On what we put in our mouths

So I tried this experiment this week in which I cut out all flour, starches, and sugar from my diet (exception being lower sugar fruit like berries).

I allowed myself protein, vegetables, and dairy, some berries, and nuts.

For a few days I felt yucky. I couldn't tell if that was a "low carb flu" that people who cut out a lot of carbs get or whether it was my job (which was very stressful this week). I felt headachy, lethargic, and tired.

I had this weird upper stomach bloating that I was able to pinpoint exactly to extra dairy intake. I cut out the dairy for about two days and voila, it was gone. (I had SOME dairy, just not the big amounts I was having before).

However, come Friday morning, I woke up and felt wonderful. I had lost 4 pounds and felt full of energy and ready to take on what I knew would be a long and frantic day of meetings, more meetings, data, and hardly any actual teaching. By the end of the day, my stomach hurt in a throbbing way, but that was stress from a particular meeting that ended up being upsetting emotionally (long story, but there's a child that I work with who ended up witnessing something really bad in his home and I got to hear about it in detail). The stomach hurting ended when I left school.

Anyway, I promptly ruined all progress by eating a mini bag of m&ms (I NEEDED CHOCOLATE, K???) and then I went out to eat with some friends and had french fries and wine.

How do I feel this morning? My stomach rebelled. There was much tmi. I'm feeling off.

So game on again today. No sugar, no flour, no starches. Just basic, basic food. How can that be wrong? I've been reading up on the Paleo way of eating a lot. I'm not a trend follower, except when the trend follows along how I'm feeling. My main obstacle is myself. My main obstacle is inconsistency and laziness. That's what I have to remember.

I have thought about maybe adding chicken back into my diet. I've been a fish-only vegetarian for a few years now. The idea of red meat and pork still make me gag, but chicken is, well, chicken. And if I buy locally where I won't feel I'm contributing to cruel chicken farms, then I feel I can do that ethically (in the summer when my chicken-eating husband was here, I bought chicken from the farmer's market from a local farm).

So in conclusion, our body is amazing. It's amazing how what we put in our mouth affects our moods, our aches and pains, and energy levels.

Next? How to get my writing focused, how to get my writing focused...