyway…!" Which was a really useful lesson for me, at this stage. Instead of wistfully regarding my old indulgences as things to be missed and mourned after, that knowledge makes it much easier to look at that stuff as things that are simply not good for me or my goal to be happy and healthy.
So yeah. No weigh-in this week, because I'm pretty sure I already have a wide scope of the damage the cheating did to my body, and I don't need to see the scale numbers crash into left-long-ago numbers to reinforce the knowledge that the overgrowth diet is good for my body and cheating on it is not.
Also, in this case, ignorance is actually bliss.
On the plus side, at the end of the week, I finally found a tea that could actually stand in for coffee in terms of how much I love it:
It's Get Probiotic - No. 18 Tea for Digestive Health by The Republic of Tea. I initially got it because it's caffeine free and uses red tea instead of black or green, and because probiotic anything is really, really good for candida overgrowth. The trick, I found, is to add a big slice of lemon…so, so good.
So that's it. Done with Week 4. Tune into Week 5, where I take over the world, win the hearts of young men everywhere, and propel the current culture into a radical new future!
-------------------------
Catch up, half-pint:
Candida overgrowth, which (not to be dramatic) is pretty much the worst thing ever
Don't go crazy, she warned, but if treating myself to my favorite things on my birthday will make it easier for me to stick with this overgrowth diet thing for the long haul, then a little indulgence to tide me over could be a good thing. But, on the other hand, she worried that cheating would only set off another week of cravings, and that a few slips would make it easier/more permissive for me to keep allowing myself slips, so she wanted me to approach it carefully. - Candida Diaries: Day 14-20Yeah. I kind of ended up going a little crazy (side note, in an ironic twist of fate, Seal's "Crazy" is now playing on this coffee shop's music system).
And then REALLY paying for it.
The way it happened was almost exactly what my doctor warned me about: One small cheat and suddenly I was battling major cravings…and worse, since I had already had a small cheat, having ALL THE THINGS didn't seem like a big deal anymore. If cheating with a small thing was already going to prolong my treatment, why not cheat with all the things and make the reprieve epically worth it?
Aside from the Pumpkin Spice Latte I had at Big Water Coffee Roasters after visiting the Ice Caves (because being in Big Water and turning down that latte would be basically like turning down Tom Hiddleston as he's leaning in to kiss you), it was not epically worth it.
Funny thing about being on the overgrowth diet for almost a month: Sugar and starchy carbs do not taste as awesome as they used to. I had a glass of white wine during dinner out with friends for my birthday, and immediately had cotton mouth. I had a small piece of cheesecake for dessert, and it messed up my stomach for the rest of the night. Giving into the sugar cravings the next day, I kind of went off the rails with a latte in the morning, a cupcake in the afternoon, and a couple of pieces of chocolate in the evening (which used to be, like, a standard day for me when it came to holidays) and my face puffed up, my throat felt sore, I got majority congested, and my stomach felt weird for the rest of the night. Speaking of the night, all that sugar and possibly caffeine had me up and full of energy until about 3:15 a.m.
In a word: Yowza.
It was pretty incredible, you guys, the immediate and dramatic effects that stuff had on my body. Since starting, I've had lots of people asking if the overgrowth diet made me feel better, and I didn't really know what to say…did it clear up some minor symptoms, like congestion and brain fog? Yeah. Was my metabolism finally working and not being such a little bitch all the time? Yep! Did I wake up every day and yell out, "I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER THAN BEFORE!"? Not really. But seeing effects like this and realizing just how much better I really did feel when I wasn't eating stuff like this…shit yeah, dudes. I literally couldn't wait to get back to the diet the next day.
It also really opened my eyes to the fact that, before this overgrowth thing, I was probably severely addicted to both the inherent properties of sugar as well as the act of consuming them to self-soothe and reinforce. I'm that kind of girl and behavioral creature that likes to pair highly-reinforcing things with other highly-reinforcing things, for maximum, radical reinforcement…like, say, I don't want to watch my favorite show unless I'm drinking a glass of wine while watching it. And I noticed that, when doing the candida diet thing, that kind of habit had kind of disappeared. I couldn't use food or drink to comfort or soothe or reinforce because, frankly, I could no longer consume any of the substances that I would ordinarily look to do that with. And while losing that sense of joy in food has been hard, it's been pretty radical for me, to now regard food as simply a means to energy instead of looking at it as my stand-in best friend.
I now eat to live, everyone! Not live to eat! #pretentiousdietersmantra
(Though the latter was pretty freaking fun while it lasted)
The other thing that the cheating experience showed me was that I actually can't handle just a *small* cheat. My response to sugar is like traveling celebrities who are recovering alcoholics…I practically need someone to go into the room ahead of me and remove any tempting substances in order to ensure I won't slip in a moment of weakness. And once I have a small slip, I want to take a running jump into a flood of sweet, sugary everything. That small little permission is something I can't handle, either - my mind wants to immediately go back to playing the old dieters game of, "Well, since this day is ruined anyway…!" Which was a really useful lesson for me, at this stage. Instead of wistfully regarding my old indulgences as things to be missed and mourned after, that knowledge makes it much easier to look at that stuff as things that are simply not good for me or my goal to be happy and healthy.
So yeah. No weigh-in this week, because I'm pretty sure I already have a wide scope of the damage the cheating did to my body, and I don't need to see the scale numbers crash into left-long-ago numbers to reinforce the knowledge that the overgrowth diet is good for my body and cheating on it is not.
Also, in this case, ignorance is actually bliss.
On the plus side, at the end of the week, I finally found a tea that could actually stand in for coffee in terms of how much I love it:
It's Get Probiotic - No. 18 Tea for Digestive Health by The Republic of Tea. I initially got it because it's caffeine free and uses red tea instead of black or green, and because probiotic anything is really, really good for candida overgrowth. The trick, I found, is to add a big slice of lemon…so, so good.
So that's it. Done with Week 4. Tune into Week 5, where I take over the world, win the hearts of young men everywhere, and propel the current culture into a radical new future!
-------------------------
Catch up, half-pint:
Candida overgrowth, which (not to be dramatic) is pretty much the worst thing ever
The Candida Diaries: Day 21 - 27
So, this week kind of started off as an epic fail, then rounded out with some pretty great stuff.
And then REALLY paying for it.
The way it happened was almost exactly what my doctor warned me about: One small cheat and suddenly I was battling major cravings…and worse, since I had already had a small cheat, having ALL THE THINGS didn't seem like a big deal anymore. If cheating with a small thing was already going to prolong my treatment, why not cheat with all the things and make the reprieve epically worth it?
Aside from the Pumpkin Spice Latte I had at Big Water Coffee Roasters after visiting the Ice Caves (because being in Big Water and turning down that latte would be basically like turning down Tom Hiddleston as he's leaning in to kiss you), it was not epically worth it.
Funny thing about being on the overgrowth diet for almost a month: Sugar and starchy carbs do not taste as awesome as they used to. I had a glass of white wine during dinner out with friends for my birthday, and immediately had cotton mouth. I had a small piece of cheesecake for dessert, and it messed up my stomach for the rest of the night. Giving into the sugar cravings the next day, I kind of went off the rails with a latte in the morning, a cupcake in the afternoon, and a couple of pieces of chocolate in the evening (which used to be, like, a standard day for me when it came to holidays) and my face puffed up, my throat felt sore, I got majority congested, and my stomach felt weird for the rest of the night. Speaking of the night, all that sugar and possibly caffeine had me up and full of energy until about 3:15 a.m.
In a word: Yowza.
It was pretty incredible, you guys, the immediate and dramatic effects that stuff had on my body. Since starting, I've had lots of people asking if the overgrowth diet made me feel better, and I didn't really know what to say…did it clear up some minor symptoms, like congestion and brain fog? Yeah. Was my metabolism finally working and not being such a little bitch all the time? Yep! Did I wake up every day and yell out, "I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER THAN BEFORE!"? Not really. But seeing effects like this and realizing just how much better I really did feel when I wasn't eating stuff like this…shit yeah, dudes. I literally couldn't wait to get back to the diet the next day.
It also really opened my eyes to the fact that, before this overgrowth thing, I was probably severely addicted to both the inherent properties of sugar as well as the act of consuming them to self-soothe and reinforce. I'm that kind of girl and behavioral creature that likes to pair highly-reinforcing things with other highly-reinforcing things, for maximum, radical reinforcement…like, say, I don't want to watch my favorite show unless I'm drinking a glass of wine while watching it. And I noticed that, when doing the candida diet thing, that kind of habit had kind of disappeared. I couldn't use food or drink to comfort or soothe or reinforce because, frankly, I could no longer consume any of the substances that I would ordinarily look to do that with. And while losing that sense of joy in food has been hard, it's been pretty radical for me, to now regard food as simply a means to energy instead of looking at it as my stand-in best friend.
I now eat to live, everyone! Not live to eat! #pretentiousdietersmantra
(Though the latter was pretty freaking fun while it lasted)
The other thing that the cheating experience showed me was that I actually can't handle just a *small* cheat. My response to sugar is like traveling celebrities who are recovering alcoholics…I practically need someone to go into the room ahead of me and remove any tempting substances in order to ensure I won't slip in a moment of weakness. And once I have a small slip, I want to take a running jump into a flood of sweet, sugary everything. That small little permission is something I can't handle, either - my mind wants to immediately go back to playing the old dieters game of, "Well, since this day is ruined anyway…!" Which was a really useful lesson for me, at this stage. Instead of wistfully regarding my old indulgences as things to be missed and mourned after, that knowledge makes it much easier to look at that stuff as things that are simply not good for me or my goal to be happy and healthy.
So yeah. No weigh-in this week, because I'm pretty sure I already have a wide scope of the damage the cheating did to my body, and I don't need to see the scale numbers crash into left-long-ago numbers to reinforce the knowledge that the overgrowth diet is good for my body and cheating on it is not.
Also, in this case, ignorance is actually bliss.
On the plus side, at the end of the week, I finally found a tea that could actually stand in for coffee in terms of how much I love it:
It's Get Probiotic - No. 18 Tea for Digestive Health by The Republic of Tea. I initially got it because it's caffeine free and uses red tea instead of black or green, and because probiotic anything is really, really good for candida overgrowth. The trick, I found, is to add a big slice of lemon…so, so good.
So that's it. Done with week 3. Tune into week 4, where I take over the world, win the hearts of young men everywhere, and propel the current culture into a radical new future!
-------------------------
Catch up, half-pint:
Candida overgrowth, which (not to be dramatic) is pretty much the worst thing ever
Don't go crazy, she warned, but if treating myself to my favorite things on my birthday will make it easier for me to stick with this overgrowth diet thing for the long haul, then a little indulgence to tide me over could be a good thing. But, on the other hand, she worried that cheating would only set off another week of cravings, and that a few slips would make it easier/more permissive for me to keep allowing myself slips, so she wanted me to approach it carefully. - Candida Diaries: Day 14-20Yeah. I kind of ended up going a little crazy (side note, in an ironic twist of fate, Seal's "Crazy" is now playing on this coffee shop's music system).
And then REALLY paying for it.
The way it happened was almost exactly what my doctor warned me about: One small cheat and suddenly I was battling major cravings…and worse, since I had already had a small cheat, having ALL THE THINGS didn't seem like a big deal anymore. If cheating with a small thing was already going to prolong my treatment, why not cheat with all the things and make the reprieve epically worth it?
Aside from the Pumpkin Spice Latte I had at Big Water Coffee Roasters after visiting the Ice Caves (because being in Big Water and turning down that latte would be basically like turning down Tom Hiddleston as he's leaning in to kiss you), it was not epically worth it.
Funny thing about being on the overgrowth diet for almost a month: Sugar and starchy carbs do not taste as awesome as they used to. I had a glass of white wine during dinner out with friends for my birthday, and immediately had cotton mouth. I had a small piece of cheesecake for dessert, and it messed up my stomach for the rest of the night. Giving into the sugar cravings the next day, I kind of went off the rails with a latte in the morning, a cupcake in the afternoon, and a couple of pieces of chocolate in the evening (which used to be, like, a standard day for me when it came to holidays) and my face puffed up, my throat felt sore, I got majority congested, and my stomach felt weird for the rest of the night. Speaking of the night, all that sugar and possibly caffeine had me up and full of energy until about 3:15 a.m.
In a word: Yowza.
It was pretty incredible, you guys, the immediate and dramatic effects that stuff had on my body. Since starting, I've had lots of people asking if the overgrowth diet made me feel better, and I didn't really know what to say…did it clear up some minor symptoms, like congestion and brain fog? Yeah. Was my metabolism finally working and not being such a little bitch all the time? Yep! Did I wake up every day and yell out, "I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER THAN BEFORE!"? Not really. But seeing effects like this and realizing just how much better I really did feel when I wasn't eating stuff like this…shit yeah, dudes. I literally couldn't wait to get back to the diet the next day.
It also really opened my eyes to the fact that, before this overgrowth thing, I was probably severely addicted to both the inherent properties of sugar as well as the act of consuming them to self-soothe and reinforce. I'm that kind of girl and behavioral creature that likes to pair highly-reinforcing things with other highly-reinforcing things, for maximum, radical reinforcement…like, say, I don't want to watch my favorite show unless I'm drinking a glass of wine while watching it. And I noticed that, when doing the candida diet thing, that kind of habit had kind of disappeared. I couldn't use food or drink to comfort or soothe or reinforce because, frankly, I could no longer consume any of the substances that I would ordinarily look to do that with. And while losing that sense of joy in food has been hard, it's been pretty radical for me, to now regard food as simply a means to energy instead of looking at it as my stand-in best friend.
I now eat to live, everyone! Not live to eat! #pretentiousdietersmantra
(Though the latter was pretty freaking fun while it lasted)
The other thing that the cheating experience showed me was that I actually can't handle just a *small* cheat. My response to sugar is like traveling celebrities who are recovering alcoholics…I practically need someone to go into the room ahead of me and remove any tempting substances in order to ensure I won't slip in a moment of weakness. And once I have a small slip, I want to take a running jump into a flood of sweet, sugary everything. That small little permission is something I can't handle, either - my mind wants to immediately go back to playing the old dieters game of, "Well, since this day is ruined anyway…!" Which was a really useful lesson for me, at this stage. Instead of wistfully regarding my old indulgences as things to be missed and mourned after, that knowledge makes it much easier to look at that stuff as things that are simply not good for me or my goal to be happy and healthy.
So yeah. No weigh-in this week, because I'm pretty sure I already have a wide scope of the damage the cheating did to my body, and I don't need to see the scale numbers crash into left-long-ago numbers to reinforce the knowledge that the overgrowth diet is good for my body and cheating on it is not.
Also, in this case, ignorance is actually bliss.
On the plus side, at the end of the week, I finally found a tea that could actually stand in for coffee in terms of how much I love it:
It's Get Probiotic - No. 18 Tea for Digestive Health by The Republic of Tea. I initially got it because it's caffeine free and uses red tea instead of black or green, and because probiotic anything is really, really good for candida overgrowth. The trick, I found, is to add a big slice of lemon…so, so good.
So that's it. Done with week 3. Tune into week 4, where I take over the world, win the hearts of young men everywhere, and propel the current culture into a radical new future!
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Catch up, half-pint:
Candida overgrowth, which (not to be dramatic) is pretty much the worst thing ever
