Aaaaaaaarrrgh. I'm a bad, bad girl. I think it has to do with my blood sugar levels. I'm going to blame it on that. This is my routine, I'm sure you've already heard it before, but here it goes: 4 days on high doses, twice a day. I wake up in the morning and fiddle around until I take my pills at about 8:30 - 9:00 am, then I wait three to four hours before I can eat. So....I can eat at around noon or 1:00 pm. Then, I stop eating at 4:00 pm and take the second dosing at 8:30 - 9:00 pm. That only leaves about three to four hours of time to eat. I get full so quickly that I can't even eat that much. I do that for four days then I have six days off. During the high doses I need to avoid my healthy smoothies and high antioxidant foods (they clean out free radicals which I need to help my herbs attach to the cancer cells). By day three I'm starving and craving everything from my delicious green drinks to sourdough, burritos, ice cream, wine, and artisan cheese. Ugh...my body just talks and talks to me telling me all the delicious foods that it needs, IT NEEDS, it says. On day 5, the first day I can eat normal foods, I crave eggs on toast, or a turkey sandwich (totally gross), or a burger (yuck). I crave crazy foods that I never normally eat...well, except for the eggs on toast - that's a special treat about once a month.
On Friday Danny and I ate Mexican, on Saturday I ate a lamb burger, yesterday I ate a burrito. What is wrong with me?!?! I can't seem to stop myself. Eek - am I binger?!? That's so embarrassing.
The first phase, after the October MRI, was so easy. I do well with consistency. It was easy to take my my pills each night. I could drink my green smoothies each morning, and make sure I was done eating at 4:00 pm. Each day was the same, very simple to implement. I like things that I don't have to think about, easy rules that always apply. This whole 4 days high dose, and 6 days off is very difficult to deal with. It probably sounds really easy, I mean, it sounds easy as I type it, but I promise you it is definitely not easy. I believe my blood sugar levels are fighting me. My body loves the green drinks, and for those four days it is tough to avoid them. I feel like my head is constantly spinning, always trying to figure out what I can have or what I need to avoid. It changes so much. On the 6 days off I'm supposed to eat high doses of special sprouts, maitake mushroom supplements, turmeric supplements, ginger drops, shark liver oil, and it's all so confusing. This protocol is, in my opinion, cutting edge. There are no distinct rules other than the whole antioxidant thing, and knowing when to stop eating so that pills will digest properly.
I need rules. Aaaaaaaaaah. AAAAAAAAAH.
I did manage to drink three different fresh pressed juices, full of veggies and fruits over the weekend. That should help counter act the bad food choices that I've made. Sometimes I feel completely crazy. This is one of those times. How can I cheat so badly with my food choices? I don't know. I understand that the bad food feeds little Hermie, but sometimes my body overrides my mind. I now can completely understand people in my position who just flat out don't want to change their lifestyle even though it may save their life. It's hard. It's so effing hard sometimes. When it's sunny outside, I want to walk over to Dukes with Danny and sit on the patio with a glass of white wine and a cheese burger. Or just the wine.
This morning, trying to completely jump start my digestion and apologize to my poor confused body, I made my most powerful smoothie yet. It's completely random, but it was surprisingly good! Be careful though, make sure you're hungry. The below list will make 2.5 tall glasses of goodness.
1 bushel of upland cress (roots removed)
1/2 bushel of cilantro
1 English cucumber (ends chopped off)
1 apple (core removed)
3 carrots (ends chopped off)
1 banana (peeled)
1 inch fresh ginger root (peeled)
1 inch diakon radish, skin and all
I'm sorry for complaining this entire post. It will not always be this hard. I truly believe it's my crazy fluctuating blood sugar level. That has to be it. Somehow it feels better to blame it on something.
Jess,
ReplyDeleteI totally hear you on this one. I feel the same way about needing rules to combat this brain tumor. I think it is my personality and my way of exercising control in a very stressful and demanding situation. Hope you figure it all out. One thing we've done is plan our weekly meals over the weekend so I know exactly what I am going to eat each day for lunches and dinners, etc. Breakfast has been basically the same. Onions, garlic, peppers, any other veggies sauted with eggs and then sauted kale with onion, garlic, pepper, and lemon juice on the side. It's easier for me to know exactly what I am going to do. Rules--sometimes we just need 'em to make sense of our world. Take care my friend! Jess
You are not a binger! You're actually fighting genetics and survival instincts - really! When you reduce your food intake as you do on the high dose days, your body freaks out and thinks that the food supply has evaporated and it panics. Raising blood sugar is only part of it because that is only short term. LONG TERM your body has decided that it wants to survive so it plans: it starts making you crave and NEED high fat foods - literally. It is the high fat foods and subsequent fat storage that your body is looking for on purpose so that it can combat the food shortage later. And not only that - when food does show up again - you do actually binge uncharacteristically. Your body says: "Food is back! Eat all you can! Just in case the food disappears again..." You are experiencing the most basic of human functions - food and how it relates to your survival. Really - your body just wants to survive. And that's pretty neat.
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