I’m back in my comfort zone. Stable and in charge and re-hydrated. It feels nice to be back here. Nice in the sense that the out of control mental chatter and cravings and ridiculousness of last week is not who I really am. It makes me uptight and over-analytical, over-critical and, well, over-crazy! I think it’s like anything else, when you live in a manner where you have deviated from your true self, it throws everything out of whack. Some people live their whole lives there, opposite what their heart and soul cry out for. I spent a lot of time there in my past life. Trying to cram my wrong self into my right life. I would probably still be there if I had resisted all the signs that pointed to making the change.
It is a minefield though, here on the right side. It’s scary and frought with challenges that, if you’re living true to yourself, you can’t just stuff down and pretend don’t exist. Aside from the emotional aspects of finding and returning to your true-dom (yes, new word), there is so much conflicting information that you can paralyze yourself before you even get started.
Eat whole grains to be healthy; eating grains of any sort destroys your insides. Dairy is bad for you; eat low fat dairy for weight loss; if you’re going to eat dairy, go full fat or not at all. Eat animals, all of them and lots of them; veggie is the healthiest way to live; animal fat is required for life. Exercise 20 minutes/day; chronic cardio is the devil; as long as you’re moving you’re losing; commit to intense workouts or don’t bother. I could go on. Take a food item or fitness issue and research it, chances are you’ll find a host of contradictory information about it.
How does a person sift through all of this information and use the parts that are valuable and valid for them? As I mentioned in my previous post, I believe that you have to accept your limitations and live within them. Assess what you want and how much time you honestly have (both actual time and mental time) to commit to it….and that will go a long way in determining your results. Assess your current situation and then what you want to do and make sure that one is viable within the other. That will go a long way in determining your plan.
The reason that I’m talking about this is because I don’t think I’ve been living true to myself for awhile now and it’s been making me (subconciously, perhaps) feel like if I’m not going to make the change that I know I need to make then I’m going to fail. All the work that I do and the effort I put in is wasted because I’m trying to go down the up escalator.
I realize that you’re probably thinking that I’m dumping my spouse or quitting my job or converting my religion. Nope, nothing that serious. But what my change is may very well put some strain on my life and my relationship for awhile while we adjust. I have alluded to this before but I think I’m ready to make the big leap.
My body does not tolerate grains. I’ve done enough little ‘mini tests’ that I can say this with fair confidence. I’m not celiac (gluten intolerant) I know that. But there is a huge percentage of the population that is overly sensitive to grains (mostly the gluten ones) and I am one of them. So what does this mean? Temporarily it means that I am the kook who goes to a restaurant and orders the burger without the bun. Who goes to sushi and only has sashimi to avoid the rice. It means no pancakes, no cereal, no breakfast wraps, no crackers, no tortilla chips (more on this later). Very fortunately I already eat very little in the “grains” department and now it’s just a matter of clearing up the little bits of leftovers.
Here’s the rub though……….I don’t know if I can do it. I mean…I know that I can actually “do it”, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough to stand up for my choice in the face of peer pressure, spouse pressure, time pressure etc. I may end up beaten down and tired of fighting (myself and others) and lay down and adopt Conventional Wisdom that whole grains are good for everyone and forget that my body is not everyone’s body. I really don’t know what’s going to happen and right now I have no plan for how to explain myself. I just know that I have to give it a try because I have the same sense of the ‘signs’ as I did 5 years ago when I knew it was time to change my life and I think I would be foolish not to pay attention.
Fitty vs Fatty 