Maria's Journey: Disrupted Routines
Since my last blog life got busier, I had to travel for a contract with a new company overnight so my routine changed dramatically. The program went out of the window, which left me feeling really disappointed with myself. While I didn’t eat unhealthily, the company provided a lovely variety of healthy food I didn’t eat regularly, as Phil has urged, regularity is the key for me. I didn’t get my water intake and I didn’t inform the company that I am gluten and dairy intolerant. So while the foods were healthy they contained dairy and gluten. I don’t suffer with major allergies but I find that gluten and dairy have an effect on my general health with symptoms such as quite bad bloating, I get sores in my mouth and if I consume a lot of dairy and gluten then acute gut pain, massive cold sores and of course not so perfect poos! This all had a detrimental effect on my weigh-in I gained…0.3 of a kilo. It really felt like a step backwards to me, mostly because I was too polite to say that I had intolerances.
What this brought up for me is the whole issue of telling people that you have a ‘special’ diet, you can almost see some people’s eyes roll back into their head and hear them saying oh no not another one. Then there is the mind body perspective of, if you think it of course you will have an allergy because that is what you are programming your body to think. It’s a big can of worms to open. I do come from a mind body perspective however, in looking at my childhood history of poor gut health and then the repercussions on my general health as a child, I do wonder about the nature versus nurture theory.
Each time I have completed a comprehensive gut healing process I have tried reintroducing gluten and dairy in very small amounts gradually building up and I end up back to square one…very sick again. So I have just decided mentally that I feel better when I leave certain foods out of my diet, I don’t make a fuss of it I just eliminate these foods.
My appointment with Phil was great as he has helped me put things in place for the next trip, I will take some fruit and some other back up foods that are light to pack that are gluten and dairy free, such as raw protein and fruit bars. As Phil pointed out, it was a very last minute trip so to give myself credit for some things I did really well; I drank lots of green tea, I still got a good walk in and more importantly… I was very aware that I was not sticking to the program. Phil said this was half the battle. He also pointed out that it was only .3 of a kilo …it could have been much worse.
So I feel more prepared for the next planned trip on Thursday.
Maria from Auckland