Belly Laughs

Paleo, Gluten-free, Sugar-free, Vegan, SIBO, SCD, FodMaps . . . There are so many ways to manage your gut health through diet. After you taper off of any of these control zones, there is almost too much freedom. It’s easy to slip into old habits and find yourself relapsing into a slice of pizza with soda.

Rather than bouncing between free-for-all and extreme restrictions, I am now seeking out a more refined golden ticket, that of balance. Perhaps this will protect me from the prison of strict limitations in the future. In the meantime, I might even feel better everyday.

Crappy Feeling vs. Crap Food Cravings

Each of these diets has taught me lessons about what foods make me feel good, and which ones lead to belly aches or jittery highs. For each, I seek out a quantity of allowance that lets me relish a treat without much suffering.

Coffee is not actually required to be alert, and I do not enjoy the panics that come with it. Maybe a few times each year, though, I will let myself sip on a friends’ mocha, or I’ll order a decaf.

The rush and crash of sugar highs are exhausting, but I am not giving up on ice cream for life either. Nirvana it’s not, but I continue to practice more control than, say, a 12-year-old at a slumber party.

Shall I eat gluten again? Oh yes, I shall. I simply have decided to wait until they have better regulations on Round Up in wheat harvesting before I test out my physical response to eating it again. I just don’t want that crap in my system anymore.

Thai restaurant carb loads of rice noodles and sugary sauce are delicious. So is Thom Yum Soup though, and I can choose this option that will not leave me speeding home like a tuk tuk in Bangkok.

Self-Flagellation leads to more Flatulation

Every food choice is an opportunity to allow myself to feel better the day after, or to treat myself. If I need a moment of celebration or self-pity, maybe I will allow a whiskey with a decadent dessert. It’s essential to simply ensure that every week does not manifest a new reason to earn an aberration from a path of healthy eating habits.

The goal is to not beat yourself up for choosing unwisely here and there. It only creates more self-pity party possibilities. Studies have shown that feeling guilt while eating treats actually increases the ill effects on your system. So relish and enjoy when you make the choice to fulfill your inner snack fiend.

The Dance of the Cold Turkey

Some food choices become an easy habit of conscious choice; the benefit of how I feel afterward outweighs the itch for fake food. In my case, I have decided to remain totally gluten-free, mostly dairy-free, sporadically sugar-free, and avoid most processed foods.

Other restrictions, like sugar, give me insight into the daily challenges of heroin addicts. In these cases, I will do the dance of cold turkey until I find the sweet spot of appreciating sweets with an ease satisfaction.

The Gobblin’ Grooves

How to do the dance: Cut out an impulse food completely for a month or more. Then gradually allow it back in to gain control over the addiction.

If you find yourself killing that box of brownies in two days, you might want to take brownies off of your shopping list options. If one beer becomes five without much forethought, maybe move to kombucha for a month.

Keep a journal on how much you eat of it and how you feel. When you feel lousy, maybe taper off it if. Even if you have outside circumstance that may result in your feeling lousy, just make a new system that you are only allowed this treat when you are feeling good. This protects from emotional eating habits as well as your overall health.

Becoming your own Best Parent

It’s up to you to be your own best guardian when it comes to dietary choices. You can do it with positive affirmations and healthier replacements, rather than Catholic School rulers and repressing all snacks. Find the zone where you feel good and enjoy eating.

Finally, don’t go hating on people who dip Cheetoes in bacon mayonnaise and swish it back with diet soda. That’s their choice, so save the lectures. Be your own best self. Trust that you are on your path, and they are on theirs. Your path will most likely need a lot less toilet paper down the line.

“Don’t make me be gluten free. I know how you people always tell everyone that they have to be gluten free.”

You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. — You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

This was my first clarification at the initial visit to the naturopath. It seems that any ailment can lead to this burdensome dietary restriction. If a planter’s wart was risky, my broken lips were a definite threat to cookie consumption.

I had come to a naturopath to sort out my angular cheilitis, the chronic cracking at the edges of my lips that had gone on for 6 years and was getting worse. The appearance of having constant oral herpes, when I didn’t, fell suspect in my lack of a love life. Allopathic MDs only offered topical steroids, and I needed a real solution.

The doctor pointed to her own healthy smiling mouth and replied, “Well, this is the end of your tube. So if something is inflamed here, it might also be down the line. Don’t worry though, we won’t do anything until we get some tests done.”

I pondered for a moment on this tube she was talking about, almost as if it were an epiphany that my mouth and anus were related. Sometimes the most obvious things are the most remarkable.

Two weeks later, the GI Health Panel results were in.

“You are definitely going to need to be gluten free,” she said. I slumped and groaned

“And dairy free. You have a parasite called cryptosporidium and your saliva shows extremely low immunoglobulins.“

A new vocabulary was upon me, as anyone who has had gut troubles knows. At least this pest had a fun name that sounded like a dark and mysterious, erm, spore. Nice nemesis for a superhero to step up to. “You’re going down, Cryptosporidium!”

Better yet, being protozoan, it had no eyes or legs, which spared me the deeper creepers. Little did I know yet of the havoc it had wreaked since it had become a stowaway on a trip to Central America.

For the next three months, I was put on a regiment of a strict diet with caprylic acid, homeopathies, and immune boosters like glutamine. It was an incredible challenge to give up so much of my standard food so quickly. I succeeded in ridding myself of the crypto, but this little freeloader colony had lived in my intestinal tract like an unemployed hippie in his enabling mom’s basement. Thus the journey to clean and heal began.

If I understood that I would be still riding this challenge four years later, I might have had an emotional breakdown. First, I would rid myself of the parasites, then the yeast came. I would eradicate them with the challenging candida cleanse and anti-fungal meds. Yet again, a new candida variant would emerge like the opportunistic bastards they are.

These reoccurrences led me to find that I had heavy metal poisoning, a relationship common in many chronic candida sufferers. I chelated, and the yeast finally seemed to go away, but my lips were still inflamed and eczema had cropped up along the way on my hands.

Most recently, I tested positive for SIBO, small intestine bacterial overgrowth, and found that the crypto and the yeast had left behind a resort town for bacteria in my small intestines. I have just completed my second round of antibiotics, and decided to protect myself further from yeast by cutting out fruits. I am presently on an incredibly strict diet that consists primarily of meat, green vegetables, and nuts.

Come to think of it, I have had some pretty powerful emotional breakdowns along the way. I also have learned to cook, to refuse sugar treats, and to honor that I have impressive patience. I also shamelessly share about my intestines at parties. Thus, the blog.

I hope that this place will become a haven for those of you who are diving into your guts to find freedom from ailments. Come by to remember that you’re not alone in your experiences. Even if you’re gassy today, you’re still welcome here.

Belly Bubblings

Balance Act: Walking the Intestinal Tightrope

Down the Tube: A History of Health Haphazards