Guilt from diet?

Ok so today I went over my sugar intake. Ate whole bunch of coconut date almond rolls. all natural of course,but ahhh. I feel guilty when I do this or mess up. anyone else? Some days i'll have a cheat day. :( I also feel guilty when I miss a supplement,etc. Like today I was busy so missed coconut oil,and trace minerals.

My wife has been fighting Lyme for 3 years. She has been very strict about her diet and what she eats. Recently I've become very suspicious about curing yourself with diet. Yes I realize that diet alone isn't enough. But there is so much emphasis on raw foods and organic foods.

The reason why I'm having a change of thought is because I am a perfectly healthy 56 year old who has adopted a lot of her restrictive dietary requirements and am starting to feel malnourished. My wife stopped eating red meat and pork as a child and only ate limited poultry. I believe the root of her weak immune system is because of her diet.

She has gotten militant in her belief that processed foods are toxic. But I've come to the conclusion that a proper raw food or vegetarian diet is far too difficult for someone who is sick. Even before she came down with Lyme she was not properly nourished.

My point here is that IMO your first priority should be to eat adequate amounts of food. And that eating proper foods should be secondary to that. I had eliminated red meat, pork, processed foods, refined sugars, and began juicing veggies every day. I am now going back to eating a moderate amount of pork and red meat because I feel that they are valuable sources of nutrition in moderation.

I highly recommend something like an Omega Masticating Juicer and drinking juiced veggies. And yes keep the refined sugars down. Don't go broke buying "natural" stuff. Fresh fruits are easy and cheap, plus they are not processed.

Post Edited (FLY135) : 8/7/2012 3:18:56 PM (GMT-6)

Oddly enough even before she got Lyme she was very picky about what went in her mouth. If someone got food out of a leftovers container in the fridge, she felt that it was contaminated. She would rather not eat. She wouldn't even let me sip from her drink. Even though she would drink from mine and we kiss.

She has always been thin. And she has always been repulsed by the idea of eating beef or pork. It has been difficult for the last 3 years. In the first year and a half she hardly ate anything, and guilt tripped me terribly because I wouldn't fix her the right kind of foods and she was starved. It was difficult for me to fix her the right kind of foods because I didn't have such a restrictive diet. And even if I fixed the "right" stuff chances are she wouldn't eat any leftovers the next day.

When she finally got her energy back she would eat from the Whole Foods bar every day and drink expensive teas to the tune of about $20-$25 a day. Plus she would buy lots of organic foods that would rot because she never had the energy to cook them. Recently she backed off the expensive Whole Foods bar and started going down hill. It was that along with my feeling of malnutrition on my restricted diet when I had the revelation that her mental obstruction towards eating was probably a significant reason why her immune system was compromised.

To make matters worse she has been hard on her family (me and grown kids), trying to make us all believe we are going to come down with Lyme if we don't start eating proper foods. Quite frankly she is so set in her belief that she has superior knowledge about nutrition I doubt that a nutritionist will help. She's read every book and watched every youtube, which I think is the problem. Every anecdotal story is proof of her convictions. She's been buying a lot of expensive stuff from Jordan Rubin (Garden of Life) because of his book curing himself of Chron's.

It's not that I disagree with good nutrition. I just don't think it's smart to take all this as gospel to the point you don't eat if you don't have organic or raw foods available. Processed foods aren't toxic. They just aren't the best as a main food source from a long term dietary point of view.

In a nutshell, IMO if you are hungry eat what's available. Because if you are holding out until you get that great organic meal cooked, then you may be killing yourself. And if you are eating a meat free or vegan diet, then you may be killing yourself unless you really know that what you eat is balanced.

I got myself into a pretty awful mindset for a while - my whole life revolved around what I "can't" eat or drink, and it was just seriously depression. I felt guilty after every single thing I ate! I find the best approach is to take the emphasis off of "I don't eat this because..." and put it on, "I eat LOTS of this because..." - that way you learn more and more foods that work really well for you, and you'll naturally end up eating less of any less favorable foods. Keep in mind that the stress on your body from mentally beating yourself up over what you eat may be just as bad if not worse than eating something "bad" to begin with!

It can be frustrating, but I think it's really awesome that my body will tell me what it wants and doesn't want. If I have a little sugar, it's not the end of the world. If I binge for a prolonged period of time, then I start to have some problems, making it easier to abstain. Works out pretty well!

I've noticed a similar phenomenon with the red meat - I've recently started incorporating it again and it feels really right! For me it's become a matter of eating the most natural meats and produce - keeping the chemicals out, etc. The way I see it the less ingredients there are in each meal I have, the less of a burden I'm putting on my body to process all of it.

I agree with you Fly as well. I do restrict (gluten, dairy and refined sugar) but I eat unrefined sugars sometimes and I still eat rice and gluten free pasta for carbs. I have to. For me, I'm getting too thin. My doctor has actually suggested that I don't restrict sugar or dairy believe it or not. I'm a normal size still, but it wouldn't be good for me to lose any more weight.

I can also understand your wife's point of view though because I have a similar mindset even though I know it's not healthy. I feel SO sick right now and I AM eating healthily. It's gotten to the point that I'm afraid to add things back in because I don't want to get any sicker, and I've only been restricting since November.

I think for some people that have Lyme, diet is something that they feel they CAN control where as the progression of the disease is out of their hands and the treatment is not clear-cut. Unfortunately when people become fixated on controlling their diet, it can get out of hand and turn into an eating disorder. That's something I try to be VERY careful about with myself. Although I restrict foods, I am careful to make sure that I am NOT restricting calories.

And definitely if Candida is an issue it is important to change. Right now if I eat any sugar or fruit, it's nearly instantaneous that I get oral thrush and can't swallow anything (from pain) for days.

My LLMD doesn't do much about it. He keeps me on Nystatin all the time. I've had it pretty severely where I am in extreme pain and can't eat or drink (it spreads down into my esophagus). That's usually if I've neglected to take Nystatin. Usually then he has me take a 3-4 day break from meds and I drink a ton of Kefir. I also use the liquid Nystatin instead of pills when it gets really bad. I haven't had to use Diflucan yet which is good because I already have some liver issues.

I definitely have a lot more of a problem if I drink juice (no sugar added kind) or eat a lot of fruit. I can handle 1-2 pieces of fruit per day. If I go over, I'm in trouble.

I feel that moderation is best. I have cut back on sugar due to candida and find it helps.
I drink lemon water with aguva nectar as a sweetner, even in my cup of coffee in the a.m.

When I have a flair of candida I up the lemon water and really omit all sugar for a day or two and it clears up.

Everyone is different and we each have figure out what works best for you.

This is such a tough disease and so different from person to person.