I Swallowed an Alien
Sometimes that seems to be the only rational explanation for my girth.
One would think, from my diet, that there’s no way I could house excess flesh on my person. I’ve had people ask me, point blank, “Why are you fat?”
Indeed. I don’t eat high carbs, dairy, sugar or chocolate – and eat so many vegetables I should be nominated for Rabbit of the Year.
Ever searching for explanations for why I am/feel/bloat the way I do, it’s so easy to get sucked into fear and conspiracy where personal health is concerned. And to adopt every diet known to humanity, and spend countless hours researching every symptom and condition and remedy for them. Because if I don’t, of course, then I am damned.
One woman I know is on what she calls the “Berkeley Diet” - giving up food after food in search of better health until the only things one can eat are ginger and sprouts. Healthy, eh? I know another woman who can only eat fish and carrots, and another who can only eat refried beans from a certain batch number, year after year after year. I know people who haven’t been able to go outside their homes in 20 years because they can’t handle diesel or weed killer or laundry fumes.
I was semi-housebound for 2 years. I know that I’ve had food sensitivities all my life, and it didn’t help when a flea bomb went off in my face a number of years ago. Plus a fire that destroyed 3000 homes and an oleum explosion that sent 25,000 people to the hospital, all in the space of two years. Life in the Bay Area was such a, um, blast… It was shortly after that that my immune system said, “System overloaded. Reboot? (Y/N)”
Sure I’ll reboot. Happy to. Won’t take long, will it?
Welcome to the World’s Fair of Chronic Illness.
One naturopath called my swirly mass of symptoms a “swimming dragon,” that the closer I get to finding a root cause, the more it swims away. He recommended a change in diet.
So, after veering away from the standard American diet, I went on the:
Yeast Connection Diet (1993-95)
Macrobiotics (1995)
Bastardized macrobiotics - essentially an abyss of wheat, dairy, sugar, yeast and taste-free cuisine (1995-2001)
Type O diet (2001-04)
Type A diet (3 minutes, 2004)
No-Grain Diet (2004-2005)
Standard American Diet (oops) (2005-2006)
And currently, a bastardized combo of No-Grain, raw food and Body Ecology Diet.
It soon became such that in efforts to have me over for dinner and enable me to eat something more than salad and plate garnish, my friends were asking, “So what diet are you on this week?”
Yet after all these years of evolving my consciousness about food as healer, as medicine, I’m still sick. Still have joint pain, chemical sensitivies, ADD, PMS, liver congestion, fatigue…Yet I eat SO well. Borrowing a phrase from Donna Gates, author of the Body Ecology Diet, I’m probably “the healthiest sick person around.”
Western medicine shrugs its shoulders at me. Eastern medicine says it’s my diet. So apart from a stubborn case of gut dysbiosis (a bad bacteria festival), genetics, past lives, karma, and other biochemical oddities, I’m guessing I did swallow a strange life form somewhere along the line. A fat alien, no doubt, with a large, if charming, dose of insecurity about being fat.
Alien dude, time for you to go back to the mothership.
Mellie, :)
I will never be able to be as dedicated as you but you will be happy to hear, I think, that I have been making a very sincere effort to eliminate high-fructose corn syrup from our diets. Natural peanut butter, all-fruit jelly, whole grain bread, homemade applesauce, fruits, etc. We have not made it completely, but we are trying.
Cost is such an issue. We eat 4 or 5 boxes of cereal a week and I usually buy the store brand, usually the healthiest choices they offer although my daughter just has a yen periodically for the fake golden grahams that I do indulge. I try not to buy anything where sugar is the first or second ingredient but while I would like to go all natural on the cereal, it would take my weekly cereal bill from $8 or 10 to $20 or more. Ouch!
If it’s an issue for middle-class me, what an issue it must be for those who have a much tighter food budget.
Is cost ever an issue for you on the Horror diet?
Hi Kel! You know, I have been eating rabbit food for so long that I just pay what it costs. Basically I just buy vegetables these days; occasionally some quinoa and some meat or fish. I will say that organic avocados are a rip, at $2.99 for one! But it’s just me and the cat, so I don’t have to shell out for a whole family.
And cat food is relatively affordable, although I prefer to buy the natural kind, because I suspect, like me, my cat has food allergies! Whenever she visits the neighbors, she eats Friskies (aka feline junk food) or whatever they leave out on their porch, and she gets headaches and runny poop. When I keep her in (against her will) she doesn’t.
I have tried eating non-organic veggies, which are cheaper, but they don’t taste as good to me. It could be because in addition to the pesticides they spray on them, they also coat them with wax to make them appear ‘fresher.’ If I’m going to eat vegetables, they need to taste as good as they can, otherwise they’ll turn into Unidentified Molding Objects in my fridge.
I know when I was growing up, I chowed down cereal. Cheerios was my favorite, as well as Total and Bran Chex. I suppose I chose the healthier cereals, but sugar first thing in the morning disgusted me. One of my brothers, though, had a long-term relationship with Count Chocula. And Boo-Berry.
I don’t have breakfast food for breakfast, since wheat and eggs and dairy are verboten. I often have dinner’s leftovers or I make a smoothie. Is that an option for you, or are there no leftovers to have? :-)
Congrats on getting away from HF corn syrup!!!! Woohoooo!