Conquering the dragon?…Cutting out sugar...
I keep getting asked how I changed my diet … I went about it slowly and with determination as I felt very ill.
The very first thing I did was to give up all processed sugar. I was advised to cut it out immediately and I did. I cut out sweets, candies, cakes, biscuits, desserts, jam and preserves….I didn't actually drink Coke or other sodas but these would have had to have gone too. At the time because of my condition, I was advised not even to eat honey, agave, maple syrup or anything else sweet so there was nothing but fruit. I was absolutely forbidden artificial sweeteners like aspartame or other chemicals. (These just made me ill in any event. I used regularly to have stomach cramps and throw up on Weight Watchers' sweets.)
I quickly came to realise how many times, in a normal week, I had succumbed to sweet, sugary foods. Until then, I really had not been aware just how much sugar I had been consuming. I remember sitting in the cinema with a friend eating little bites of a banana while he chomped his way through our usual large packet of fruit gums (a form of candy for kids that we both loved). I felt so deprived, sent hate thoughts to my Immunologist and wondered if I could really do this.
I was informed that I had no choice if I wanted a chance to improve my health.
I persevered, and, when the cravings for sugar got too bad, I ate a couple of medjool dates or 5 or 6 frozen grapes as a treat (watch histamine levels with both these). I also ate other fruit. I got very bad headaches and joint pain flares for a week. Just shows what sugar was doing to me! I also lost 7lb of what must have been fluid retention water weight in that week. I often "fell off the wagon" but felt so ill that I quickly got back on track.
I never eat sugar products of any kind now, and, if I sample them, they taste really sweet and nasty to me.
More important to me is that as I eat a chocolate or a biscuit now I can feel the distant warning rumble of that sleeping "autoimmune disease" dragon in my body. It nibbles at my toe joints or stiffens my shoulders. My skin prickles...
It sleeps with one eye open, does that bloody dragon, ever on the alert to return and take me over... It has a whole range of weapons to choose from but choking, skin rash, blinding headaches, diarrhoea, and joint pain are just some of its fire.. I smell the sulphur on its breath and that's enough for me.
I know I will never kill it so I just let it sleep, unfed, without the sugar it craves…..