Monday morning...

[fajrdrako]

I'd set my alarm for 6:20 a.m., and so woke up thinking, "Why is my alarm going off in the middle of the night?" from a dream about something vaguely connected to George Lucas and Star Wars. I wonder why. I don't even like Star Wars.¹

I have a plan that for a week I will try following a rotation diet. I was reading Finally ... Food I Can Eat by Shirley Plant. Any author who dares to put an ellipsis in her title has my respect. A nurse at the General Hospital had been singing the praises of this book, and saying how following it made her feel better, have more energy, and lost weight. All of which would be good.

But... it isn't easy, despite urging in the Introduction that 'you too can do this'. I did it when I was on the anti-candidiasis diet, and it was appalling - but there was incentive. That alternative was worse. I have no doubt it would be good for me, but - breakfasts that take half an hour to bake, and start with grinding the flaxseed?

I could do it. I'd have to be more desperate than I am now. Maybe if I start slow, it won't seem to time-consuming. I could take the principle of CRON and add the suggested combining of foods. Which is actually non-combining: No proten with starch; I can do that. Fruit only on its own. I can do that, too. Meals may seem a little strange, but I'm going to try it for a week. I might even cut out wheat for a week, too, experimentally. See how it affects me.

Well, for six days. I'm not going to skip Thanksgiving for this.

[Added for reference.]

~ ~ ~

¹ Except for Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan slash, of course.

Comments

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Sounds fascinating. Good luck to you.

Ah, right, your Thanksgiving is this coming Monday. Every year I forget. So, happy Thanksgiving, eh?

Since I've been about nine solid months without soy in any of its blatant forms, I have been able to notice when I eat anything else that I'm sensitive to or intolerant of. Also, I notice more quickly when I come in contact with any other stuff I cannot tolerate: chemicals in soaps and cleaning products and personal-care products. Basically, I can't tolerate ANY of them, dammit. Making me very happy that I never picked up the habit of wearing make-up or using hairspray or such things, back in my youth, as if I had, how messed up would I be by now from all those other chemicals, huh? I shudder to think.

So, here I am, wearing cotton and maybe silk, looking all the while for clothing made of hemp and woven bamboo (it exists, I just haven't really run across it), eating plain food and enjoying it a great deal... and drinking soda-pop, gadzooks, what am I thinking! [g] But a person needs one vice, right? That's mine.

Got some sweet corn on the cob and new potatoes, yesterday, and hope I have the energy to cook them tomorrow!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Why does a person need a vice? The question exists on several levels: does one really need a vice, or is that just the voice of human weakness, keeping us sane? If it's human nature to succumb to our weaknesses, it must have an evolutionary purpose: otherwise we'd all be perfect and dealing with the problems that come from that.

Not sure what my vice is. Not soft drinks, unless you count Kinnie. I would jump on a Kinnie at any opportunity, which is maybe why I hesitate to order some from that gentleman in Mississauga. But....

Yeah. One vice.

I wish I could tell what I'm actually sensitive to. I suppose the idea of the rotation diet is that it doesn't matter: sometimes you can never tell, and I usually can't. It seems a good bet that I'm sensistive to wheat, or gluten, because I know I had candidiasis and that's typical of the condition.

Current theory: that due to the after-effects having an auto-immune disease, or more than one (I'm thinking 'polio' and 'scleroderma' here), or just a certain kind of metabolism, I am prone to all sorts of food sensitivities and when I eat the way most people do (allowing sugar, additives, white bread, etc.) it wears me down to an ongoing level of fatigue, allergies, congestion, and so on. If that's the problem, a rotation diet should make me feel better - which it is doing already. The good thing about this is that it means I can sometimes have sugar, sometimes have bread, and so on - I don't need to cut out anything forever. Just to be careful with all of it.

An ongoing experiment, being desperate to feel better, even though I haven't felt all that bad. Just not all that good, either.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Hm. I think, to be fully honest, that when I said "a person needs one vice," I actually meant: I will never agree to obey society's rules for what I should be doing, and in that context, "vice" is simply "what someone in that external position would dislike me to be doing. I'll never behave, I meant. I don't consider vices to be weakness. I consider indulging in "vices" to be empowering. In this context, at least. Not trying to apply this universally, mind you.

I think your current theory is quite grounded and likely. I've been having that idea about your physical issues for quite some time, now, but never found a way to verbalize it. Remember you once pointed out to me, when I was saying that I seemed to be having more difficulty tolerating chemicals and so on (this was years ago, sorry, my may have fully forgotten), that you believed that people accumulate environmental toxins steadily, and finally at some point will start to react to them once a certain level has been reached? I have found this quite true. And, alas, some of us (in some instances but not all) will have a very, very low tolerance and one full meal might put us over the limit all at once, from more than one individual element. Such as, if I were to eat ice cream after having a Bic Mac and then have three bananas for breakfast. Let's see: dairy; soy; and a revolving intolerance for bananas. I'd be sick for about two weeks on that one. Just each one individually, I could overcome in a couple days; all on top of each other, however, multiplies the effects. It really knocks a person down. The time I overdosed on the cleaning-chemical smells in my rental car, it took me five weeks to recover. I was congested and had a sore throat and then food-poisoning symptoms... all of it from the cleaning product used in that car. Gnahh!

I agree again: sometimes have this, sometimes have that. Why else exist? And just be careful. You'll find a balance. I have. Took me decades of being blind to it all, then about six years of being mindful but ignorant, then two more years of being steadily increasingly informed and self-supportive. At first it was hard to stop eating the things that made me sick (I love the taste and texture of soy protein, for instance, and also margarine [all soy], and salad dressing [all soy], and so on), but as months go by, it gets easier, and I find other things to splurge on: soda pop, sometimes candy (usually just chocolate), and now and then just a nice restaurant meal that I don't cook myself.

But: getting to this point of self-awareness took, basically, the same thing you are doing: rotate what you eat, and see how you feel with each sort of thing. So... yep, you can do it. You've already started. Good for you!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'll never behave, I meant

You anarchist! [g] Good for you.

I consider indulging in "vices" to be empowering. In this context, at least.

I suspect it's always empowering, though some vices kill you in double-quick time.

Yes, I agree about accumulation of toxins and that is what this diet is supposed to combat. I hope it works! I was going over my diet for the week and saw that I didn't quite meet the four-day rule, even though I thought I had. But I feel so much better it hardly matters.

I have totally lost my taste for chocolate, which is handy. I wouldn't mind white chocolate, but it wouldn't ever be a craving. My only craving had been for a Caramac bar, and I had one a few months ago, so it's okay now. It was the nostalgia of taste-memory. It was good, but a little over-sweet. No need to eat one again soon.