So I've been thinking a lot lately about just how different my palate has become with my diet adaptations. I've realized as I look at what I've been lately I can't realistically expect people to just start eating like this, even with the burning motivation of knowing they have cancer and are on chemotherapy. I seriously think the body would reject changing so much. I had a moment of realization of that as after I had a seriously satisfying swig of my veggie shake I handed it to my mom and encouraged her to have a sip, and the look on her face had a pretty strong statement to it : hoooolly crap YUCK. She didn't insult it or anything but was in disbelief when I said I enjoyed it. Then I was having a snack today, two raw eggs in a glass followed by a chug on unsweetened kefir (pretty much sour milk), and found both of them delicious, and even I was at the point of thinking that was pretty WTF. And now when I look at all kinds of foods I used to enjoy I feel sick to my stomach thinking about them! It almost sucks. But it's kind of awesome. I think what I've managed to do is slowly retrain my body to focus on the pleasure of long term rewards of food rather than the short term pleasure of flavour, and then as a result of that slow build of reinforcement it has allowed me to relearn what foods are enjoyable and which aren't.
There's no way I could have gone from how I ate even in healthier periods of my life to this fashion at the start of chemo. The comfort food binge I took after the stress of finding out the tumour had grown and I was going to have to do something, and while having all seizures and shit, set me into an even stronger pattern of reinforcement to focus on the short term pleasure of food and ignore long term negative. So this has been more of a slow and steady quest. It was a matter of relearning how to listen to my body, focusing on feeling good at a deeper, more meaningful level, and a changing of priorities in relation to food. I remembered a quote from a young man I worked with at my first ever job, at Boston Pizza. I got a drive with him from the gym to work, and we were talking about food. He was trim and strong and I was thinking he might have some tips, and I asked him about it. He explained himself quite well and succintly: food isn't fun, it's fuel. I remembered that clearly from the first time I heard it, because it resounded so well with me and was so clearly true. I realized then that had to be a goal for me, to actualize that realization in my own life. But at the time I was still caught up in short term pleasure, and unable to carry myself through that. Heck, when I was in the gym that day I probably did something like bicep curls, tri extension, shrugs and bench. Maybe a bit focused on superficial details rather than deep important stuff eh?
Back then I wasn't ready to confront myself. I needed to grow first, and I managed that. I think the work, the time, the travel, the friendships, relationships, even Winston, my dog, all had huge contributions to building me up to be ready to deal with actually changing myself. I feel like I knew I was going to have to deal with it eventually and was just procrastinating. Hitting chemo and having to move home combined to force me into this confrontation. I had a lot of other psychological issues to do with my past and my inability to make it make sense from my memories, and anger, and just a bunch of complicated stuff I may try to talk about some day, but not right now. At the same time, I realized I needed to change my posture completely. Then, the last part was how I ate. That one was one of the biggest, one of the most effective, and is also definitely the most generally relatable.
It all began with becoming more mentally aware and focused on long term health goals of the food I ate rather than short term aesthetic or functional goals. I'd only ever thought with food before about details of results, mostly just stronger, and occasionally about trying to be at least a bit less chubby. As I began to take chemo, I began to wonder more about if my food could have effects on it. That was what began to open my mind more to the real deeper value of nutrition. As I started reading more and more I found more and more interesting stuff, but my inner sceptic always had a good ounce of doubt for each one, unable to see or understand objective proof. The other problem is I think there really is a lot of wrong info out there. I'm a bit of a stubborn bugger who has never learned very well from listening to others and mostly has to learn from mistakes and experience. So I slow and steady set down the path of improving my diet, a lot of which I did by feel. Early in it didn't take long to realize heavily processed food was no good. Truthfully though, I still ate a whole lot of junk the first good while of chemo. Ordering pizza, drinking pop, some candy and ice cream, and just a lot of somewhat processed food. I was staying up at a solidly fat weight of two hundred and thirty-some-odd pounds for a while too. As I did that though, I did start to look into supplements at least a bit. First things were coconut oil and fish oil. I started using coconut oil in smoothies and coffee and taking fish oil at least some days.
I think it was when I decided to take responsibility for the tumour and engaged into a more proactive, liberated mindset that I began to take action in addressing what I was eating. Suddenly, I felt like my choices of what I ate had a comprehensible reason to be able to take action against the tumour inside my head. That feeling of new power gave me a huge level of new motivation to start changing things more. They still went pretty slowly at first. I definitely did start adding more smoothies, eating less bread, less sugar, less processed food, but what I didn't find at first was a ton of good nutrition to bring in. I think I focused on getting ideal macronutrients, lots of fat and protein of good kinds, but didn't worry too much about the details. Then, as I got into touch with the level of positive effect that had on me, I started to realize the potential of dietary changes and that really let me dig into a whole new level of motivation. There was another big part of it too: this blog. When I started trying to share what I was doing, it elevated my goals for myself to another level. I realized if I didn't do everything I could to manage my treatment and health to the best degree I can, if I allow a compromise to my health management I could so easily address to maintain itself continually and don't take advantage of what I can do, how can I hope to claim to be able to help other people facing the same problem. There's a whole new level of motivation for me when it's not just me who can gain from me holding to my strength of will and getting it done. Whoever you are out there reading this, you're carrying me through this too.
When I started to be able to dig deeper like that, things really got to change. I started cutting out food I was eating just for enjoyment, and it didn't bug me. Those things I was eating because they were healthy not because they were tasty? Mmm mm good. I still aim to make sure I enjoy what I eat, but I don't find it hard now. I just have to listen to my body and give it what it wants. I think it knows more than I do some times.
An interesting case point for that is my spinach craving. I always want to put spinach in all my smoothies and shakes, and prefer it drastically to all other green leafy veg. It tastes good, but I feel like I downright crave it. As I was looking up valuable nutrients today I was reading about vitamin E, which is very high value for nervous system development. I'm absolutely certain I am experiencing a lot of that right now. The amount of memories that have reopened themselves to me which I couldn't access for years is astounding. I feel like a child again waking back up into my body some times. I can just go back and walk through my childhood and see places I haven't been in years, share moments with people I haven't seen in ages, it's amazing. And it's just the beginning. It's made me realize how much I've shut myself off to through this whole experience, and how much more there is inside me than I was aware of for years. It's exciting as hell.
Getting back to changing though. I think that the method of change can have a huge relation to its effects. I was ready and open for all the changes I made, I came to them on my own terms. I'm more stubborn than most, so was less open to input and listening than most I think. Everyone has at least some of that in them though. You need to learn for yourself to really be able to trust it, and that's not something you can overcome just by momentary choice. You need to retrain your body! That's something I'm going to work a lot more on understanding to let me talk about it more. I'm definitely beginning down that road, and have stepped far enough to look back and yell about how it's a pretty path and others should follow, but I have a lot more to walk, and even the section I've gotten down I haven't traversed and mapped it yet for react. This is going to be a big, long project I think.
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