Friday, December 26, 2008

more on the scones

okay, so I had 2 scones yesterday, well 4 little ones, okay, so 4 scones.  And I felt pretty crappy afterwards.  I hope my very nice friend who gave me the scones never reads this blog!  Geez, this is the (social) problem with eating healthy.  I had a lot of symptoms from this and I'm very curious now what the biochemical reaction of my body was.  I looked up gluten intolerance on the web and that seems to me to be a longer-term reaction, an inflammation of your intestines that worsens over time and leads to poor absorption and nutrient deficiency and autoimmune problems (allergies, arthritis, etc)---that's a longer-term effect.  I had an immediate unpleasant reaction that has lasted at least 12 hours, though is gradually getting better.  The reaction was not really worse than in the past, but it's more noticeable now since I usually feel much better--I always felt this way when I used to eat this way.  Last night, I sort of felt like I had ADHD.  Here are some other things I felt, and I have to keep in mind that it's hard to be objective on these things as your mind can exagerate things.    okay, the headache and fuzzy brain were real, as well as being both tired and nervous.  My teeth were sensitive while brushing last night and this morning.  This hasn't happened in a while but it could just be coincidence.  I had more runny nose on my bike this morning than usual (this could be imagined).  I was a little nauseas at the gym (not imagined).  I recall this being a normal feeling in the past too.  My face looks a little splotchy today (that could be imagined, and was also normal in the past though).  I recall when I was a kid on the rare occasions that we got pancakes with syrup, I felt pretty crappy afterwards.  We hardly ever got desserts or sweets.  But I'm sure I ate plenty of refined white flour.  We ate white bread, though usually only for lunch on sandwiches.

So as I said before, I'm wondering what the biochemical reaction was.  I think it was to the processed flour and sugar.  There was also oil in the scones I assume, which I also haven't had in a while.   Processed white flour is equivalent to sugar, I've read.  If this was a sugar reaction, why is it so much stronger than to fruit or even dates which are very sweet?   This is the mystery I would like to understand.  I'll ask Dr. Fuhrman if I can't figure it out myself.    

I guess I can consider this an experiment though I would like to limit these experiments as time goes on because they aren't very pleasant.  It seems I need to avoid sugar, oils, alcohol, caffeine, and refined flour now?  well, of course, that is exactly what Dr. Fuhrman says.  But I guess my body is saying it too.  

I still have to work on my story.  What do I tell people when I refuse their offerings of food?   I've got two business trips coming up so it will be interesting to see.  One is to Portugal.  I could cop out and say it's for medical reasons, that I'm avoiding salt because of a heart condition, which is in fact true but it's also a cop out.  I should be more bold and say that this is how I choose to eat for health reasons.  But I'm not very bold...however, it might be worth play-acting at home pretending that I am bold.  good idea..

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