I hate food and food hates me. You wouldn’t know it from looking at me as I am overweight. However, I eat because I must and what I eat never seems to be the right choice.
Do you ever feel this way? Someone says, “You should eat healthier” so you eat your egg and toast with orange juice for breakfast, your spinach salad for lunch, and a scrumptious guacamole and pitta bread for supper. But WAIT! Eggs and gluten are top allergens, spinach and guacamole cause upset gut flora! Not to mention that orange juice has me doubled over in pain all day.
Disclaimer: This is not advise on good eating habits.
Whoever said diet is simple was just plain mean! Weight is a big deal to nearly everyone at some point in their life and is likely the number one reason people attempt to eat healthier. It just seems that there are infinite possibilities to dieting wrong.
I know I’m not alone in this and I suspect that more people suffer from the additional complications that I do as well. Allergic reactions to foods….maybe. With Mast Cell Activation Syndrome I’ve found it simpler to tell people I can’t eat something because I’m allergic. Then they see me sneaking a bite of it moments later. Hey, cut me some slack! I’ve been peanut butter free for nearly 15 years and I still crave it. In fact, I hallucinate the smell of peanut butter. It’s cruel!
As some may know I broke my year’s resolution into monthly objectives, see my About Me page for more. I switch which aspect I’m targeting to keep from getting bored with one area or being overwhelmed.
This month’s objective is to improve this hate-hate relationship with food. It’s always a bit vague as I approach the month and I define it as I approach the month. As I started food related goals in January and February, I’ve been learning some things regarding my relationship with food. Using this information gathering I’ve decided to focus on essentially four objectives. So what does that mean to me?
Improving my relationship with food means having an easier time finding things to eat that won’t hurt me and to be able to enjoy foods.
What I’ve learned prior to this month is that I have numerous triggers that make most packaged food my enemy. I have less trouble eating fast food daily than I do from the inner isles of the grocery store. If it says “Spices” on the box then I’m in trouble. I’ve discovered a few minor triggers in the past few months such as aspartame and mold toxins on onions as well as cured meats. Good thing I can still eat deli ham! See the list I compiled below of all triggers for each disorder and their potential crossover.
Goals for May:
- Understand my food triggers
- Add more variety of nutrients to my diet
- Add variety of flavor and/or improve flavor
- Strategies for avoiding food cravings (the relationship between sugar and migraines and cravings)
My diet has been very bland due to my issues with powdered spices and “spices” in packaged foods. They can make me feel bloated or cause stabbing pain in my gut; best case I flush. So obviously understanding what it is about the foods that are triggering specific actions can help me avoid a lot of pain. Also, it’s a chore to work around all of this. My main dish is slow-cooked chicken, rice, and mixed frozen veggies. Bland.
I really enjoyed days in January when I’d get a deli platter with crackers, cheese, and sausage because it was no work and had flavor. The sausages’ nitrites would add up too quickly though and my GI tissue was clearly inflamed from it so out that went.
Then I found the chicken dish and I could batch cook an entire week’s lunches. That worked well. I don’t seem to have any negatives from rice but I was having some issues with packaged seasoned rices. I’m still working on replacing that. I had found one that I can’t remember what it was and haven’t been able to find again.
You can’t enjoy only one or two dishes all the time – it’s terrible, trust me. So I was making fried rice as well. Hit or miss on the seasoning, but it wasn’t inedible. Still not a lot of flavor yet. Then I added in tacos. That was interesting. I love black olives. Tacos are simple and flavorful even without sauce (yes my bar is that low). What I noticed is that after eating the flour tortillas I would crave other bready thing like cookies or more tortillas. More than my meal of two tacos. I’d snack on more bread items.
Then later I ate a sugar cookie and felt the surge of sugar through my brain. It was teetering on the edge of being pain. Interesting. This threshold appears to move based on how much bread/sugar I consume regularly but it got me thinking…what is it about sugar that makes me feel so bad? And more importantly, why have I never noticed it before? I can’t feel it build. I only notice after I’ve been away from sugar and add it back.
I’m not necessarily taking these in order but as soon as I can leave the house again I plan to get some salmon and add in a weekly fish night. I’m not sure yet what I’ll serve with it. I also plan to find non-nut or grain based protein sources to stave off cravings and add nutrients. While I do that I plan to research sugar and it’s influence on migraines and bloating because I’m not confident that I can blame this feeling on gluten.
It’s important not to make goals too overwhelming or restrictive, especially when it comes to changing a life-long issue such as this.
Summary:
- I hope to learn a better way of incorporating sugar into my diet (natural or other forms) and find some fun flavored but easy to make foods to add nutrients that are currently lacking in my chicken and rice diet.
- I also hope to have enough meals to incorporate in June’s goal of automating systems. One of which will be meal planning.