Yep, it’s true. I’m saying it- I have fallen off the grain and processed sugar free wagon.
I have a high expectation of myself, particularly being a food-blogger. Once you blog about how you eat you have almost ‘put yourself out there’ to be judged by others. You don’t want to be snapped hoeing into something that goes against your food-stance (think “Paleo Food Blogger found eating Big Mac in dark alleyway”). Pete Evans, the Chef, was recently the target of this. The front page of a leading newspaper ‘exposed’ him as admitting to eating grains and sugar while judging the My Kitchen Rules TV series. As part of his paid employment. How ridiculous! If someone said they were eating low-fat food only and I caught them eating a pie, no one would care. When you claim to be grain or sugar free, it is somehow different.
No, I haven’t been eating Big Macs in dark alleyways! But over the Christmas/Summer/New Year period I became more relaxed. I would eat a chocolate here, a sweet there. If I went to a function or event and they had catered for gluten-free people, I would value and appreciate that and eat the gluten-free slice on offer, knowing it would have included soy flour and be loaded with refined sugar. When I went to cafes I started eating the gluten-free brownies and cakes again and at home kept eating more and more little chocolates that we had in the fridge. If I had run out of my own grain-free bread I would eat a slice or two of my daughters’ gluten-free bread.
Of course, this is not a huge deal. I didn’t fall to pieces or anything, and it is not like I started eating bread and pasta again and hanging out at McDonalds. I was just having a ‘little bit more sugar’ again and eating gluten-free grains. Hardly a big deal, I thought! I had also stopped having my regular bone broths as, being summer, it was just too hot. I felt okay, but not quite in my best health. I had also started to steadily put on weight and found it hard to keep it off- an unfamiliar concept for me who spent 18 months desperately trying to gain weight and at the height of my illness was 12kg less than I am now!
Then I decided to write and produce a book in a very short space of time. It was a happily-hectic time and I felt drained and run down after the book’s release, but I didn’t mind. I was happy with what I had created.
However, I got sick. Not just a head cold but the proper, awful flu with fevers and ending in a bad chest infection and anti-biotics.
You see, since starting to ‘eat clean’ exactly two years ago and healing myself through GAPS, I have not been sick. I have had a head cold once but that is all. If you knew me before (wheat-eating, potato chip and pie-loving Tara) you would have known me as ‘Tara who always gets sick”. That’s how my boss saw me. It was awful. I was always unwell and if I got something, I got it badly. I’m talking bed-ridden for 5 weeks, unable to work for 8 weeks. If I had to have anti-biotics my body would go into turmoil.
The wonderful, lovely, amazing thing is that that didn’t happen this time. That won’t happen to me anymore. Because of the healing and the nourishing and loving that I have done for my body and mind, it bounced back after illness. Yeah, I feel run-down and not-quite-right as I try to consume more pro-biotics and restore the balance. But I am not bed-ridden and I now trust my body to do it’s thing. It was a helpful reminder to ease off the sweets, take the chocolate out of the house (except I was gifted some again yesterday-eek!!) and get back into my bone broths and grain-free cooking again. I’m not going to beat myself up or feel guilty- I may blog about grain and sugar free eating but I am still human! The important thing is that I re-focussed and started listening to my body once again.
Have you learned to listen to your body, or do you still struggle with this? It can be hard when we don’t actually want to hear what it is saying!
“Lalalalalalalalala!”
Tara x
*Here are some SKINNY BUT SICK TARA and CHUBBIER THAN I WOULD LIKE TO BE BUT HEALTHY AND HAPPY TARA pictures!