I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older or because I’ve made it so that my body is now used to clean foods instead of junk all the time. No matter what, it is a verified fact that when I’m eating well and in sensible quantities, I sleep well and am in better shape than when I eat crap. In itself, it is probably a good thing, since it encourages me to give priority to healthy foods. On the other hand, if I really go astray (eating one slice of cake a week is okay, eating one twice a day is not), I seriously regret it, and it can take several days, marked with tiredness and headaches, to completely go away.
I know I’m not the only one who reacts to ‘wrong’ foods this way, by going into some kind of sugar shock. Nevertheless, I still marvel at the way my body got used to having great foods like vegetables and fruits on a daily basis, and same with lean meats and fish or healthy oils. It’s almost like the poor thing had been waiting and starving for years in the dark, and the day I finally gave it what it needed, it started thanking me threefold by making me energized, as well as punishing me threefold by causing me headaches and feelings of sickness.
This means I need to be careful. I wouldn’t be able to indulge at a wedding, for instance, and eat from the buffet and from the huge cake all afternoon and evening long. Not unless I want to be sick, that is. I know it’s not akin to what people who had WLS experience (I can fathom much more than that, from what I’ve read and experienced myself), but it’s still a fact. Fortunately, those aren’t daily occurrences, and I still remember my insulin crash or whatever it was from last summer too vividly to be willing to try eating too much chocolate again. The wrong thing in all of that is that I also know what foods I can stand, meaning I won’t be sick after bingeing on them, but I will still pay the price later on, at night, when I’ll find myself turning and tossing at 3 am, fighting with bad dreams and a very bad quality of sleep.
This said… I like the way things are all the same. It’s one more incentive to do things right. I also don’t doubt that someday, I will learn, and that the really wrong foods will be a scarce occurrence for good. After all, I don’t like being tired, cranky and drugged on painkillers (ah, sugar-induced headaches, you are the worst!). So what other choice do I have left, save from eating properly? (Or reverting to a diet full of junk food, but somehow, this doesn’t really appeal to me… I wonder why.)
February 14th, 2008 at 23:46
I kind of wish my body reacted more negatively to high-fat/high-sugar food. Sadly, the backlash is much less severe. It seems like it would be very good incentive to stay on track, this feeling bad after eating bad thing.
Sorry you won’t be able to indulge at the wedding, though.
February 15th, 2008 at 07:50
That’s okay, there aren’t many weddings in my life anyway (including mine, haha… elusive and faraway thing!). At least, the good part at weddings is that I can dance, so it’s easy to spend the evening waltzing instead of worrying about food. (And you don’t want to eat much after half a hour of waltzing anyway)
February 16th, 2008 at 17:08
It’s great your body has made the connection–I think a lot of us don’t listen carefully enough to the signals we get when we eat the wrong food.
It sounds like you have a much healthier, more mindful relationship with your body than many of us–and you’re both on the same side.
I tend to be a bit oblivious to the physical signals I’m eating poorly unless it gets REALLY bad.
February 17th, 2008 at 08:35
It’s made the connection, but I admit that I still don’t always listen to it. >.< Which IS something I need to do (read: don’t binge, K.) because if I don’t, I really regret it, and it’s not because of guilt.
February 20th, 2008 at 17:56
I have exactly the same reaction to sugar now that I’ve generally cleaned up my eating. I’ve always been hypoglycemic to some degree, but I think when I was more regularly eating refined carbs and sugar, my body just kind of sighed and dealt with it. Now that I’ve removed a lot of the junk from my diet, the smallest hint of sugar sets my body into a tizzy… headaches, tiredness, irritability. I guess that’s its way of saying “no more!” after so many years of abuse….
February 27th, 2008 at 18:03
I know exactly how you feel!
It all started when I decided to shirk off sugar for a month and eat more vegetables and fruits instead of white rice and other refined carbs.
Something happened to my body. It was like a starving man who suddenly had a taste of food.
I now can’t eat white bread or else I’ll get cranky, lethargic, sleepy and simply blah. The reaction is so bad that I’d stare at a slice of white bread as if it’s laced with arsenic!
And when I look at sweets and chocolates, I can almost hear my body go, “Ugh!”
And when I visit the Village Grocer, and look at the shelves and shelves of vegetables and fruits, I swear my body is all excited.
Now I eat salads for lunches … not because I adore salads, but because if I eat too much refined carbs (white rice, the main culprit) I’ll become really lethargic in the afternoon. There was once when I indulged in some Thai Green curry with white rice and I ended up sleeping on my desk - boss’s office in front of my table be damned!
In a way, I’m glad my body’s reacting this way. If not for these reactions, I wouldn’t be eating so much veges and fruits …