Sugar Detox Day 15 - I'm not Perfect a Nutrition Epiphany

As I mentioned earlier, this past weekend was my best friend's wedding. I knew I would be cheating on my sugar detox, and I was fine with that. To be honest the main source of cheating was alcohol. I ate Thai food Friday night (skipped the rice) and drank white white. On Saturday morning I woke up with a very itchy rash on my ribs. My first assumption was that it was an allergic reaction to something I ate or drank. Today is Thursday and this rash still persists. I have a doctor's appointment Monday. I am suspicious that this is Shingles which is a flair up of the Chickenpox virus that lies dormant in your body. All the reading I find says that this usually occurs when your immune system is stressed or depressed. I am truly perplexed as to why this is happening now. Usually it occurs after 65 years of life. And I have been eating so well, I can't imagine why my immune system would be stressed/depressed. I will have to follow up on this once I get a diagnosis.

On the wedding day, I again cheated on the detox. I had half a croissant for breakfast (only half because it actually didn't taste very good to me), and I ate a lot of fruit that I technically am not supposed to eat, but if you're going to cheat, fruit is the way to do it. Dinner at the wedding was fabulous. There was a beautiful salad that I inhaled, and steak and chicken with potatoes and veg. I inhaled that too. I was the first meal I had all day. I had one cheesecake lolipop for dessert, and a tonne of watermelon! And I DON'T FEEL GUILTY!

 I do feel guilty about the pizza I ate for dinner on Sunday. We were just so tired, and a little hungover, and had no groceries, or energy to get any and cook. We were lazy. But I suffered. My stomach was so unhappy with me after eating that pizza that I knew that it would be a LONG time before I thought of eating it again.

On Monday a friend of ours came for a quick, unexpected visit. He is a young man who has been successfully battling addiction for 16 months. Our friend talked openly about his recovery, and the time before his recovery. It is a very inspiring story of a man going from doing anything for his drug of choice including living on the streets, and stealing and selling his own mother's possessions, to a man who after only 16 months is comfortable enough to sponsor other addicts, and to help them achieve sobriety. He uses his personal failure to lead and inspire others. It takes a very brave person to do this.

I have been very honored over the last couple weeks to have 4 people tell me that my little blog and Facebook posts have inspired them in some way to eat better. I was so happy, but at the same time I felt a little weird because I sometimes feel like I have to be perfect in order to lead others in making good choices. Listening to our friend made me realize that you don't have to be perfect to help others. So instead of pretending I am perfect, I will be accountable to the people I am trying to inspire by showing them that I am not perfect. 

A good example of this is pictures of women in magazines. Women's bodies in magazines are airbrushed and "corrected" so much that sometimes the woman's own mother wouldn't recognize her daughter. That is an impossible standard of "perfection" that women are bombarded with which no real woman can ever achieve. This is an unfair and cruel practice and it has to stop! Here are some examples of this tragedy.

Seeing images like this makes me think "Oh Hell No!"

So the result of my weekend of eating and drinking whatever I wanted, and meeting with our friend was the epiphany that no one has to be perfect. I don't, you don't, nobody does. We can eat food that may not be the most nutritious once in while. The key is to have a healthy base diet so when you do eat something just for the sheer pleasure of it you can pick right back up eating healthily and not feel guilty. And just like when I ate the pizza and felt like poo (and not to be too graphic but didn't poo for 3 days), listen to your body when it tells you something you ate isn't good for it. The good thing about doing a cleanse or a detox like my sugar detox is that you get all the irritants out of your body so instead of feeling generally crappy all the time, you can recognize your body's reaction to specific foods that are not good for you.

Eat real food (for the most part) and enjoy life!