January 31, 2015 jennaroberts

Viva la Resolution! Viva la Resistance!

You made your resolutions almost a month ago. Are you still sticking to them with that determined hope of a new way of being? Or, are you already flailing in your failings with hopeless distress or apathy? Let’s charge forth into this non-January with a new thought for our goals and dreams.

Here’s the cycle many of us know all too well:

– Make a Goal! I’m going gluten-free, baby!

– Begin. Feel hopeful and adamant. Hey now, this GF bread brand is alright.

– Rock it. Happy Dance! I said no to pizza and felt fine! Yes!

– Cheat on your plan, breaking the continuum. Damn you, chocolate chip cookie peddler.

– Beat yourself up. Why do I even bother? I’m going to fail anyhow.

– Half-assed attempt to restart, now in a state of mild fear of failure with depression. Sigh. No pizza for me.

– Repeat with less verve; spiral through each step until you give up and return to the old pattern. When I found out beer has gluten, I said to hell with it. The gas isn’t that bad, right? Right?

Simply doing this again is pointless. How do you break free and actually accomplish your goal? First, look at the list and ask, “Where did this path go astray?”

Consider that the first flop was not the cheat. The real loss was the self-abuse for not being perfect in your trajectory. It is beating yourself up that actually affects your capacity to continue.

Increase your Value — Be Kind to You to Increase your Success Value

Think of an incredibly valuable stock. It doesn’t make a strait line up and up, it wiggles up and down on a steady rise. We don’t pull out of our mutual fund because it drops a few points, so why do we ask ourselves to have zero moments of fallback.

You go from being a hot cheerleader for Team You, to being the school bully. Maybe it’s best to simply become the good teacher to yourself, and encourage diligence with acceptance.

Self-loathing is the beast that whispers songs of the hopeless. If you make a mistake, keep the muzzle on this bastard and release the virulent Care Bears of Forgiveness and Fortitude. Get back up and return to the new habit with dedication and patience.

The word Resolution is from Latin resolutionem meaning: a process of reducing things into simpler forms.

So let us resolve to simplify this process. If the goal you set is overwhelming you, break it down into a manageable practice. Then build on it over a longer span of time.

Give yourself one month to get the hang of being gluten-free or sugar-free or coffee-free rather than judging your ability early on, or taking on multiple at once. The first few weeks are when you are adjusting to your emotional, mental, and physical relationship to food. Ease up and know it gets easier after the hump.

Ben's Actual Dieting Chart — Ben’s Actual Diet Chart

Rather than hoping to completely transform yourself on every level, choose a focus. Benjamin Franklin kept a calendar and abstained from one vice at a time. This gave him the space to observe the practice and see the results more clearly. Witness yourself taking ownership over your will and stay inspired to keep going.

Dive into your month ahead with the same zest for possibility, but with a kinder voice in your head and a more gradual path to climb. Allow yourself to enjoy the journey, and you will likely get further than you have in the past with whips and floggers. Unless you’re into that kind of kink.

December 11, 2014 jennaroberts

Be That Turkey

I can drag out that last box of cookies in the food supply for weeks. Meanwhile, I continue to allow myself the free taste of fried orange chicken at the mall, and the potluck cheesecake as I agonize over how much I am going to miss these delights.

Turkey Ice Capades! Go Cold, Turkey, Go!

The quitting date gets pushed further, and I am not really even enjoying the slow sentimental release. It’s like a soap opera death scene where every single character has to have their last moment in the hospital goodbyes. Just let the woman die already, she got hit by that yacht weeks ago! But, I’ll never forget you, apple strudel.

In my many diet starts, I have found that going cold turkey is the least painful option. Simply set a clear date that best suits your life. Quitting the week before your birthday is jumping on the wagon trail to doom town. If your work is especially stressful and involves free burgers and cookies that week, maybe wait until that program is completed.

If your work is always stressful though, just start already. If your doctor is giving you a squinted stare down with acronyms such as IBS, just own the moment and make the switch fast and firm. Eating right will lower your stress levels once you have a grip on it, especially if you’re giving up that “white pony” of refined sugar.

‘Going cold turkey’ is a phrase coined among drug addicts and alcoholics. Anyone who has given up sugar or gluten knows the cold shakes that come from a warm brownie set before you. Sugar lights up the same part of the brain as cocaine or heroine. Gluten and dairy break down into protein chains that have similar effects as morphine. It is fair to say that you are a brave soul to enter your own private rehab for any food habits.

Once you quit your smack, be prepared with snacks. A chewy item for a gluten fix, a sweet item for sugar highs, or a coconut cream substitute for dairy can appease the munchies. Carry appetite suppressants such as nuts or apples with you, and drink tulsi tea to balance your digestion and lower your stress levels. Drinking a lot of water and tea can also make things go more swimmingly as you detoxify.

As you change your eating habits, your body needs time to adjust, and your willpower needs time to build. You might find your energy levels bouncing, emotional crashes, abnormal hunger, or that you are more irritable than usual. Trust that this is a temporary state. After the hump of the first three weeks, it gets much easier.

It is essential to let your family and friends know that you need some extra support during the beginning. Teasing and enticing you is crap, and they should owe you a foot massage for each infraction. Pep talks, kind interventions, and discretion with ice cream consumption are acts of love that you should feel lucky to have.

While encouragement is grand, no one can do this for you. It is up to you to say good words to yourself that motivate your daily choices. Find your own serenity prayer to pull you through. Even the simple words, “I got this”, repeated in moments of craving, can bring your strength up.

Do it. Empty out your cupboard of the conflict item, go find some recipes that replace your usual meals and start cooking. It’s all a lot easier and more dignified.

Honor that you are a bad ass for taking on a challenge that terrifies many. If those who are blissfully unaware of food rehab tease you about it, just know that they are scared of your ultimate willpower. Anything non-essential that you cannot give up for one month, owns you. You are owning your life. Be that turkey.

November 23, 2014November 23, 2014 jennaroberts

Down the Tube: A History of Health Haphazards

“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.