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.
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