Monday, January 2, 2012

New Resolution Brings New Regime (Kinda)

Or something like that.

Since becoming severely depressed our family has been living on a fairly steady diet of junk food. Absolute junk. Surprise surprise, this has really affected our health. I tried doing GAPS a while back and I loved it and it was fabulous and the kids were even getting into it, but then a got a pretty bad bladder infection and had to take antibiotics for it despite trying to fix it myself. Antibiotics are really good at killing your gut flora and I just gave up doing GAPS.

After lots of therapy and working on myself I'm finally at a tipping point. Continuing to eat junk is worse than the pain it will take to change it. And I think the pain will be considerable. All four of us are very addicted to sugar and simple carbohydrates. BuggaBoo has been exhibiting what I'm calling "addict behavior" towards sweets. We will tell him to his face that whatever sweet (usually chocolate) belongs to another family member, but when we turn around he'll steal it and run to his bedroom to hide and consumes it greedily. Not a pretty situation. I already knew that BuggaBoo doesn't respond well to sugar but the stealing is a new thing.

The plan is to get off sweets entirely (written after eating two cookies) and get off grains and, oh, try really hard to eat a Primal diet. Vegetables, meat and fats, eggs, fruits, nuts and seeds, in that order. We'll have dairy sometimes, the kids love their plain yogurt with a bit of jam or honey stirred in. We're hoping it'll help The Hubby with his Type I diabetes, me with my heath issues, and the kids in behavior and health arenas.

On this journey of mine I will not mention weight. Not one bit. I'm not doing this to lose weight, I'm doing this to regain health. I firmly believe in Heath at Every Size. I also experienced too much body policing in my lifetime and I don't want to hate myself for being whatever size. Whatever.

Instead I'm going to try to get rid of: back acne, acid reflux, fatigue, headaches, yeast infections, post nasal drip, stuffy sinuses, brain fog, sore joints, lack of energy, anxiety, irritability, digestive issues, and hormonal imbalances. In my children I'm hoping to see an improvement in their overall health and behavior (although I feel behavior is closely linked to health, 'cause if you don't feel well you don't behave well).

I'm going to do as well as I can but I'm not going to hold myself to a perfect standard. For me I easily fall into a perfection-punishment cycle. I don't want to be perfect, I want to be better. Two different things.

So, I'll blog about this. And I might not keep it up. And I won't beat myself up for it. Sounds like a great resolution to keep.