Learning a LOT

So, my Guru, Sri Dharma Mittra, always says that you have to apply "angry determination" when you are trying to master something.  For a long time, I mentally substituted the word "fierce" for "angry," because I'm from the South where anger is frowned upon.  (So messy, doncha know.) But I started thinking about this whole food/sugar/ food industry/Big Pharma/Monsanto/diabetes/bee death/factory farm MUCK that I'm trying to climb out of and you know what?

I'm ANGRY.

I am.  I feel like I was kind of fed a pack of lies all of my life based on nothing but PR and greed, and now I'm having to utterly retrain my body --I'm having to go through RECOVERY --just to get back to the health I was born with.

Seriously?  That is really messed up.

It's taking a lot of bandwidth to educate myself on the real way to eat for my personal optimal health.  I'm having to become an expert on nutrition because there is really no one else out there with my best interests at heart. Not the FDA, not the Paleo people or the vegan people or, Lord knows, the Monsanto people.  There is a lot of information and SO MUCH misinformation.

Here are some basics of what I'm learning, now that I'm (mostly) detoxed from sugar:

Most sources I've seen recommend that an average woman take in no more than 24 grams of sugar per day, whether naturally occurring or in added sugar.  This means a retraining of my taste buds, but it's worth it. For me, staying below that level means no bloating, no sluggish, weird brain fog, and inches dropping off of my waistline.

Most sources recommend eliminating refined flour completely. It is apparently in everything I have ever eaten, ever. Well, okay, maybe not as ubiquitous as added sugar, but it's up there.  And the body interprets it as sugar, so it's really bad news. My body really hates refined flour. I'm currently in the process of trying to figure out if it's gluten in general that causes such an inflammatory response, or just the refined flour itself.

In order to keep the blood sugar steady, you have to eat a little bit of protein with every meal. I'm in the process of finding out how much that is for MY body. Experts differ in their recommendations.

Ditto, healthy fat.  I routinely eat 1/4 of an avocado with my meals. Other good sources are coconut butter, almond butter, seeds...

So, those are the things I'm doing now.  I already eat a vegan, plant-based diet, but I am trying to be smarter about it. And I'm starting to get little glimpses of the radiant health I am seeking.  I'll keep you posted!