Reverb 10: Healing

Healing. What healed you this year? Was it sudden, or a drip-by-drip evolution? How would you like to be healed in 2011? I love food. I mean really love food. Really good food. One of my good friends says that I can't be a foodie because I don't cook. So I call myself a foodette--a mini foodie. I'm a hedonist by nature. I love all that decadent stuff. Dark chocolate. Nice wine. Margaritas. Bread. Cheese. Pretty much anything that turns into sugar--rapidly. The problem? Hypoglycemia. I crave sugar and anything that can mimic it. Unfortunately it's just about the worst thing I can put into my body. Sugar in any sort of collected amount is pretty much tantamount to poisoning myself. Heaping it on (as I enjoy doing immensely) puts my body on a roller-coaster of highs and lows. Eating even a pretty healthy for Americans diet gave me a steady dose of sugar. And a steady dose = poor immune system, lots of colds, low energy and the ability to from zero to cranky in 30 seconds. Diagnosed with this chronic condition 20 years ago I've been aware of the side effects of this life style and have tried to manage it. With pretty much no degree of success.

This year I decided to try something radical. Cut out the sugar. Completely. Indefinitely. Welcome the Paleo Plan. Yes, yes--it's based on what our caveman ancestors ate. Meat, nuts, fruits, vegetables. And 4 glasses of wine a week. Insert your jokes here but how wine and almond butter didn't exist then. Really the diet is anti-sugar. It's about getting off the juice as I call it.

The 1st two weeks were a nightmare.

There were times when I just wanted to have some sugar intravenously pumped into me. When you needed to tie me to the bed sheets like an addict getting off the goods. It was one of the toughest things I've ever done physically. It requires commitment. Will power. Focus. And...a big reason WHY you're doing it. For me, being in a bikini on a beach wasn't a big enough WHY but feeling consistent energy and being well definitely was. Along the way I got support from my friend Tara who's done the Paleo Plan a few times and from my other dear friend Kate Brown, the Community Director of Daily Burn. I wished I'd known about this blog.

I am still working on walking the anti-sugar way.  The more I eliminate sugar the more I heal and the better I feel. I continue to follow that old adage...You can't eat an elephant in one bite...although I wouldn't mind eating the whole thing at once. I am a foodette ya know.