So Sugar, what’s the deal?

Tags

anti-masturbation tactic, Anxiety, autoimmune, Depression, gluten free eating, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Healing, hypothyroidism, I Quit Sugar, inflammation, PTSD, quitting sugar, Sarah Wilson, sugar, thyroid

Gimme some sugar, Sugar

Hey honey! Sweetie, darling! Sweetcakes! Gimme some sugar!

Or rather… please don’t.

As I mentioned briefly last week, I’ve just started a brand new regime of quitting sugar.

Today is day three.

I know. WHY the heck would I do something like that? Maybe you’re staring at the screen in horror at such a suggestion. When I announced my plans on Twitter, someone asked me: All sugar, forever?

Even across the internets, I could hear the disbelief and tension in those three little words.

But really, why?

Good question! Glad you asked. 😀

Here’s the skinny: I have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. An autoimmune condition wherein my body has decided that my thyroid is a foreign entity to be attacked and destroyed. Thanks, body!

Hashimoto’s is inflammation in the body, and basically causes the thyroid to be underactive – meaning a slowed metabolism (hello, weight gain/difficulty with weight loss), an impaired immune system (getting sick a lot), low-low-low iron levels, a massive loss of energy (you try getting out of bed like this!) and a whole bunch of other less than lovely symptoms.

But if you’ve been reading this blog for a little while you’d know about some of this already. As well as my various efforts to heal my body. You can read some of my other posts if you like.

There’s all sorts of information out there about the causes (there are several), what to do about it, treatment (western and alternative medicine), what to eat and so on.

One of my key goals at the moment is reducing inflammation and trying to make my body chemistry as alkaline as possible.

Get your addict on

Here’s the thing about sugar: generally speaking it’s in everything we eat, when physiologically it’s only meant to be consumed sparingly.

As in, not every day. Heck, not even every week!

Too much sugar causes inflammation in the body, as well as contributing to weight gain, and possibly even things like making our minds whizz around too fast, sleep disturbances and so on.

Also, sugar is addictive. The more we have, the more we want.

For a somewhat humorous take on this, read how breakfast cereal was originally developed as an anti-masturbation tactic.

Been there, done it before

A bunch of years ago I did the whole sugar quitting thing. Not because I needed to (although really, we all need to at least reduce our sugar intake), but because it was a Thing.

A dieting technique: cut all sugars and all grains and the weight drops off!

While this is actually true, that kind of all-or-nothing approach can be hard to sustain.

But for the period of time I was on my ABSOLUTELY NO SUGAR kick, I felt and looked amazing.

Keeping it up is another story. Especially in our heavily sugar addicted culture. Especially when attempting to eat out with friends, or even order a drink in a bar. Seriously.

So I lapsed. Eventually my sugar intake was back to its previous levels and with it, much of the weight I’d dropped.

Then I was assaulted, developed PTSD and depression and started eating like shit because most days all I could manage was cheese and crackers, peanut butter on toast, eating out/ordering take-away, or ice cream. So I put on more weight.

Finally, I started to work on healing my mind, heart and soul. What I didn’t realise at the time is that mental health issues like PTSD, anxiety and depression absolutely mess with your body and brain chemistry, and even your DNA.

So as a result of all of this, I now have an autoimmune condition. More healing required! But then, when does it ever truly stop? And why should it have to?

Sarah Wilson’s “I Quit Sugar” e-book

Sarah Wilson's "I Quit Sugar" ebook

When I was first diagnosed, I took to Twitter to ask for information on thyroid stuff as well as gluten-free eating (recommended for thyroidy people).

One of the first crowd-sourced suggestions was to read Sarah’s blog.

She doesn’t just write about Hashimoto’s, eating gluten and sugar free – there’s lots of other cool posts, too.

Recently she published a little ebook (note: this is an affiliate link*) that I immediately snapped up. I’ve now read it cover to cover and this week I began my new journey to a sugar-free life!

The thing I like about Sarah’s approach is that she’s NOT all hardcore do-or-die about it. She suggests an eight week slowly-does-it technique.

Allowing you to ween yourself off the sweet stuff bit by bit.

* Which means that if you buy Sarah’s ebook from clicking on the above link, I get paid a small fee.

But really, for how long?

The answer to “All sugar, forever?” is: I don’t know. Maybe. We’ll see. It’s “for now” anyways. For the foreseeable future, yes.

Sarah even suggests that after you’ve “detoxed” from your sugar addiction, it might be possible to re-introduce limited amounts of sugar into your diet again.

But it really depends on your body and how it reacts to even a little bit of sugar. Does it kick off the addiction again or are you cool with tiny amounts?

You kinda won’t know until you detox for a few months and then give it a try.

So yeah, here I go with my new sugar-free living adventure.

Let me know if you’d like to join in so we can support each other. It’d be excellent to have a buddy along for the ride.

Anyways, I’ll be posting updates on my progress around once a week to keep myself accountable to someone – YOU!

Wish me well, m’lovelies.

~ Svasti xxx

Throwing spaghetti at the wall

Tags

autoimmune, carbohydrates, dark night of the soul, dis-ease, gluten, Hashimoto’s, hypothyroidism, Kinesiology, metabolism, PTSD, spaghetti, sugar, throwing spaghetti at the wall, thyroid

Being a poetical type, I like to think of this as the twilight time of my thyroid diagnosis. There’s a little bit of light being cast by the moon, but it is kinda hard to see on account of the growing darkness (it’s always darkest before dawn, natch).

I could go on with the clichés – dark night of the soul and all that. But hey, I’ve had several of those already and they no longer freak me out…

But I reckon it fits: this is the twilight time, the settling dusk. While I do know what’s coming (sort of), it’s gonna be a while before sunrise makes an appearance.

Saw the doctor this morning for my blood test results and yessum, I hit the hypothyroid jackpot – Hashimoto’s – which is the autoimmune version of this dis-ease.

But then apparently, most people diagnosed with hypothyroidism will have Hashimoto’s. For whatever reason, that’s just how it is.

My naturopathic-MD friend, the one who described thyroid problems an epidemic? She wasn’t wrong. At least two of my friends also have the same condition. Another friend possibly does, but she hasn’t had the tests to confirm it yet. I had a lovely Skype chat with one of these friends on the weekend. It’s good to have some love and support from someone who’s been through it all.

Right now there’s a lot to digest. And hey, I get that this isn’t cancer (at least, probably not!) but it IS a life-long illness that requires constant monitoring and careful caring for my physical, mental and emotional well-being. Which is the sort of stuff we should all be doing for ourselves anyway, and yet most of us don’t. Until we have to, which is the boat I now find myself in along with millions of others.

Where to begin? Currently, this is where I’m at…

I’ve been taking hormone tablets for a month now. I’m quite ambivalent about that, being more into natural/alternative therapies and I honestly haven’t noticed that much difference since I started them. On the other hand, I did notice a significant difference when I began my epic consumption of vitamins/minerals/amino acids.

Symptom-wise, my energy is still up and down like a yo-yo. I need LOTS of sleep and always wake up tired. Even though I need sleep, I sometimes find it hard to stay asleep for a full eight hours. If I have a busy weekend or if I’m out after work a couple of nights in a row, the next night MUST be a rest night. It’s like a car running out of petrol – I simply stop. My monthly cycle still makes me feel like I’m about to die (no exaggeration). And of course, I am still not losing weight, no matter how well I eat and take care of myself.

I didn’t even really know what to ask my doctor today, despite all the reading I’ve done in the last month. I mentioned some of the research and information I’ve discovered, but it seemed like I had to prompt her to tell me anything useful.

Apparently cutting dairy is recommended in addition to sugar and gluten – these food stuffs are considered toxic for people with Hashimoto’s (lately, I’ve begun noticing my distaste for sugary anything). I also need to be careful with my consumption of carbohydrates (which are basically sugar). All of which – with the exclusion of gluten – is stuff people do to lose weight.

Someone even commented on Twitter that as a result of these changes, I’ll be skinny. BUT. But. This isn’t necessarily the case, because the thyroid is intimately involved with the metabolism, and my thyroid is faulty. It’s going to take time and a fair bit of trial and error to figure this all out and it still doesn’t mean I’ll be “skinny” when I do.

{Confession: there’s still a part of me that hopes my Hashimoto’s isn’t “that bad”. Which is disturbingly similar to how I viewed the beginning of my (undiagnosed at the time) slide into PTSD-land. Luckily I know better now.}

However in some ways this is true: currently I only have a mild level of autoimmune antibodies – which can easily become worse without appropriate treatment. My situation is complicated because I’m also ridiculously deficient in iron, B12, and vitamin D. So my doctor thinks it’ll be six months or so before we’ve got a better view of what’s going on.

I think I get it though – she’s trying not to overwhelm me with a billion pieces of information. She wants me to make small step-changes, bit by bit. But it’s hard, because I don’t want it to take so long and I like to know everything up front.

Next up for me is to get an ultrasound for my thyroid (there’s such a thing as thyroid cancer that needs to be ruled out), and see an endocrinologist who specialises in thyroid disorders.

I’ve got a referral, a bunch of test print outs and two extra supplements to take (selenium and Activated B6). I have another referral too; for a kinesiologist who has herself had thyroid issues. Also on my team is my acupuncturist.

There are other specialists that I’m getting in touch with as well… but my budget can only take so much at any one time!

So I guess this is throw the (gluten free) spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks time. I don’t know what will work yet and until I do, I’m gonna keep throwing spaghetti, if y’know what I mean…

~ Svasti