Sugarfree

I say I’m sugar free and then I eat chocolate.

Only anything with 70% cocoa content or over mind you, but it still has sugar. I tell myself I can’t live without it, that it's my little treat, a square a day can't hurt. It is the one thing I never forgo, funny that, I’ve managed to stop coffee, and let it be know I was one of the school-run mum's that drops the kids off then lines up religiously at Planet Organic for a soya cappuccino but not the chocolate.

I’ve actually stopped soya for the most part too.

I read an article on leaky gut and how when the stomach wall isn’t functioning anything that it gets familiar or overloaded with overtime will make a leaky gut not behave as it should. I took this to mean that anything I eat on a regular basis, ie daily, my stomach will be reacting bad to, this is only during a flare, when I'm well I can eat anything.

This time round, that daily thing would be soya milk, so I’ve swapped it with oat milk.

After my last flare I gave up sugar, dairy, wheat, eggs and yeast and towards the end coffee.
My fave things used to be: marmite on toast, eggy soldiers, poached eggs on toast, cheese, pizza and wine. I managed to change my diet radically, with the help of Deliciously Ella’s cookbooks, Kris Carr's  Crazy Sexy Diet and the Hemsley sisters.

I also meditated daily for ten minute with the headspace app.

I found the breathing technique got me to a toilet (when I was caught short) accident-free, more often than not and helped with the pain. I’d be fast-walking down the street, cramping with urgence and counting ten deep breaths in and out on a loop, until I got to the place of relief. Although if you have colitis there isn't really any relief when you get to your destination, as your gut is probably either twisted or cramped, so mainly mucous and blood splatter - and a sense of underachievement! Nice.

God this is so gross, I don’t know why I’m writing this, or putting myself through the reliving of it.
Ah yes, because I am going to get well - remember all the positive talk dear?

I've got your back.
I can do this, etc. blah, blah, blah.

So far, I am being good-ish. Why do we humans always find it so hard to obey the rules we set ourselves? Or is that just me.

11 years ago I was put on a trial diet in conjunction with University College Hospital. A lovely young doctor was researching diet’s effect on ulcerative colitis. It worked. I got well. The premise was to test patients for any foods that showed markers of intolerance and to avoid them, keeping a food diary. Mine were yeast and egg. It took 3 months. I got well.

I was happy, I was slim.

As soon as no one was monitoring me, I slipped back into old eating habits.

We moved, life took a stressful turn for the worse, my ulcerative colitis flared up again.

I got well.

And here I am in flare again....