I think that you can probably find people in just about any topic that will get their knickers all up in a knot if you hold a particular opinion… and when it comes to food, there is no lack of strongly-held opinions.

In addition to that, there are many studies out there which are seemingly contradictory, saying this about this kind of diet, saying that about that kind of diet…

It can be hard to know what to believe. My approach has been to experiment on myself to see if the claims are true or false.

Over the past few months, I’ve discovered a few things about my body:

I have a sensitivity to wheat to the extent that I am better off avoiding wheat products altogether. Since I don’t normally eat wheat products, I know pretty much right away when I’ve accidentally (or lazily) eaten something with wheat in it.

If I consume any significant amount of carbohydrates, I am pretty much guaranteed to gain weight. Not only that, but I rarely feel sated, and I experience wide swings in blood sugar. By avoiding wheat and any kind of refined carbohydrates (only taking in carbohydrates in raw or cooked fresh vegetables), various physiological characteristics and rhythms have improved, including my skin, my excess fat, my sleep cycles, etc…

If I happen to overeat or eat something that doesn’t otherwise agree with me, I know pretty much right away and am able to narrow down what happened pretty easily.

It doesn’t mean I still don’t have problems, and food is only one piece of the puzzle. But I have been doing pretty well despite having some sinus issues at the moment; but this could be caused by either seasonal allergies or the dust clouds I see whipping around in the wind outside.

The other thing I’ve been doing–which is entirely optional, but I do not believe is incidental–is that I have been purchasing as much food as I can from local distributors. This isn’t because I believe that national distributors are evil or anything like that, but certain aspects of national or large regional distributors have certain side effects in the food that we eat (compare and contrast grain-fed vs. grass-fed livestock), and at the moment, local distributors are much less likely to engage in such practices.

Also… milk from a local farm tastes way better to me. I’m not sure what the objective differences are, and I’ve not tried any kind of double-blind study to see if it’s all in my head… but I just can’t have lattes from my local Starbucks anymore. They taste gross to me! Bleah!

Another way to save money…

All in all, I have to be pretty careful what I eat. I will sometimes feel the urge to overeat but if I examine my diet, I will usually find that I’ve inadvertently consumed something on my “no” list, or I managed to listen to the self-talk that said, “c’mon, you’ve been SO good, you can have just a little bit.”

The problem is, even if I do have just a little bit (and having “just a little bit” is REALLY tough to do), I always pay for it in the end.

RSS feed | Trackback URI

Comments »

Trackback responses to this post