Alison writes:
These past few days have been hard. Today is my 4th day as a (high carb) low fat raw vegan. You may know it as the 80/10/10 diet. Before that I actually had gone 14 days without sweets (not including juicy fresh fruit of course) and also no meat or dairy.
Let me give you some background before i go on:
I've had major depression and social anxiety since as far back as i can remember (elementary school). More recently (10 years or so) I've also had OCD, paranoia, fatigue, and a pattern phobia [i'll list more issues at the bottom if you are interested]. I'm 23 now and only started looking to help for my "issues" when i was 18. Of course I wasn't too excited to start on my journey of finding the right drug for me. Since then I've tried many, and none worked. If they started to work for me, the side effects far outweighed the benefits. Taking drugs to treat the symptoms of my issues didn't seem right nor did it work... they give you pills for your first issue...then when you complain about side effects they give you pills for those side effects... people are on a lot of pills these days because of this!! (I did go to a psychologist as well for therapy. Let me know if you want my thoughts on that...) Eventually I gave up on the meds, I had tried so many and it had been a while since being off of them so i decided about 6 months ago to get off of them and see what it would be like :). Withdrawal sucked. But once that was over I felt like i had a clean slate... :) I had read a lot of different books while going through withdrawal and being in bed a lot. Lots of books about depression and anxiety ... some of those led me to book about how food and mood are related. which led me to book about various diets. I found out I had a sugar addiction from one book. books on sugar addiction led me to books on the food industry and the Standard American Diet (SAD). Those really got to me. finding out all the toxins we put into our bodies not realizing it. long story short: I eventually found the 80/10/10 diet to make the most sense. Its so simple! The problem is that its not the "norm" and people living this lifestyle are called extremists.... "3 Bananas?!?! weirdo!" but 3 pieces of pizza doesn't seem so crazy does it? If you haven't read the 80/10/10 diet by Dr. Douglas Graham, you should definitely read it ... even if you think it sounds crazy.. do it... I thought it was crazy when my sister told me about it. Didn't want to read the book because I thought it sounded so weird and couldn't be healthy choice! but I did eventually read it, and I'm glad I did. Even after reading though it took me a while to even think of trying the diet. anywhoo so here I am, giving it a try!
So here I am at day 4... still detoxing. It's been hard, so hard...to get the calories I need. I wake up early wishing to sleep in but i can't. My body feels like its over stimulated. my head hurts. I feel like i need to eat all the time but I don't want to. I'm constantly wondering how this lifestyle is possible. But I'm a strong person, I know what the benefits are and no matter how much i complain, you wont see me give up. I WILL give this diet/lifestyle a chance. I've gone through withdrawal before, i know how much it can suck... I also know how great it feels to get through it. :)
With that being said I'd love to share some good things i've noticed:
-since taking meat, dairy and sugar (sweets/desserts.. not including fruits!) out of my diet, my sex drive is back. I'm sure some of you may not be interested but for those who are, I missed my sex drive, I don't even remember the last time I felt like i had one! I've been with my current boyfriend for 9 months and things have been awesome with him since the beginning, but it's crazy that this past weekend I felt like we just started dating.. I didnt think I'd feel fireworks when kissing or holding hands since I was 16 haha... I thought that was just because I was young I dunno, but it's awesome to feel that again! and since going 80/10/10 its just been better and better (is it the 80/10/10 diet? or just that Im still off meat, dairy, and sugar? not sure! don't care! haha)
- I had bad psoriasis on my scalp which seems to be getting better every day.
- I'm thinking about going after my dreams of singing, getting back into rockclimbing, getting things done in general. I havent WANTED to do anything but sleep for a LONG time.
- I've lost 5 pounds within the past 2 weeks... probably water weight but im not going to complain! I'm not overweight but I had gained 13 pounds recently and would like to get back to my healthy 120lbs.
I know that isn't a whole long list but it IS just after 14 days of no dairy, meat, sugar and only 2 days of 80/10/10.
If you are interested in going off sugar for a week or two, I found something I wrote when i did this and thought maybe I'd share it:
I realize it's hard to say no to all the amazing tasting food. but thats just because we are addicted and we don't realize. "yea" you might think "im 'addicted' to food cause i love it and i want more and more. but im not addicted like i can't get off of it." but what you don't realize is that most of the food we eat in America has sugar added to it because the people who made it know it will get us to want more. they know if they add sugar, our bodies will then crave it. and we will have a sort of 'high' when we eat that amazing juicy hamburger.
I went off sugar for a week. to see if it affected me. I checked everything for sugar. I didn't eat sweets (cookies, candy bars etc) because that's just obvious. but i checked the box of everything and didn't eat out. no fast food. i tried to keep it under 5mg of sugar (for the whole day) since i knew it would be in so many things. even just doing that i felt my depression lifting. the first 2 days were hell… i was irritated, and got pissed off easily.. and thats not me. I usually don't let little things get to me.
If you think you might have social anxiety: I only recently found out my issue was social anxiety. I was diagnosed with Generalized anxiety disorder when I was 18 so i was getting help for that. But by reading lots of anxiety books I found out exactly what my problem was… social anxiety. This helps! knowing exactly what triggers your anxiety, can help you overcome your anxiety! So incase this can help I wanted to share with you a little about my social anxiety that I wrote November 2011:
(I have panic attacks when I go into public situations. I feel like people are staring at me even when they are not. like i am the center of attention. I feel like everything (even little things) are forms of performance and people are watching and criticizing me. for example, getting gas, buying groceries, sliding my credit card, pushing enter, signing my name, talking to the person at the register. I just feel like people are seeing that im uncomfortable doing all of those things and they want to see me fail, like shake, stumble my words, fall down, drop something. and that is just one example. so if that scares me, you can imagine how i feel about actually performing a talent in front of people or even one person. and that sucks because I really enjoy singing, acting, dancing, drumming. I think I'd go far with any of those talents if I could just get over my fear of people. and i was also so scared in school… I wish i could go back and have a normal life and be able to go to school like the other kids. it's hard to make friends when you are scared of them. I have really bad phone anxiety, I start to feel anxious still when the phone rings (even when i know i wont answer it). I couldn't keep a job because no one believed i had bad anxiety because im a pro at masking it. I smile a LOT. and ofcourse people take a smile to mean you are happy and comfortable. for me, they thought i was bubbly and should be working with customers. I wanted to have a job in the back, behind the scenes. I don't care if it is just stapling papers all day. I just don't want to answer the phone, or work on the register. But they would always want me there, working straight with the customer because i was "bubbly". So id quit. but i'd be too scared to talk to my manager about quitting so most of those places hate me for not telling them i quit and just never coming back. I don't blame them. but i feared these things more than death.
If you have anxiety and you can only read one book, PLEASE read "From Panic to Power" by Lucinda Bassett … this book helped me go from being scared about facing my fears to being excited to show my fears who's BOSS … yea ME! move out the way lol
If you have social anxiety and/or depression…I'd love to share list of books and just some thoughts/ideas to help you.. I'm still working on it myself but I have learned a lot and have lots to share :)
I realize this post was all over the place. Lots of things i wanted to share :D Since this is called the 811 adventure, I will end with something about that...
I tried blending 6 bananas today instead of just eating them. I found that I could only drink 4 bananas worth. I felt so nauseas just thinking about having to finish it. So from now on, I will just eat the fruit as it is lol. It helps to watch tv or something while eating... That is all!
till next time!
xoxo Alison
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