What Healthy Eating Looks Like

Just last January, I was walking around in the haze of chronic fatigue. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is caused by two nasty viruses that some people can’t get over. The viruses live in your brain stem, causing a whole slew of neurological symptoms that, literally, make you feel like your losing your mind.
Then the insomnia sets in, and then the bone-crushing, muscle-aching fatigue. Pretty soon every system in your body is malfunctioning, and you feel like you’re hungover, seasick, and jet-lagged all the time.
There’s no cure for CFS. For over a year I took chemo drugs, IV drips of vitamin C and virus-suppressing drugs, and also megadoses of really powerful antivirals. All this with the hope my immune system would win the battle against the ever-replicating viruses.
Praise the Lord, over the past year, my immune system has won. I’m healthy again, and all those potent drugs and needles weren’t what did it.
Receiving healing prayer at Serenity Retreat changed my health, my life, the way I see myself and God. Healing Prayer still helps me deal with everyday stress. I strongly believe everyone I know should receive healing prayer, even if you’re not battling CFS.
But that’s another post. What I really wanted to talk about today was diet.
In the past year, I’ve changed what I eat, and those changes have helped me feel so much better.
I cut dairy, alcohol, most sugar, most caffeine, and most gluten out of my diet. I would love to say ALL sugar, ALL caffeine, and ALL gluten, but I’m a weak person. I will gladly take the pick-me-up from a tall glass of sweet tea, even if it means a crash later. Ditto for chocolate energy bars I know are laced with gluten. Which makes gluten seem like cocaine and makes my life sound so much more dangerous than it is. (For the record, I misspelled cocaine four times before spell-check finally said, “Here, you sheltered idiot. It’s not cocoaine.”)
This brings me to the cutting-out-alcohol topic. Abstaining from alcohol makes me seem like I’ve so much more of an interesting relationship with it than I’ve ever really had. I haven’t drank more than one or two glasses of wine per week for years (except on nights all the kids have WE’VE NEVER SEEN THIS CONCEPT BEFORE homework and M is working late, then it was always a bottle or two. Kidding. Sort of.). But after twenty years of drinking a little bit every few days, giving it up makes me see how crappy it made me feel. So, even though I sound like someone in a 12-step program, who refuses alcohol at the booziest of events, I don’t even miss it. Seriously. If you want to feel better, try cutting out alcohol for a few months and see what changes. Don’t only try this during pregnancies since you’ll be feeling horrible anyway.
Unlike alcohol, I used to eat dairy products constantly. Like any woman who’s been through horrific morning sickness, ice cream holds a special place in my heart as my best friend during many late-night binges. My morning pick-me-up used to be delicious creamer, with a little splash of coffee. I could eat just cheese for lunch. And dinner. And snacks. And that’s not even talking about yogurt I guzzled in between those cheese snacks. But getting rid of all this dairy has helped me get rid of my bloating, acid reflux, and stomach cramps. If I were to recommend one change I made that helped the most, it would  giving up dairy products.
Gluten is a tricky one because “gluten-free” has become a marketing buzz word and adhering to just that can mean trouble. Super refined carbs were the culprit for my gut issues, and gluten is in lots of those. So, I feel much better when I eat whole foods instead of lots of processed grains.  I’ve found that I have to be careful because lots of gluten-free foods are made with other hard-to-digest ingredients like soybean flour. Eating weird chips made from other hard-to-digest ingredients makes me feel worse than the gluten probably would have.
Sugar is the worst culprit of all, at least for me. Zapped energy, racing heart, and upset stomach are just three of the problems that come with eating sugar…not to mention the weight gain, complexion problems, and other issues, like candida. Because sugar is in everything, it’s just so hard to give up. I can do it for about a week. Just when I think I’m off the sauce, I realize my favorite deli soup has more sugar in it than chocolate milk. Then I realize I haven’t really given it up and why I’m always craving the stupid stuff. BUT I do know that I feel a million times better without sugar. Fantastic, in fact. Back when I first tried these dietary changes, I cooked everything from scratch, and I stopped craving sugar after a while. But, who has time to cook everything homemade?
Thanks for reading. This year has been such a metamorphous of health changes, that I wanted to share a little of what I’ve changed and how it’s changed my life. I hope maybe it can help you feel better too.