Starting Over

I think that by the time that my depression is cured, I will have written an entire cookbook. That's the assumption that I'm operating under and I'm going with it.

Over the last 6 months, I have met myself, hung out with myself, and become friends with myself, and finally, have fallen in love with myself. "Whoa now, Narcissus," you say. Look...I'm going to be frank with anyone who reads this, I have spent the last 20 years of my life hating myself to pieces. Looking in the mirror at someone I didn't know, catering to a man that didn't love me, and refusing to come to grips with my personality or who I am. I've been telling myself, "you're all wrong", for 98% of my life so far and I'm here to tell you that I've just made the big change. No. Not menopause. I'm only 21. I mean learning to like myself. Some people are the lucky ones. They come out drooling in their own self-love. Fine then. There are places for people like that in the world. But if you're anything like me, someone who it might take a little extra push to appreciate themselves, you know where I'm coming from. I'm not going to say that myself and I have a wonderful, romantic relationship. There are days when I just look at myself in the mirror and wonder why the hell God allows me to be alive. Those kinds of thoughts tend to pop up in your head when you're a recovering self-loather, but I'm in recovery...that's all that matters.

The process that it has taken me to get to this point is long and grueling. It is a story that can only be told over a sit down cup of coffee, over the spans of a few hours. And to be honest, I don't have the emotional energy or time to go into it here in this blog. But I can give you a brief overview of how food has both controlled me and freed me from my inner prison. Around about 11 years old is when I realized that I had food hang ups. I wouldn't fully come to terms with my full blown eating disorder until I was 21 years of age....this year. Food has always been a part of my culture. I live in Louisiana, food capital of the country of the US of A. We eat here. A lot. No one gets away with being hungry here. Food is not seen only as a necessity for our bodies here, but a way of life. It is treated with a certain respect, a certain ritual that you don't really find outside of the Southern states. This is what we do here. Eat.

For as long as I can remember, I've been exposed to cooking. My mama home cooked every single morsel we put into our mouths as kid. My Mimi taught her, and my Mamie taught her. My mother, taught me and my sister everything we know about cooking. That's part of life here. If you're Southern and you don't know how to cook, you're either not really Southern or spoiled as all heck. This oral tradition of cooking is quite popular here. Food was never really an enemy until I was a teenager. Food was a friend that I never thought would turn on me. I guess you could say that Southern cooking isn't low fat. And I guess you could say that my body isn't composed like most people to break down carbs. I later found out in my life that my body is completely carb intolerant. It has taken me until THIS YEAR to get the story straight with my body. Up until I was 19 I just thought I was fat and there was nothing I could do about it. I guess that's why I started starving myself. Throwing up. Rationalizing to myself that it was okay to only eat one meal a day. And then....when things got too bad to handle...binge eat...because it felt good. Food became the dictator of my life. And eventually towards the end of it all, it completely swallowed me whole. When I was 19 I started to develop insulin resistance. If there is anything right now that I could tell you to STOP eating unhealthy foods, it is this. You do not want this disease. And it is brought on solely by being overweight, something that I had completely done to myself. There was no one to blame, there was no genetic disorder, it was my fault that I was sick.

Insulin resistance is characterized by complete lack of energy, constant nausea, shaking, dizzy spells, it almost feels like you're living in a bubble. Ultimately, insulin resistance leads to Type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is, in my opinion, a fate worse than cancer. A slow killer characterized by seizures, limb loss, blindness, immobility...early death. I was on the fast track to dying prematurely. And there was medicine. There were pills that they gave me that made me feel worse and there was therapy sessions and diet programs and let me inform you that NONE OF IT WORKED. Some of you reading this might be shocked to find yourself in the same situation. I'm not. This disease affects nearly 17 million Americans and is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. I'm really not surprised. And while it was predominately my fault, there is something that I didn't know. I didn't understand my body composition. And if SOME DOCTOR would have just let me know this ahead of time, they really could have saved me a world of hurt. I have PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), a female disease that affects 10% of women worldwide. It is a fairly new discovery. A condition that was once dismissed as infertility is now being investigated and found to be a disorder that screws with the hormones in a woman's body. She will sometimes develop cysts on her ovaries and/or suffer a lifetime of unexplained weight issues, fatigue, and irregular periods, and of course, the hallmark of PCO, inability to or difficulty conceiving. PCO can affect a woman in various different ways. For me, I won't know until I am ready to have kids if I am completely infertile. And to be honest, I haven't had an ultrasound in awhile, so I'm not sure if I have any cysts at the moment, which is quite dangerous. But I DO know that my number one symptom has been unexplained weight gain. I didn't realize up until quite recently what my body can and cannot handle. Apparently, carbs, is the number one perpetrator. Due to whatever imbalance I have in my body, I cannot process carbs. And so, as you can imagine, I had to figure out alternative ways of eating.

At first I started off slow. I understood what I COULD eat. Protein + vegetable was my first formula to start me off. I did a few experiments and realized I could still eat dairy pretty decently. So I included that in my diet as well, but in moderation. I have also found that I am able to have whole grains, but nothing less than REALLY thick bread full of oats and seeds and all that jazz. I can't eat pasta, I can't eat white bread, I can't eat white rice and I can't DEFINITELY can't eat sugar. That means that I also cannot eat high fructose corn syrup. Which means that I can't drink soda (even though I will have ONE every once in awhile), I can't eat most candies or sweets, and I can't eat.......99% of what's at the grocery store. No weird snacks like "Gushers" or "Fruit by the Foot"; I can't have chips or Popsicles or juice or canned fruits. I can't really have anything with preservatives in it. And so my diet consists mostly of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, meats, some dairy like cheese and milk, and fish. I sometimes eat eggs. That's it guys. And if we really look back at that and review it...that's how we're SUPPOSED to eat. I believe that I just covered the food pyramid.

So can we make the assumption that a great deal of American disease comes from what we eat and what we put in our body? Would I have even had problems with PCOS in the FIRST PLACE if we weren't eating shit all the time? Probably not. Look, I'm not a culinary student. I'm not a chef. I don't claim to really know what the hell I'm doing in the kitchen. Everything I know is either by what my family has taught me or by trial and error. I'm a person like you who has a life outside of food. I am a 3rd year psychology student, I like to do arts and crafts and I like to play outside in the park. My life does not revolve around food. But it IS a tool that I have used to manage my disorder and my depression. Cooking something healthy for yourself is rewarding and delicious. But, "what do we cook?" You ask. Good question. That's the entire purpose of this blog! Aren't we happy?

Lately, since I have little social life outside of textbooks and writing research papers, I have been supplementing my life with learning new recipes. My father's best friend once told me upon being asked about her cooking, "You just pull up a recipe and try it. You just go at it and that's how you learn." I have adopted that as my philosophy in the kitchen. No one is teaching me but me. And now...I am going to teach you. Let's realize now that this is completely experimental for both of us. Most likely I will have posted a recipe 10 minutes after I have cooked it for the first time myself. If I have deemed it worthy enough to go into this blog, that's where you'll find it. And since we all have different tastes, every single recipe MIGHT NOT work for you. If you don't prefer curry, then don't cook my curry recipe. I would also like to point out that most of my recipes I get from online and so they do not belong to me. I will always credit the author of the recipe in my entries. Lastly, I want to point out that I am NOT a certified dietitian. This blog is not to be followed as a diet plan or a strict rule to being healthy. To be honest, I am learning new things EVERYDAY about being healthy and so I can't really be your personal trainer. If you feel like you need to be put on a strict diet, I highly encourage you to see a real dietitian. That would be helpful.

This will be the format of my blog.

Monday: Vegetarian Recipe

Tuesday: Weight Loss Blog

Wednesday: Healthy Recipe

Thursday: Product Review

If this blog grows and prospers amongst my friends and other viewers, I might be able to add a section on Frequently Asked Questions for Friday. But until further notice, this is the format of my blog, Hungry Hungry Health Nut. I hope you will enjoy reading this, and learning to become healthy with me.


Live Long and Prosper,

The Hungry Hungry Health Nut