Before I get started,
I’d like you to know there are a few points of very personal information in
this post. If you are not interested in my digestive system, then you may want
to hit the little “x” in the top right corner. But ever since Oprah, Dr. Oz,
and other personalities have gotten real about health, and poop, and
everything else icky that goes on in our bodies, I feel the need to be real as
well. Also, if you would like the skip all the history and details, go straight
to the bottom for my conclusion.
A few posts ago, I shared how I had gained some weight back over
the past two years because I let my old habits creep back into my life (
Time for a Wake-up Call). While not happy, that’s life. I know my
triggers when it comes to overeating and not wanting to move beyond my office chair.
But this time last summer, my stress levels were out of
control. I was away from home a lot because of work and all the kids’
activities, and I wore myself down. It made me sick. Very sick. Sick enough for
several trips to an ER and an infectious disease specialist. I was treated for
Lyme disease with a ghastly antibiotic, and I am convinced it did me more harm
than good. After 3 1/2 weeks on the couch and in bed, I finally started to feel
better. While Lyme disease was never confirmed and there was never an official diagnosis, I suspect I had the
recently named
Heartland Virus.
Why is this important? For one, I gained 8 pounds over the
course of that sickness. Lucky me. The constant fevers wreaked havoc on my
metabolism, and I started feeling a bit depressed and wanted to do something about
it.
Unfortunately, I did not think that
doing what has always worked for me in the past was good enough this time – eating less processed and
fast foods, and working 20-30 minutes of exercise into my daily schedule. I
started watching infomercials and reading about the latest gimmicks, and let a
company convince me that I was not to blame, it was my aging body. Going
against everything I believe, I bought some dumb supplement that supposedly
convinces your body not to process carbs into stored fat.
I took these pills, full of cinnamon bark and other herbs, before every meal. After a month, I found that they did not deliver
any results and my belly started to ache. I quit taking the supplement, and my
gut continued to ache, nearly every day. Some days, the pain was not so bad,
and on others, it was excruciating. I wasn't sure what was to blame. Was it the
supplement? Was it from being sick and taking the antibiotic and eating
ibuprofen and acetaminophen like it was candy? Was it stress? Was all of this
causing me to get an ulcer?
During this entire time, and even now, I never once decided
to take myself to a doctor. That was probably mistake number one. But the whole
scenario reminded me of a conversation I had with John Moody, a local/whole
food advocate who once shared a stage with me to debate GMOs. He told me that
he had developed a very painful duodenal ulcer, and it healed once he removed
processed foods. Great. Remind yourself that I work for corn and wheat farmers,
which is in most everything that is processed. I was starting to let the “all processed
food is bad” Kool-Aid work its way into my head.
In month 5 of my belly dilemma,
I traveled to South Africa
with my leadership class. I got to experience some wonderful food, and I had
absolutely no belly aches the entire trip. So I began asking myself, “What did
I not eat in South Africa that I regularly eat at home?” I had wonderful vegetables and meats, but even processed GMO corn in the form of “pap” was on my plate every day. While there was not as much bread, I ate
pizza and pancakes, and still no pain. What was missing was milk. I was not
eating my regular breakfast cereal with cold milk as I do most every day of my
life. Was milk the culprit?
Soon after my return to the US, the belly pains returned, and I decided
that maybe milk was not helping my situation, and I could possibly be eating
too much gluten (everyone is jumping on that bandwagon these days, so why not
check it out). So I took a few no dairy or wheat days. I was shocked at how
flat my stomach was within those days. No gas, no bloating. I even lost a few
pounds. The pain was less intense, but my bowels
were not moving. I was getting plenty of fiber from fruits,
veggies and oatmeal, and drinking a half gallon of water or more each day. I had to resort to over the counter medication, and it
did not help much. Once I started eating bread and fiber cereal
again – with soy or almond milk – it was smooth sailing. New realization:
wheat is still my friend.
My focus was back on milk. Maybe I had become lactose
intolerant. Or maybe it was whey intolerance, or casein protein intolerance. I
read about so many food intolerances over the course of a couple of weeks my
head was spinning. And if you have ever read the symptoms of gluten
intolerance, anyone and everyone have experienced one of those symptoms
probably over the course of a week. No wonder everyone wants to cut it out of
their diet (before those with Celiac disease jump all over me, I do realize that
is a real problem).
I tried Lactaid milk, and found it absolutely disgusting and
very expensive. It spoils very quickly as well, making it even more expensive. I
called the local dairy group to see if any research had been done or if they
had any resources about dairy intolerances. I did not like replacing my regular
milk with soy or almond milk because of all the added sugar.
My belly pain once again started to diminish. One morning I
felt pretty good, so I thought I would experiment and have a glass of milk. I
was in so much pain that day – all day. Yup, it’s milk. Or was it the four
chocolate covered donuts I ate throughout the day? Hmm?
I then resorted to keeping a food journal. That was about 3
weeks ago. I found that it was actually my healthier meals that were giving me the most
trouble. After doing this for two weeks, I was able to narrow it down to one
thing: cinnamon. And going back to when my troubles started… I was taking those
super concentrated cinnamon supplement pills. Even when I stopped taking them,
I still ate a lot of cinnamon because it is supposed to be good for you –
cinnamon every morning in my oatmeal and on at least 2 sweet potatoes a week. I can't believe I had missed something so obvious.
I finally decided to bring a small amount of milk and dairy back into my diet. My belly
is not as flat for obvious reasons, but my bowels are the happiest they've been
in a long time. I've decide the good outweighs the bad.
Conclusion
I have not eaten any cinnamon in the past week, and have not
had one bit of belly pain. Now I’m going to dig out those supplement pills from
the back of the pantry and ask for a refund. What I’m not going to do is tell
everyone to get rid of cinnamon in their diet. Everyone is unique. I am
surprised, however, at how quickly I was to blame so many other things and
rushed to eliminate entire food groups out of my diet because of something I read. We are told regularly that quick and drastic diet
changes are not good for our pets, so they are probably not so good for us either.
Based on my experience, here is my advice:
- If you are experiencing any type of digestive
issue, a trip to the doctor should be at the top of your list. I have yet to do
that, but it has taken me 8 months to figure out and address my problem.
- Keep a food journal, writing down everything you
eat and when your pain/annoyance is the greatest. But keep it simple. If you
are eating a lot of processed foods with many ingredients, it will be very
difficult to narrow down the culprit.
- Ditch the gimmicks. If something sounds too good
to be true, it probably is. I let a fancy sales pitch play to my emotions – I was
feeling bad about myself and wanted to be convinced it was nothing I was doing
on my own. Just write “fool” across my forehead!
- Get rid of the stress in your life! You are the
best to figure out how to do that, but stress doesn't do anyone a bit of good. Letting
stress take over my life paved the way to a number of problems.
Thanks for reading, and may peace be with you.
