You're stressing me out!
One thing I've learnt is that to first trust my body to tell me what it needs, I need to get it into a better working order. Just before I started losing weight this time around I wasn't feeling like my body was working the way it was meant to anymore. It was anxious inside, like the stress I'd been living through was now living inside me, and affecting what I ate, how I ate and how my body processed it.
That's not to say I was necessarily emotionally eating. It's hard to explain to someone who has never experienced a craving for anything, to explain the compulsion I'd have to get some sugar into me (in the form of fruit, normally, but anything to excess is bad), or how my stomach would churn. I actually felt as if my body was shutting down a little, and just wasn't mine anymore. It wasn't that my emotions were all over the place- I think it was my insides telling me that something had to change.
Different food started to upset me. My favourite food is icecream - it's not an everyday thing, it's a once in a while treat, but even a little bit of it made my stomach upset. I found I was back to reacting to gluten in a big way, and eggs and me weren't feeling too friendly.
Since going off all those things for a bit, focusing on mainly eating whole foods and changing some habits, it's all feeling like it's working better. I am in no doubt that my weight was a contributing factor, but I also know that stress was wreaking havoc with my digestive health, and I felt I was stuck in a vicious circle of cravings, and food, and reactions.
I asked Dr Donald Palmer, a holistic GP, to help me with a few details regarding this. I think it's more prevalent than many people realise, and it's a contributor to obesity in New Zealand. One of the best things another doctor ever said to me was, "We can't reduce the stress in your life - you will still have to parent three children, work and live - but what we can do is make your body strong enough to deal with it."
That's what this is about. I asked Dr Palmer what we can do to reduce our reaction to stress. My favourite answer was this: "Prepare wholesome meals with good intention. Say grace if it fits your faith. Sit down for meals, limit talking while chewing and swallowing, turn off the TV for meals, taste your food. Quiet, warm family-chatter nurtures wellbeing." It sounds good to me. A little old fashioned, but pleasing.
I sometimes feel people think it's naughty to love food if you have weight issues. But I do. I love health-giving, energising food. I look forward to my meals. They are good. They are delicious, in fact.
Dr Palmer talked about the reasons we overeat when stressed. He talked about how it's part of our eating-on-the-run culture, seeking out an afternoon pep-up with sugar-rich food and energy drinks, caffeine, chocolates, fast-food and alcohol, as well as talking too much while we eat, air swallowing while we gulp, and not giving our food quiet attention, chewing and swallowing when it's ready for our stomach.
If that sounds like you (I know it sounds like I used to be!) then what can you do? I found it so interesting that what I did instinctively was what Dr Palmer suggested. Here is his list:
* Avoid stimulants, (I'm now finally coffee free!), sugar and refined or processed foods.
* Limit spices or cut them out completely if you can.
* Drink water, green tea, or have homemade drinks like lemon-and-honey lemonade.
* Have ripe fruit on an empty stomach only, an hour before or two hours after a meal.
* Avoid known intolerances, for example gluten or dairy if present.
He also suggests having a sweet salad at the beginning of a meal (such as carrot and beetroot) and to take your time to eat, sitting for a while after you finish to allow yourself to feel full. It normally takes us 15 minutes after we begin to eat, before we feel full.
This is such a big topic, and we've only lightly scratched the surface. I have to say that now I'm on the other side of that craving frenzy I felt I was on before Christmas, I feel my body is dealing with stress a lot better. Life may not have changed around me, but my ability to cope with it certainly has. And that's a good enough result for me.
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good topic rachel, its funny, I have recently noticed when i start stuffing my face due to anxiety or nervousness. really strange once you realise the triggers and the consciously learn to put the biscuits down.
If I hear one more person (usually a woman) claiming non existent gluten or dairy intolerance I will scream!
Coeliac disease is very rare. It affects worldwide around 0.05 to 0.25% of the population. I.e. between 1 in 200 and one in 400. You are very unlikley to suffer from it. The disease will NOT make you fat, or (in general) feel bloated. You will instead tend to be underweight, have low energy levels, and likely suffer from anaemia.
The inability to produce lactase (lactose intolerance or hypolactasia) is more common, but still rare in Europeans.
Intolerance is a recessive genetic trait- ie. it is part of the way you are made. Feeling stressed will not cause your body to produce less lactase. You either have it or you don't. And the symptoms of lactose intolerance do not present in your stomach anyway.
Cut out spices! what? that sounds really stupid - they're the best way to add flavour to a meal without adding calories. I couldn't live without my spice rack I think its a key reason why I stay at a healthy weight, I dont crave foods with lots of sugar and fat I crave foods that are flavourfull and love my spicy food. I think that you actually eat less of foods that are well seasoned because you feel satisfied earlier so you stop as opposed to bland food that you just mindlessly go through.
Limit spices or cut them out completely - are you mad????? What a dull boring palate we would have if it were to be without spice.
And you should have fruit at the end of a meal as it leaves you with a sweet taste and makes the 5+ a day easy.
If you find yourself hungary between meals have a glass of water and wait 10 minutes - most times it's not hunger you feel but actually thirst.
I'm not lactose or gluten intolerant. But dairy sure does give me a headache. A glass of milk = panadol in my world. Which is a shame, since i love milk and used to drink it like water.
Hmm. Fruit at the end of a meal? What if (and I KNOW I'm not the only one) you don't eat fruit. What then?
@sillykitty #4 - definitely agree with your sentiments on spices. I too think its easier to eat less of a tasty/spicy meal than a bland one.
@Rachel - I would be interested to know why your doctor recommends cutting the spices. I'm also curious why you have fruit on an empty stomach? The other ones make sense :)
@mybob - people like to have some 'condition' that they can blame for things or makes them "different". They think it makes them interesting but IMO its the opposite.
I would have thought that 'avoid known intolerances' was a complete no-brainer. If you have either a food allergy or food intolerance why the heck would you even consider eating said food???
@mybob The one good thing about the fad for going gluten free was that gluten free foods became more readily available. Which made life much easier for those of us who actually do have coeliacs :)
Hi bob :)
I definitely have issues with gluten. If I eat it I get migraines and become really teary. I don't know why- but it's been blind tested a few times accidentally when someone I've been told something is gluten free, reacted and then found they made a mistake. I don't have coeliacs. However if you are under stress your body starts to react to things you normally wouldn't have an issue with- it goes into overdrive. Gluten issues are closely linked to people with irritable bowel or leaky gut- and these two issues can cause someone to be overweight as thier body does not process food and waste appropriately
@Rachel
Or irritable bowel can have the opposite effect and cause you to lose weight due to not being able to process many foods and generally wreaking havoc on your digestive system. I HAD irritable bowel from my teens into early twenties but seems to have subsided now I don't have exams to go through etc. - it wasn't the exams making me stressed but the enclosed feeling, needless to say I was a very anxious person. Alot of people now claim to have intolerance for things but I am agreed with you Rachel, I can eat dairy now BUT when I was having problems with constant diarrohea due to the IBS milk for some reason made it worse and I would end up with constant bad belly. For those of you wondering why he suggested she maybe cut out spices is that if I am correct, if Rachel was having digestive issues, spices and stimulants can't make sensitive stomachs and stressed people's digestive issues worse. Good on you Rachel, I occasionaly read this blog and it sounds like you are doing what is working for you and it sounds like it's working excellently. It doesn't neccesarily mean (as everyone here is suggesting) - that you need or would neccesarily do it forever, but if it's working in the interim then stick with it and (like me) as you go you can work out what you can and can't handle and eventually you can add more things in :)
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Totally, absolutely know what you mean about feeling like your body isn't doing what it's supposed to. When I have been stressed and when I have been eating too much of the wrong kind of food I tend to react more to everything else. I know I have an issue with dairy and generally avoid it, but can handle a little bit (it's an intolerance, not an allergy). But if things aren't going the way they should I get "urgly" (my word for stomach churning) from even a cup of tea with a tablespoon of milk.
I've done the same thing as you pretty much, and also instinctively.. and also feel a million times better. Plus I'm handling the stress of life a lot better with decent nutrition and a healthy amount of exercise.