What is clean eating? I guess it’s different for everyone. My version involves avoiding added sugar, artificial sweeteners, refined grains, red and processed meat, dairy, and caffeine.
I’m doing great. It was hard physically and emotionally to remove so much at one time, but I happen to be wired in a way that makes gradual change even harder.
I’m more in charge of my decisions than I’ve ever been, not just around food—anything. It has become second nature to resist giving in to things I don’t need. Used books were a weakness of mine. I’d go around looking for cheap books that I would never read. It was easy to explain it away as acquiring something good for me. Don’t get me wrong, I had every intention of reading those books—eventually. In reality, all they did was clutter my space and cause decision paralysis.
Noises bother me much less. Walking into stores with music playing used to have me overstimulated to the point of needing to lie down. Now, I handle whole shopping trips without getting overstimulated at all. I can only assume the biggest reason for this is the lack of sugar and caffeine, both of which stimulate the nervous system. I still have moments where I get overstimulated, but they are a fraction as often, and it doesn’t last long. Before, it was every trip to the grocery store. For the last 4 or 5 trips—I was completely fine.
Historically, my moods have been high or very low without a lot of in-between. Before I started eating healthier, I was depressed regularly. Mostly because the depression would last so long. Last week, I got depressed for one day. I’m not even sure it’s technically depression if it’s that short. That almost never happens to me. The last time I got that low for only a day, I was taking the highest dose of an antidepressant.
I’ve decided to give up wheat next. I already gave up bread because it’s hard to find any without sugar in it in the states. Since pasta has been making my stomach feel icky, it will be nice to see if it helps to eliminate it.
By the way, roasted dandelion root tea makes a nice coffee-esque drink. It tastes kind of like instant coffee. Now I want to look for more roasted root teas.