trying hard things: five weeks fructose free

fructose.

Day 1 and Day 2 I was wandering around the kitchen like a nomad, peeking at the dates in the pantry and opening the fridge over and over in dismay. I felt an unquenchable thirst for sweetness. It was overwhelming to realise that when I reached an energy and emotional low, I couldn’t pick myself up with a hit of dates, fruit, lindt or caffine. I was surprised to realise how real my addiction was. I was flat as a pancake.

Just as I was settling in for prolonged misery, I quite suddenly stopped craving things. It was bizarre how abruptly it ended.

 Ben bought jars and jars of Rice Malt Syrup, the fructose-free sweetener of my choice. He has always been a fabulously caring husband, and this was no exception. He did all the cooking, and baked for me so that my nightly tea {herbal now} wasn’t lonesome. Soon though, I was well enough to do my own baking, and that is something I haven’t done in months.

Here’s the strangest thing of all: I have never really enjoyed vegetables overly much, apart from sweet potatoes and corn -  and potatoes in the fries version. Now, I’m desiring green vegetables, even over grains. I walk into the veggie mart (yes, walk in, that’s right) and want to buy greens and eat greens. I honestly think I have broken the sugar addiction after nearly 23 years. I still wonder if this is the honeymoon period, or if I truly want healthy food now? Is my body saying, ‘FINALLY! You ended my complicated relationship with sugar. Thank you!”

The month I left off fructose, I was struggling to keep my eyes open, unable to drive because I felt blank to the very back of my head, and dreading getting off the couch to get a cup of tea. Things had been pretty wretched since moving. Now days I’m not up and down throughout the day with sugar hits and energy lows. I am driving with a clear head, not needing afternoon sleeps 90% of the time, recovering more quickly from exertion and generally experiencing a radical reduction in symptoms.

The results are worth the sacrifice many times over. And to think I put this off for four years, because I was scared it would be too hard – but, like so many things (apart from coming of antidepressants), it was easier in reality.

Today someone posted this article about fructose being very unhealthy en masse. And until a few months ago, I thought orange juice was good for me. Thank-you myths and supermarket promotions.

PS.

-        Summer might be tricky, because I love watermelon and mangoes on hot days. 

-        Going out just isn’t the same when you can’t order chai tea with honey. And no ciders or wines on special occassions. {it is worth it, it is worth it, it is worth it.}

-        Smelling Ben’s fresh brownies makes me drool, and waver in my resolution, but I will not give in.

-        I am eating ALL vegetables – including onion, tomatoes and garlic, but deliberately limiting these ones. If I hadn’t seen such a radical result, I might have eliminated these too but for now I’m content.

on the merits of chucking our deodorant in the bin

Life is good in the era of minty toothpaste, anti-perspirint deodorant, and soap. I just do not know how they put up with the odours of the body in ages past. I worked in a library with a, well how shall we put it? eeeeextremely obese person, and it was such a dry retching experience I am still working through it. It was beyond bad. Give me clean, fresh, and civilized. 

As for other cosmetics, I could stand in the chemist all day long just looking at them. I LOVE being a woman, so much so that I sometimes feel sorry for men having to be men. But we won’t go into that here. I am a feminine creature who has a certain love for glossy locks, tantalising perfume, painted toe nails and did I mention lip balm? (But save me from cake-faced peroxide blonde specimens sporting oompa loompa orange skintone. Please.)

Anyway, the slight issue with all of these sparkling clean delights is that they are mostly made of toxic chemicals. And our skin absorbs these deathly substances. They don’t just sit on the outside, nope, they go right on in. Take a look at this frightening diagram, from ecomom.

My body actually took a stand on all of this last year. It is a very forthright body at times. It said in no uncertain terms that if I used any more soap on it, it would boil my hands into painful red eczema. It told me that it would certainly give me a headache if I sprayed any more toxic perfume onto my wrists and a sore throat if I used one more synthetic lip balm. I stopped committing these crimes against it because the punishment was so severe, so consistent...at first I was upset that it wasn’t going to tolerate any more chemicals, but I’m actually incredibly grateful for a lesson I’ve learnt for life. I started to search for alternatives, and was surprised and amazed.

Why do people wait till they are chronically ill to start caring about what goes in and on the body? We need to care even if we are well, and so I never intend to revert to normal ways of society, not even when I can tolerate it all. 

Let’s begin with a male and female staple – Deodorant.

My brother sent me the newsletter of Chinese Medicine doctor Christopher Booth who writes:

Day in day out we massage those aluminium salts and synthetic scents (not to mention all the rest for it) under our arms - into that soft, sensitive, porous, highly vascular skin.

So is there an alternative? Yes there is! This is so ridiculously simple, and it works well.

Here's the list of ingredients:

Baking soda

That's it!

How does it work? The alkaline nature of the baking soda prevents the odour-causing bacteria from flourishing in the warm damp environment of the arm pit. Dust it on after the shower, and keep your clothes clean.

So I decided to road test it.

Day 1

I showered, and then powdered it onto my armpits. Pleased to see that it rubs in well and don’t leave a trace. Particularly excited that I don’t have to walk around with that wet roll-on clamminess! Took a closet sniff or two during the day and was relieved to find that I was scent-less, genuinely body odour free. At night, my top could do with a wash, but if I wanted to stretch it one more day I probably could.

Day 2 + intense exercise

Showered, and this time I shave. There is a sting as I apply the soda, but it’s fleeting and mild. It could be avoided I am sure by applying it a little later?

I’m apprehensive about waltzing into my intense group fitness class, nearly ‘au natural’. I just don’t want to be that putrid person who forces everyone else to exercise with their nose blocked. It’s just so vile, and cruel...and argh, will baking soda really keep me civilly scentless as I drench my clothes? I’m feeling desperately close to getting out my Rexona Mens (I don’t like the ladies), but I resist. 

End result: I smell fresher than a daisy at the end of class. I actually think I smell better than when I wear my anti persperint. Chucking my deodorant in the bin, this works.

Coconut Oil needs to be sitting in the bathroom because it is the joker of cosmetics – use as:

-          moisturiser

-          sunlotion, google it

-          anti-dandruff or anti-split ends  

Burt’s Bee’s lip balm is just edible. I doesn’t just smell better than the chemical cosmetics, all the ingredients are so natural that you could eat it for lunch. After all, most of what we put on our lips gets ingested so you better be happy for it to end in the stomach. That’s why I said goodbye to my Blistex . It’s $6 well spent in my opinion, find it here.

Hope’s Relief Hydrating Lotion, found in most chemists and pharmacies is completely natural, and heals dry skin and eczema beautifully. 

An alternative to tampons I have recently invested in...This is an Eco friendly, woman friendly invention which will pay for itself in just a few months: menstrual cup, read here.

Ecomom -  sells it all, click here. Think natural shampoo, toothpaste, soap, nail polish, make up. It’s just a matter of choosing to buy the natural, clean alternative next time the shampoo runs out. 

So, we don't have to stink and look disheveled to treat our bodies well. We just have to stop walking through the supermarket with our brains switched off. We have to take some initiative, break the mold and find the better way.

toxic

I will let my children eat coke and cake whenever they like, I said as a kid. Mum and Dad assured me that I would change my mind when I grew up, but I was certain that I wouldn’t. According to my baby book, I used to sit in front of the sweet food cupboard just fantasizing about the sugary delights within. In my childish mind there was no good reason not to eat these delicious things; I went on taste buds alone. When mum started to serve up healthy brown rice instead of white, I was furious. I hated the stuff.

I also thought food was about filling myself up. Eat enough bread to keep away hunger pains, and all will run fine. Anyway, the packets of food always boasted their great health benefits, and I believed the propaganda.

I went on the Candida Diet eleven months after I became sick. This diet is basically the elimination of yeast, sugar, wheat and cheese, because these things feed a fungus, Candida, which is toxic to the body. 

toxic.

What a scary word. We see it slapped across cleaning products, and glues, and dyes. We don’t see it written on coke, or white bread, but maybe it should be...

At first when I started to eliminate these trouble making food groups, I definitely saw it as ‘a diet’ - an extreme measure to take in the extreme circumstance of having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I was dying for the day I would come off my diet, and once again indulge in my favourite dessert, golden syrup dumplings and sticky date pudding. Oh, and creaming soda.

But while on this eating regime, I started to read about food. It was unpleasant and convicting to read these things, to remove the cotton wool which was securely fastened over my eyes. I mean, its hearty nutrition to have a couple of pieces of toast and a glass of milk in the morning isn’t it? I started to discover that all those beautifully, delicious, refined things...white sugar, white flour, white rice, white milk...they are not nutritious, but rather loading the body full of rubbish which it then has to deal with, using precious energy and resources it doesn’t have. It takes more energy to work through these processed foods than is gained by consuming them in the first place.

I began reading the labels on food. For the first time ever. I discovered that it wasn’t just ‘sweet’ food that was full of toxic stuff, it was savoury too. In fact, it was nearly anything which wasn’t in its raw form. Take a dinner staple, chicken stock:

Salt, sugar, flavours, maltodextrin (form of sugar), maize startch, onion, chicken (4%), sunflower oil, yeast extract, parsley, flavour enhancer, colours, anti-caking agent, wheat starch, spice extract, herb extracts.

So, chicken stock has 4% chicken in it. That’s all.

You wouldn’t think yourself unhealthy for eating hearty savoury meals, but once you start looking at what you’re putting in it, it’s frightening. The faster, the more refined, the more deadly and nutrition-lacking for the body.

And we wonder why our bodies develop all kinds of ‘mysterious’ illnesses and cancers?

I don’t consider myself to be on ‘a diet’ anymore. I have made permanent choices about how I’m going to eat, based on the huge blessing of no longer being blind to our dangerously processed food world. Even, and especially if I have great health one day, I will still say ‘no’ to those insidious processed foods which are clogging up bodies all over the western world. I haven’t loved being sick, but I am incredibly grateful for the way it’s shaken me up and forced me to care for my body the healthy way.

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Cooking healthily isn’t quite as ‘quick’ as grabbing a packet of preservative filled rot from the supermarket, but even with my husband’s business and my lack of energy, we’ve found ways. And dessert is still on the menu. Here’s my favourite recipe for a quick and delicious dessert:

Berry Crumble

• Grab some frozen mixed berries or fresh berries; put them in a ramekin or small dish, filling it 2/3 way up.
• Chop up some dates and sprinkle over the berries for sweetness.
• Make in a small bowl a mixture of almond meal, shredded coconut, rolled oats (if you like) and rub some Nuttelex into it.
• Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the berries and dates. Drizzle organic honey over the top of the crumble and stick in the oven.
• Take out once the top is light golden, and the juices of the berries are bubbling.