Day 13 - Journal everything you eat

Check out the challenge guidelines here:
Day 13

Due to the fact that I am a compulsive eater, I have learnt over the years not to focus too intently on what I'm eating. I have found that a meal plan rather than a food journal is more beneficial to me. I do understand the thinking behind keeping a food journal though, and I have done it many times. I used to do it for Miriam's challenges especially when my weight loss plateaued.

Fortunately for me, our challenge allowed us to take pictures of everything we ate rather than write it all down. That was all very well and good until I forgot to take a picture of my supper! And it was such a good supper too!

This is not the case with me, because I usually do a weekly meal plan, and I plan my snacks as well, and I usually stick to this very carefully. I plan my meal out on a Thursday at the club, my 2 beers that I have at the club, what I'll snack when I get home from school, and my breakfasts at the weekend. I do this right down to the last nut... I tend not to stray from the plan because I only buy what I need or prep what I need for that week's meals. You see, the problem with being a compulsive eater is that if there is food around, you'll eat it, unless you have a plan!

I find this a very funny concept. If this were true, I'd be a biscuit. Hell, maybe I AM a biscuit! The fact is, I love biscuits. If I have biscuits in the house, I'll eat them. If there are 40 biscuits in the house, I could probably control my intake to about 5 or 6, but if there are 10 biscuits, then I'll eat 10 biscuits, It's a curse. Another problem is that I tend to be slightly hypoglycemic - and what happens when someone with low blood sugar eats something sweet? You get a sugar spike which makes you want more sweet things. I envy people who can eat 1 or 2 biscuits. Or one handful of peanuts. Or one bite of cake. Or 2 knobs of chocolate. Because I just can't do it.

But since I diagnosed myself with SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth) I have been very careful about sticking to a low FODMAPS diet. I finished the biscuits that were in the tin and was coping well without them. I bought some fruit juice (permitted fruits) and biscuits for the trip to the Sinai that I ended up not going on, and unfortunately I ate them anyway. If I eat processed food like biscuits and sweets like MnMs, my gut hurts. Even bland biscuits like digestives hurt. So I am trying very hard not to eat them - but then I came up with this brilliant idea for my Airbnb guests: a snack basket! I bought a selection of chips and Sunbites, and biscuits and some Mandolins (a chocolate bar very similar to a Chomp) and put them in a basket and the biscuit tin on the dining table along with an Honesty Jar. Well so far my guests haven't eaten anything from the basket or biscuit tin... but I have. I've eaten all the Mandolins (4), and almost all the biscuits now. And yesterday my gut was very very sore, because on Monday I'd had 2 packets of biscuits and a Mandolin. You know, you'd really think that by the time you turned 58 you could resist a packet of Oreos... but no. It's not a possibility...

All the journalling in the world is not going to stop me from eating a whole packet of biscuits, or make me choose fruit instead of a biscuit if the bacteria start demanding something sweet! (Which they do, by the way.) The idea of a low FODMAPS diet is to starve the bacteria, but when they start starving they get panicky and demand sugar. And that hurts too. Sigh. So I'm teetering on the brink of starving and feeding my gut bacteria to try and find a healthy balance.

I am continuously experimenting with foods that are on my allowed list to find what works, and hopefully my gut will be healed sooner rather than later.