I am grateful for yesterday’s….
- Christmas shopping trip to a lovely nearby town with my G
- Gospel choir gig
- And the day before – getting through yet another government health/work assessment – so traumatic each time, but on my third go, I’m getting better at handing the stress of it, and saying what I need to say.
- My lovely youngest coming home for Christmas – what a blessing to have both my gorgeous kids in one city again
I have a confession to make. It’s three months into my MEDS project and… I am gaining weight at about a pound a day. I feel huge and am back to about my historic heaviest. I’m overweight, exhausted and I’ve just come down with a cold. But I do know what’s going on, I think, and my decision of last weekend will help.
The decision of last weekend: Jan 1st to stop consuming carbs, alcohol and caffeine.
Why is this a crucial step in the MEDS project and for my general health? Here’s the horrible physiological cycle at play when I let alcohol into my life….:
- I drink alcohol in the evening
- …which dissolves my good plans for a 9pm screen curfew and a 10pm in-bed-with-books, causing me to ride past my natural melatonin window and stay up on adrenalin and cortisol (later to be woken by alcohol-related GABA alert at 3am)
- …which evening alcohol also causes me to eat unwisely (carbs) late at night
- … which alcohol and carb snacking disrupts my insulin / cortisol / adrenal system
- … which causes me to sleep badly and wake early and wired, craving sweet coffee
- … which further insulin mess-up means I’m now fatigued and also craving and feasting on carbs
- … which carbs feed and pump up the candida in the gut (while also making me store fat)
- … which candida gives me brain fog, and dulls my intention to self-care via meditation and exercise
- … which brain fog makes me feel by evening I’ve earned a drink to stop the brain haze and unboundariedness…
I just did a BBC quiz on ‘what’s the right diet for you?‘ – it identified my eating style as ‘Feaster‘. Spot on – can’t stop once I pop – especially when it comes to feeding the candida in the gut… However, I very much doubt the low fat/high carb diet they recommend is sensible (see dietdoctor.com and The Obesity Code). But it made me remind myself of these guidelines, self-curated over the last few years, which will be really helpful for me when on 1st Jan 2019 I break the cycle mentioned above:
- Feast… on veg (raw / steamed with healthy oils are very satisfying)
- “Treats” are not (they destabilise my gut biome)
- A bit of protein with each meal is balancing
- Fast consciously (simply stop late night eating to give system reset time)
- Probiotics & prebiotics each day are key
- Prioritise sleep – in bed without screens by 10pm is the only way
Argh… So, this is why alcohol is a lynchpin in the making or breaking of my capacity to use the beautiful MEDS protocols. It’s 2 weeks and 2 days until New Year’s Day. May I use this time to get my heart and mind in gear.
I worked on the Power of No. That is going to be a long term project.
Far from it. You are perfectly underlining your Power to say No to alcohol. That is excellent.
Ah! I guess so. And carbs and caffeine too. That’s going to be good. It is good!
You are indeed looking out for your own Best Interests. That is good practice indeed.
Ty. I’m so tired today. Another very late and broken night. Heavy cold too. My FitBit tells me my average daily sleep this week is a pretty appalling 6h5mins…
Best Interests.
I also need to give love and presence to my youngest who is back home, and whom I just jarred with over her not being able to hear me out on the landing. She’s deaf…. Come on.
In meeting your Best Interests you are better placed to meet hers too.
Speak plainly please.
Get some rest, woman. Stop. Slow down. Stop.
I’ve got a day of activity planned.
STOP. Whether you ‘feel’ like it or not. No one wants your cold, your exhaustion or your frayed nerves… You care about your ballooning weight so let that be the incentive: running on cortisol puts your body out of sync with itself and it goes into panic mode and stores more and more fat. Ok?
Yoga Nidra.
If you like.
“Yoga nidra or yogic sleep is a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping, like the “going-to-sleep” stage. It is a state in which the body is completely relaxed, and the practitioner becomes systematically and increasingly aware of the inner world by following a set of verbal instructions.” (Wikipedia)
Whatever it takes to stop-even-though-it-hurts-to-do-so…. Whatever it takes to ensure you get a good nap today… Whatever it takes to break the cycle of 6 hours sleep a night. This is what we mean by living according to your Best Interests
Today I am stopping, in accordance with my Best Interests.
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