Giving Thanks
How was your Thanksgiving? I hope each and every one of you had a wonderful holiday, and really had a chance to not only reflect on what you are most thankful for, but actually got to have those things close to you and experience them in real time.
I am so thankful for my husband, my family, and our beautiful farm that provides so many wonderful foods, animals, and lots of opportunities for great exercise through hard work. And all of my ‘most thankful fors’ were right there, enveloping me during the whole holiday. It doesn’t get any better than that!
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FOOD TRIGGERS
We drove over on Wednesday evening, after Michael finished work. My food struggles started that night. I had been pretty good leading up to the holiday, even though I was instructed to NOT work out for a week (that was killing me!) and there were no food restrictions. I didn’t want to destroy what I had worked so hard to build, so I stayed 90% on the diet, allowing myself a healthy treat meal every day. I was back on my beloved green smoothies, with lots of bananas! Oh, how I missed those. I also ate an Amy’s pizza–my favorite version: spinach with vegan cheeze and rice crust. I also had an Amy’s burger, and things like that. Not bad, just not things I can eat on a precontest diet. And lots of raw food! On Monday, I HAD to make healthy pancakes! My best bud Angela nicknamed me ‘Flaps’ last week because of my love affair with pancakes. 
I planned that I was going to eat the heck out of my mom’s incredible German Chocolate Cake. I was dying for some, and figured I deserved it. One day won’t hurt, right? (Well, one and a half days. We started on it Wednesday night.) My body completely rebelled against the stuff I was eating! Wow, I was shocked at how bad it got. That’s the dichotomy of eating very clean for a long time–the things that didn’t cause any problems before suddenly become very toxic and make you miserable. For example, if you used to drink a lot of coffee or alcohol, and you eat mostly raw and abstain from those things, then when you allow yourself a little bit, very often the negative reaction is brutal. I used to enjoy a glass or two of red wine with dinners, and since Michael is highly knowledgeable about wines due to his former job as a wine distributor, we were part of a couple of vintner’s clubs before I started my raw food lifestyle. Now, if I have even a few sips of red wine, I immediately get a headache and want to go straight to bed. I just can’t handle it at all.
So, just one day won’t hurt, right? Well, it hurt me. I swelled up like a balloon and felt miserable. But the worst part was the cravings it triggered. I was amazed at how powerful they were. I was frantic wanting more and more cake and sugary things. It’s like it takes over your brain and it’s all you can think about. But I was feeling so miserable that my conscious mind was desperate to get back on my regular Bombshell diet. Which is just about impossible in the middle of nothing but Thanksgiving food. I definitely melted down on Thanksgiving, but the next day I didn’t touch any of the ‘trigger’ foods at all. I ate green smoothies, lots of salad, and didn’t touch cake or the sweet potato souffle (which was one of the best ones I have ever eaten.) That was hard–I was really struggling with the brain cravings. But my poor body kept me in line.
Foods like sugar, refined flours, etc. often cause negative reactions that end up manifesting as cold-like symptoms when the ‘detox’ starts. Both Michael and I came down with ‘colds’ after Thanksgiving. In my past life, I would have thought I caught a cold and taken a bunch of medicines. Fortunately, now I know enough to realize that our bodies were throwing out all those toxins and that we had to support our immune systems through the detox–yet not stop the detox, which is so necessary. I had some convincing to do with Michael, as he was ready to take a bunch of decongestants. Instead, I fixed up some great concoctions to support the cleansing process. The most successful potion was Apple Cider Vinegar, juice of 1/2 lemon, and raw unfiltered honey (that still has all the propolis, pollen, etc in it) That is amazingly cleansing.
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MY PUNISHMENT
My body really punished me! On Saturday, I conveniently reasoned that it had been a week since I last worked out, so I headed up to the rec center intending to bust out a very intense cardio session and hopefully sweat out the toxins and the huge amount of water I was retaining. I did my warmup on the Stepmill for five minutes, and felt great. I hopped off to do my first round of plyos, started my walkout pushup jumps, and after a few my quadricep muscles started to cramp up. No biggie, I thought. I stretched for a few seconds, and started another plyo jump exercise. My quads LOCKED UP. I mean, they cramped up so bad I couldn’t walk. I have never had a cramp in my life–ever! I was not prepared for the intense pain and complete loss of mobility.
It was all I could do to get down to the front doors to leave. I literally couldn’t walk very far, and the only relief was kneeling on my knees with my feet tucked under me, which seemed to help them release a bit. I had to kneel three times just to get around the track and then going down the stairs was pure torture. I finally made it to the couches and it was a good 30 minutes before I could even consider driving. My friend had to go get my stuff for me, because I knew I couldn’t walk back up to the cardio area.
I finally made it home, and immediately started looking for cramp remedies. I tried a few and then got in the tub in hot water, which was recommended to help relax the muscles. After an hour or two, I was OK and able to walk normally. But my quads felt like hard rocks and were so sore–some of the worst soreness I have ever felt. Only my quads cramped. Nothing else did, and other than my quads I felt just fine.
I didn’t try to work out on Sunday. Monday morning I tried cardio again, but this time upstairs in my house so I would be home in case it happened again. It did happen again, but not to the same extent. The foods I had been eating had obviously helped. In reading about cramps, I found that they are often caused by the body being extremely acid from–guess what–refined sugar and flour. Wow, talk about causing myself pain through food.
The detoxing has been hell. The cramps, the bloating, tortured intestines. Yuck! I am not exactly back on my diet yet because I have been eating a lot of foods to support myself through the detox. Not that they are bad–for example, honey is wonderful, but it is a sugar. No sugars are part of our diet, no matter how healthy they are. Same with fruit, which is also sugar, but oranges and bananas really help clear out the mucus that the body uses to help expectorate the toxins. But right now, my poor quads and my body need the help, so I am going to continue those things until I am back to normal. I still don’t know why only my quads are cramping. Weird.
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THANKSGIVING STORIES
OK this is already WAY too long, so I will save these for next time. We did have some interesting adventures.
Also, I am thinking about doing something very unusual, and I will share those thoughts as well.
The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is coming on! I gotta go!
Be Defiant!
Christy
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Hey Christy,
I had a question about eating “clean.” I’ve gone back to SAD foods, but have considered restarting my clean eating lifestyle again. I really miss the HIGH ENERGY I once experienced eating clean. My reluctance, however, is basically what you went through. I want to be able to keep the high energy and benefits of eating clean, but at the same time want the versatility to eat “normally” on demand (and only on rare occasion) WITHOUT the pains you went through. While i understand the idea about toxins and being alkaline, etc. etc… I am still amazed at how the body can so adversely react to SAD foods after eating so clean for a long time. Shouldn’t a healthy body have the range/flexibility/tolerance to eat a li’l SAD foods w/o the adverse effects that you described??
I do plan to find out for myself regardless of your response – and go clean again – but it just doesn’t seem to match the model I have come to understand about the body’s tolerance for foods. I believed that the body has a range of what it can take before it begins to breakdown from the acids in the system… but to hear that you got so sick after eating a li’l of the SAD foods makes me wonder about that tolerance/range the body has in terms of health and what it can take as far as “toxins” are concerned.
Speaking of tolerances, I get a major headache and turn red and swollen after drinking a glass of wine… never fun… but I suppose that’s the way it’d be for SAD foods once i go clean. hmmmm…
Oh, honey, I didn’t just have a ‘li’l’ of the SAD foods. I had a meltdown! Normally, I eat one ‘cheat meal’ a week, and other than a little water retention, I never have these kinds of problems. I stretched last week out over several days, culminating with the Thanksgiving ‘German Chocolate Cake Fest’. I WAY overdid it! If you have the SAD foods, drink extra water and lots of lemon juice and raw apple cider vinegar. That usually does the trick! I agree with you–usually a small slipup isn’t too horrible.