Hey y’all,
As many of you know, I eat as healthily and mindfully as I can. Multiple members of my family have begun eating whole-foods plant-based. According to Dr Essylston and several others, cutting out animal products and processed food is the healthiest way to eat. I won’t argue that. I think processed food is terrible for the body, and I think that eating a lot of animal products is pretty detrimental too. However, I still eat some animal products. I would say I eat whole-foods without dairy or eggs. I will eat some meat (usually just a bite or two a day).
My diet revolves around reducing inflammation. I don’t care so much about weight (even though I’ve never been this effortlessly thin). I have some severe eczema, which is actually an autoimmune, inflammatory condition (but doctors won’t tell you that). The same things that make arthritis, Chron’s disease, fibromyalgia, etc. flare make eczema flare.
My food journey began in 2019. Before then, I ate whatever I wanted. I had no allergies, so I wasn’t worried. But after I began cutting out meat and replacing it with bread and pasta, my eczema began getting worse. I didn’t know why, and after seeing several doctors and running through all the home remedies I could find, I turned to the internet. I finally came across Michelle Mills (who is fabulous). She said to stop FREDG (fried foods, refined sugar, eggs, dairy, gluten) foods first. I immediately cut those foods out and noticed things begining to change within 12 hours.
Over the next two years, I kept learning and refining my diet. The documentary Uninflame Me was a major source of information for me. I still stay away from the EDG part of FREDG, but I will eat the occasional fried food (the type of oil is the actual important factor). Sugar is a whole mess. I will eat refined sugar, but rarely (like on Halloween and on Christmas). For the most part, I won’t even eat maple syrup or honey. I just use stevia for everything, or I eat my sugar in fruit. I also don’t eat peanut butter or foods with citric acid anymore. And as far as the meat thing goes, I added meat back into my diet for the lysine protein. Lysine helps the skin rebuild itself. Yes, you can get lysine by eating beans, but it takes three cups of pinto beans to equal the amount of lysine in a single bite of chicken. Eating three cups of beans every single day was not sustainable for me. I also almost never eat processed foods. Most contain things I can’t eat anyway.
Here’s the science of inflammation. Inflammation happens when you get a cut or other wound. On the surface of the body, you can see it. The area gets warm red and itchy. This also happens inside the body because certain foods wreak havoc inside. Then, all that hurt shows up as some sort of “incurable” disease. For me, I had terrible eczema, and then I had many other problems. My body was so busy keeping the inflammation from killing me that it wasn’t able to take care of other things. I was always overweight, I healed half as fast as others, I had some intense seasonal allergies, I was very sensitive to literally everything, I always felt about 80% well, and probably some other stuff too (and this was all before the age of 20).
Since I changed my diet (which was a major task), all of those problems have gone away. I heal so quickly now. I sprained my thumb/hand a few days ago, and by the next morning, about ¾ of the swelling was gone, and I could move it. It still hurt some, but not nearly as much. I also don’t really get those seasonal allergies anymore, and I don’t ever get very sick. My husband was sick for a week awhile back. He even went to the ER three times. I got the same symptoms for an hour one day, and then I felt fine.
My cholesterol is also not a problem anymore. I’ve always had high cholesterol. It’s actually part of the inflammation-healing cycle, which doctors also won’t tell you. My GP even prescribed me some cholesterol medication. After reducing my inflammation, my cholesterol is within normal limits.
Changing my diet to reduce my inflammation was amazing. Look at this transformation!
This was 2 years in the making, but I noticed a major difference after only a few weeks.
Frugal Treehugger 