Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Maybe This Isn't Funny Anymore

Day 7 of throwing caution to the wind and eating whatever I want.

It isn't working out so well.

Toward the end of July, I'll admit it now, I was getting fed up with thinking about it all the time. Paradoxically enough, I was so busy writing about healthy eating that I didn't have time to make delicious food or enjoy it.  Eating, thinking about eating, food shopping, food cooking, food writing, it was all getting to be a bit of a chore.

So when it was all over, I celebrated by bingeing on the sheer defiance of not thinking so much. I said yes a lot. Yes I want a drive-through cheeseburger. Yes I want Chinese food. Yes I want another ice cream cone. Yes I want the less expensive, hormone-packed milk in my coffee.

Yes I want more coffee.

And all week long I've felt like I'm walking through a thick fog. I can't concentrate on anything. I can almost feel the woosh of wind as thoughts fly out of my head, right through the fingers of a consciousness trying to grab them.

I'm sleeping too much, but I never feel well rested. My joints and back hurt. My head hurts. My stomach hurts. I'm cranky. I'm apathetic.

Of course, the problem is that my symptoms are similar to those of, oh, pretty much everything. Maybe it's this weird weather we're having and the air pressure changes that come with it. Maybe it's my pollen allergies. Maybe I've developed an intolerance to corn. Maybe it's a tumor. Maybe I just need a vacation. Maybe I can't focus because I'm not sleeping well, and maybe I'm not sleeping well because I'm drinking too much coffee. Maybe I'm just looking for a problem with my health so I can go around saying condescending, judgmental things like, "Oh I haven't drunk COFFEE in YEARS. It's so BAD for you."

I really hope it's not that last one.

Last night, after a homemade dinner of whole wheat pasta and organic, preservative-free, sweetener-free, extra vegan tomato sauce, and basil straight from my garden porch, I felt more like myself than I have in days. I enjoyed that feeling for about 20 minutes before I went and ruined it with dessert.

Have any of you had a similar experience after a detox? Is this just a shock to the system that goes away after your body readjusts? Did I always feel this awful and just not notice? Is it something unrelated? Is it all in my head? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

1 comment:

  1. I go through similar phases with my diet. People think that just because I'm a vegan that my diet is inherently healthy. On the contrary, I've been known to pack just as much sodium and fat into my diet as the next dude in line at Mickey D's.

    And you're absolutely right; it takes more effort than some people are willing to go through for a healthy diet. But the changes are so subtle over the course of time, that we don't even realize that we feel as horrible as we do, until we DON'T feel like crap for a while. Then when we go back to what we've learned as our "normal" state, we're thinking "Geeze, this doesn't feel good at all!"

    But I think it's those indulgences that make us grateful for the fact that we do have another option. We can eat fast food cheeseburgers and Chinese food in defiance of what we know is good for us, and suffer the consequences. Or we can have whole wheat pasta with extra vegan tomato sauce and fresh back porch basil (which sounds lovely, by the way) and know that we've actively made the right choice.

    But the short answer is yes, you do need more coffee.

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