For years, I was the skinny girl that could eat anything and it didn't impact me. Yes, I was a runner, but it always seemed to be more than that.
Then, I got old....er.
Then, I was diagnosed with an auto-immune.
Everywhere I looked, read or listened, people told me I NEEDED to cut out sugar. That cutting out sugar would change my life and I would feel sooo much better.
It never worked.
I cut out sugar (okay not 100% but like 90%...) and did. not. feel. better. I typically tried this when I was feeling like crap and I KEPT feeling like crap!
I wasn't crazy enough to think that I needed sugar, I just didn't think that was the thing my body didn't need.
Then, I had a food intolerance test done.
I had my husband cut about an inch of hair off from the back of my head and sent it into a lab. I used a Groupon. The book I read on my auto-immune HIGHLY recommended this and provided recommended testing centers but I wasn't prepared to pay those prices. Afterall, would it really work? Or was it a hoax or something that worked for everyone else?
Just under three weeks later and I received my results.
When I gave up sugar, do you know what I increased my eating of? No surprise, veggies. Which veggies? My faves! Cucumbers, green peppers, broccoli and kale. Yep, I actually do love these.
Can you guess what I have an intolerance towards? What foods are inflammatory for me?
That's right: cucumbers, green peppers, broccoli, kale. Yes, there are many other things (olive oil, chia seeds, gluten, tomatoes, egg yolks, tequila, etc.), but these are what jumped out at me. So, every time I cut out sugar, while I was helping my body, I wasn't helping my body entirely because I was giving it MORE of other stuff it didn't want. (I was right!!!)
This has made SUCH a difference for in my energy and how healthy I feel. Of course, I do not always stick to it. Sometimes, a girl just has to have pizza or a to-die-for breakfast burrito from Crazy Otto's! But, even if I'm eating poorly, I can still TRY to not eat or eat less of the foods my body REALLY does not want. It's also helped stop the bad momentum from building. When I didn't know what was causing me to feel poorly, I'd eat whatever I wanted or thought would help; now, I know if I've eaten something my body doesn't like, I need to stick to the things it does like the next day.
I believe you can do an elimination diet to try to work this out yourself. I had taken that on a couple of times, but without much success. I would cut out the things I was told (gluten, lactaid, eggs, etc.) but fill in the holes with foods I couldn't imagine my body couldn't tolerate. In the auto-immune book I read, the author talks about how fruit is highly inflammatory for her and it took a long time to figure that out, because who would have thought?
As always, if you'd like to talk live about your experience, I'm game =) Reach out and let's share notes!
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