So here I am, in a reflective mood on holiday in Kos in 2017.
The holiday was nearing its end, and we’d had a really great time.
So what has this got to do with me kidding myself? Well let me get to that….
The holiday was in July and in August and September the skin on my face had a mad allergic reaction.
As I’m not the type to go to the doctors for steroid creams, I convinced myself that I could sort it. And here is the part where I properly kidded myself, I told myself it couldn’t be to do with what I was eating, because I was eating the ‘healthy’ way I’d been eating for the past 5 years. No, it must be to do with an outside influence. So I stopped using commercial shampoo and conditioner and switched to handmade products. Which helped quite a bit, but didn’t solve the problem entirely.
Then I started to get sore hands with large patches of eczema, which I hadn’t had since 2012. What was going on?
And then reality hit. Who was I kidding? Only me. This was no coincidence, change of products or other outside influence, it WAS what I was eating. Yes, me who bangs on about the importance of food morning, noon and night. I found that I had slipped into old habits. My default setting from years ago, which is selective eating.
We humans are brilliant at justifying our own behaviour. We reassure ourselves constantly and therefore believe everything our conscience repeats over and over. Mine was saying you eat healthily so don’t look there. I DID used to eat healthily, but that had started to slide. Yes I was still gluten and sugar free but the carbs had started to make an appearance far more often and the amount of green veg had taken a huge nose dive! The skin problem was the tipping point because during that fabulous holiday in July the sun hit my skin and I thought myself invincible. Surely I could eat what I wanted for two weeks? My healthy body would take it. I had gluten on two occasions and sugar nearly every day (banana flavoured ice cream lolly anyone?). No blooming wonder, really, that I would suffer the consequences approximately 3 weeks later, which is the time it takes for your skin to renew itself and manifest problems in the gut.
During my work on a bespoke plan for a client I re-focused on what I should be eating and ate myself back to normality. It was a wake-up call. Then I went and did it again at Christmas, will I ever learn?! Well I have. But now I have a new mantra. To stick to my own advice. I upped my vegetable intake, I include flaxseed in my food daily and I never, ever eat gluten or sugar.
Why not try a a better version of a ‘treat’? Click on the pic for my recipe for Crazy Good Cookies
The silver lining of going through my battles with eczema is that I proved without a doubt, again, that what you eat does effect your health. Mine manifests in eczema. And the triggers that have effected me all my life will never go away. Those same triggers cause problems for most people but they might be effected in other ways. Ask yourself how it is effecting you? Achy knees, indigestion, IBS, or arthritis? Or is it quietly doing damage that you can’t see or feel until it’s too late like diabetes or cancer?
My body is genetically prone to eczema and it always will be. Even though our bodies renew themselves constantly, we are only as good as the plans we use to rebuild them. The plans are formed in the gut, reliant upon what we put in our mouths and they show the body how to repair and rebuild. You can eat yourself away from what you are genetically predisposed to.
Upon introducing myself and what I do to someone new, literally the first thing that person will say is ‘I eat really healthily’ which translates as ‘I don’t want to change the way I eat.’ I just nod and say nothing. Because 9 times out of 10 if that person is eating the way doctors and the government currently tell us is healthy, then they really are kidding themselves, they just don’t know it.
All they have to do is ask me.
