Diet: A Dirty Four Letter Word

This is a Writer’s Workshop writing prompt. The task: Describe the worst diet you ever put yourself on.

You are What You Eat

I’ve never been one to put myself on fad diets. I’ve always been the health conscious type, you know carrot sticks instead of candy bars. I believe in eating whatever I want as long as it healthy (or at least moderately so), and in moderation.

With my lifetime of pretty decent food choices, you would think I would be in perfect health, right? Wrong! I’ve been pretty sick my entire life, and as an adult (I’m only 33) I’ve faced a lot of health challenges. None more so than this past year. I’ve made the rounds to all kinds of specialist who cannot seem to hit the nail on the head with me. So, being the DIY kind of gal that I am, I’ve taken my health into my own hands.

Gluten-Free Diet

I’ve always been the kind of girl to read up on health and medicine (I briefly toyed with the idea of going to medical school when I entered college), so I’m not without some pretty firm medical knowledge. I’ve read pretty extensively on the subject of Celiac Disease, and with my symptoms paralleling those of the disease, had myself tested. Of course the tests take about a month to come back, and while I was waiting, decided to try eliminating all gluten from my diet – I wanted to try to get a little relief from my woes.

Eliminating gluten from my diet meant eliminating breads, pastas, and anything else that may contain it. This was EXTREMELY DIFFICULT – I love a good muffin or slice of homemade bread for breakfast! Of course, there are gluten-free bread and pasta alternatives, but in my experience they’re pretty lousy (except for some delish gluten-free chocolate muffins I came across).

Candida Diet

Luckily, after my month without gluten my tests showed no Celiac disease – yay, except now I’m back to where I started – what the heck’s wrong with me? So more fervent researching…now I’m pretty positive I’m dealing with an overgrowth of candida albicans within my body. So in order to get a handle on it I have to eliminate a TON of foods from my diet – far more than going gluten-free. The irony, however, is that I’m now back off breads and pastas, and a bunch of other foods I love to eat – Whoopee (if you missed it, that’s a very sarcastic “whoopee”).

I haven’t fully committed to the candida diet yet – I need time to prepare myself, although I have already begun eliminating certain foods. But, if I can finally begin to heal my body and live a somewhat normal day to day life, then depriving myself of a few foods is totally worth it. Believe me when I say good health is worth far more than a serving of pistachio Haagen Daz or a piece of focaccia bread!

What about you? What’s the worst diet you’ve ever been on? Feel free to leave a comment.

Michelle

I'm a lover of life and all things natural and organic. I love practicing yoga, making healthy foods, nature photography, DIY projects, making homemade beauty treats, and creating handmade jewelry. I'm passionate about a lot of things and write about them here on my blog. Peace, social justice, good food, green beauty, sustainable living - you name it, I care about it. Thanks for taking the time to visit me. Peace. ;)

Comments

3 thoughts on “Diet: A Dirty Four Letter Word”

I don’t ‘do’ diets. Like you, I try to live a healthy lifestyle by eating healthfully as well as working out and doing lots of yoga (mental health – very important!). That said, a few years ago I started feeling horrible and no one put a name on what was ailing me until I saw a GI. Low and behold: IBS – for me, caused by stress. I eventually realized that food was playing a major part in my feelings of crappiness, and over a period of two years I did trial and error. What worked? What didn’t work? Now, I know what to avoid besides stress and feel much better. I’m also lactose intolerant thanks to the IBS! Woohoo!

:-p
Ann recently posted..André- Man of Miracles

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Michelle on October 22, 2010 at 11:46 am said:

Hi Ann,

I really can understand how you feel. My doctors have yet to put a name to what ails me, plus the fact that I’m not the easiest person in the world to get to take drugs (I only want natural treatments/cures) or surgery (even if it’s not very invasive) – my diagnosis still eludes me. It’s still a lot of trial and error on my part, but as long as I find some good in what’s been going on with me I can cope. It’s been a learning experience, and a valuable one at that.

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.

Peace,
Michelle

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