It’s been a while since posting AGAIN. I guess part of the reason I’ve been MIA is that I have been avoiding admitting to my blog followers that I fell off my Gypsy wagon. I did 2 solid months on the SCD diet and boy did I feel better. After Christmas time cheats and NYE festivities, traveling to NYC (home of the delicious pizza pie) and Vegas (home of everything sinful), I just slowly gave up. Why would I stop doing something that could potentially heal my diseased bowel? Something that could prevent another life-threatening bowel obstruction? It sounds really stupid to say I quit something that could save my life!
This post is not like my others. I don’t have a lot of helpful or encouraging words this time. Instead I admit that it is difficult following a strict diet. Basic instinct drives us towards selecting things that bring immediate gratification. This is why many dieters fail and often end up heavier than they were before they started. Depriving ourselves of immediate pleasure for a greater reward that comes later is always easier said than done. However the SCD diet is even harder than counting calories and saying NO to that slice of pie after dinner. It’s saying NO to grains of any kind, dairy, sugar, and starchy veggies. Not being able to dine out at restaurants or go to a friends place for a meal. Where having a piece of chocolate doesn’t delete the dieters last week of calorie-burning efforts, having that one chocolate deletes the SCDers past several months of efforts. SCD is sort of an all-or-none diet in my mind. Perhaps that’s why I felt so hopeless.
Anything that requires strong human will power is bound to have its failures. Anything worth having (including one’s health) is hard work. Like overcoming an addiction, giving up certain foods and a way of life sometimes feels impossible. We need to find strength from somewhere! Friends, family, blogs of success stories in the weirdest places… We need these to refresh and inspire us to commit. We need not to forget our mission amidst the hustle and bustle of day-to-day life!
On an up note, I do promise to post more often. I have had some very uplifting comments from some fellow bloggers and because of your positivity I’m feeling a renewed sense of Gypsy determination.
I am also planning on investigating the principles of low-FODMAP diet. I am not kidding myself in any way that one diet is a cure-all for Crohn’s. I am planning to see what might be best suited to my lifestyle and starting a food journal. Stay tuned, and may your GI tract stay with you!
“One of the most dangerous forms of human error is forgetting what one is trying to achieve.”
~ Paul Nitze