Food Sensitivity: I made a big diet mistake and I'm paying for it!
I made a mistake with my diet, and geez, I’m really paying for not avoiding the foods on my Food Sensitivity list! I started to write this as a quick post on Facebook. After I started writing, I realized that more people need to hear how important it is to care for their bodies properly.
As I began recovering from carbon monoxide poisoning, I wanted to make sure that I eliminated any foods from my diet that may cause a reaction. My thought was that if my body was putting any energy towards resisting inflammatory foods, it had less energy to heal. I wanted to create an ideal environment within my body so that I could heal faster.
I kind of already had an idea of which foods didn’t agree with me, but I did food sensitivity testing so that I knew for sure. As it turned out, I have a lengthy list of common foods that may trigger some adverse reactions in my body with sensitivity ranging from mild to severe.Food Sensitivity:
Foods that I must avoid
There are a few foods that I absolutely, without a doubt, know to avoid because I feel the adverse reaction quickly. For instance, strawberries trigger a response right away. Other foods don’t necessarily show up right away and don’t appear to cause any problems.
Then, I realized that over time, inflammation builds up, causing me to feel worse and worse. I would blame external factors when I felt exhausted, stressed, overwhelmed, etc. I’d end up in bed drinking a lot of water, tea, and little else. I’d “sleep it off” and blame myself for taking on too much or frustrated because I allowed things to get to me.
How I made this big mistake
So, back to my Big Mistake. Last weekend I volunteered to help staff a Personal Mastery workshop in Arlington, TX. Personal Mastery is a 2.5-day personal growth seminar. They are long days and a lot of gratifying work.
The tight schedule requires quick meal and snack breaks. During snack breaks, I chose what I thought would be a decent food choice, peanut trail mix. They were in the little individual snack packs that I could rip open and eat quickly. My thought was that the protein from the peanuts would be beneficial. I was wrong. SO WRONG!
I knew something was wrong
When I woke up Sunday morning, I started to notice symptoms and I knew that something was wrong. My legs down to my feet were puffy, along with my hands and my eyes. I thought it was from a lot of walking in high heels I had done the night before. After all, I don’t regularly wear heels like I used to. So, I chalked the legs and feet symptoms up to the shoes, the puffy eyes to lack of sleep. The puffy hands, well, I just wrapped it all up under fatigue.
As Sunday progressed, I consumed multiple bags of peanut trail mix – again, thinking it was a better choice than candy or chips. To flush my system, I drank bottle after bottle of water but didn’t stop to consider that I wasn’t using the restroom much. Hmmm. At one point in the afternoon, I even felt nauseous, which I thought might have been from the turkey or chicken I had lunch. That had to be it – bad food!
The symptoms of food sensitivity inflammation got worse
Monday came, and I felt even worse. When I should have been feeling happy and excited about the success of the seminar, I felt generally unwell. I was still puffy, cranky, tired, emotional – like a bad case of PMS.
I had my typical morning shake for breakfast after I drank some lemon juice with a little water. Lemon is supposed to cleanse the body and a diuretic.
As the day progressed, and I didn’t feel any better, I thought maybe a good workout would make everything better. Sixty minutes on the bike, no sweat. I mean literally, no sweat. Not a drop. Since that didn’t work, time in the infrared sauna had to work. Nope. That didn’t work either. No sweat.
I showered and laid on the couch, sleeping off and on until bedtime.
And worse!
This morning, it was worse! In addition to even more puffiness in my hands and feet, my eyes were swollen. Not puffy, they were nearly two-thirds swollen shut. One look in the mirror almost sent me into an anxiety attack. I was frustrated and angry that my body was doing this.
After resting on the couch with ice-cold tea bags on my eyes, I got up and sat at the kitchen island talking with Jake as he washed dishes. As I sat there feeling guilty for not doing the dishes the night before, I noticed half of a lemon on the counter from yesterday. My first thought was that I should drink some more lemon juice. Then it hit me – food sensitivity! I thought, is lemon one of my trigger foods?
Food sensitivity test results had the answer
I pulled up my test results on my phone, swiping past the pages on what food sensitivity tests check for and what the results mean until I got to the lists. The first list shows the highly reactive foods, a second list shows moderate sensitivity foods. Right there on the first page were peanuts. I forgot about peanuts! I don’t usually eat peanuts or peanut butter, and I had forgotten that peanuts are a trigger food. Over two days, I mindlessly consumed multiple bags of peanuts, sometimes two bags during one break!
Oh, and if peanuts weren’t enough, lemons are on my secondary list. I drank straight lemon juice three days in a row, thinking it would help me release some of the fluid retention. Umm, no! It only increased the inflammation in my body.
Healthy diet and awareness
Because I have been eating a healthy diet with a limited selection of foods, with a little awareness and an ah-moment, I quickly pinpointed the cause of the inflammation. The reaction happened so fast, too. I went from feeling fantastic and full of energy to a trainwreck within two days.
Typically, most of us don’t recognize our reactions to food. I’m educated about secondary food sensitivity, and I have a list of foods I should avoid – I still didn’t pick up on the cause of my problems.
Now I get to see how quickly my body recovers.
Learn from my diet mistakes
I hope you will learn from my diet mistakes. Please, take my advice and get tested. I could give you a link to a test that I got on Amazon, but I don’t want you to think that I wrote this so that I could make a little affiliate bonus off of it.
Our parents didn’t get instruction manuals for us when we were born, they had to do the best they could. We don’t have proper care and use manuals, either. We get to figure that out on our own – and then stick to it!
Which food sensitivity test to get
I don’t know which food sensitivity tests are better or which companies are better for this kind of testing. I did a lot of research and then picked one on Amazon with the highest number of recent positive reviews. I also read the reviews to make sure that they didn’t receive anything in exchange for their consideration.
This little health experience is another opportunity to look for the good in the situation and a reminder to appreciate myself and my health!
Let me hear from you in the comments
Please let me know in the comments if you have done this kind of test or other others like it. If so, did you find out anything that corresponded with any symptoms you had? If you haven’t been tested yet, and decide to do one now, let me know. It helps me to know that by sharing my experiences, I am helping others.
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