I'm finding that every autumn I get MUCH worse very suddenly, like hitting a brick wall. While my friends are celebrating the pumpkin spice, all of the colors on the trees, their new fall boots to pair with their leggings, all the festivals, and the cozy hot autumn drinks, I find myself a lot more anxious than normal and in chronic pain again. I'm finding that I'm more argumentative and direct with people, when I actually had a relatively good summer with lots of joking and laughing. My whole mood and personality changes. It's the only seasonal change I'm hyper sensitive to. Winter is actually easier on me, despite the intense negative temperatures that are normal here in North Dakota, but I do feel much more depressed and low than I do during Spring and Summer. I'm clearly living in the wrong state.
I do want to share a few quick things, and they're not necessarily related:
1. This one is for people with mold toxicity, the rest of you can skip reading this one. I'm learning that I need to clean my toilet bowl much more often. After months of trying to decide if this is what's going on, I've determined it has to be the cause: my urine is full of mycotoxins, and I believe the mycotoxins are why mold grows in my toilet bowl so quickly and easily. The toilet hasn't flushed well in the past couple of years, often times I have to flush twice. I think it doesn't flush everything down, which leaves mycotoxins floating in the bowl all night. If any of you have also experienced this, please leave me a comment!
2. I decided to try the Julian Bakery Paleo Bars. The ingredients appear to be safe for me, and a bar that I can actually eat is amazing for travel. It's very appealing. The problem is that even though the sugar content is very low and they use stevia, these spike my blood sugar like nothing else. My blood sugar went from 98 to 160 after eating one of these! I felt awful! This bar doesn't always give me that bad of a spike, but the fact that it can do this is scary. Also, even though it uses chocolate extract I still get a sulfur reaction from these. I can't tolerate sulfur foods, and chocolate is high in sulfur. The taste is actually kind of addictive, which is the problem for me and why I've had more than one. I tried one of the egg white protein bars and it was disgusting - horrible! It had the texture of Laffy Taffy, where I kept chewing and chewing and chewing and it wouldn't break down, and that whole time I was chewing a nasty sour flavor. Not good. I do not recommend.
3. I wish I could love Epic Bars. They're doing a fantastic job at bringing correctly-raised and nutritionally good quality meat to the market. They're using a variety of animals, everything from beef, chicken, and pork to salmon, venison, and wild boar. The problem is that everyone single one of their bars has either fruit, pork products, or too much black pepper. I can't eat sugar in any form, not even fruit. I can't eat pork. I can't tolerate much black pepper. I was at Whole Foods a few weeks ago and found their new Venison bars. The only problem was that it was black pepper flavored, but I decided to give it a try anyway. A little bit of black pepper every once in a while isn't bad for me. Well, the bars are about half meat and half black pepper. I can see people really enjoying the bar, but wow, that was major black pepper overkill for me! I did eat the whole case of them that I bought, but slowly and only when I felt strong enough to handle it. They're tasty! But what it means is that there is still no single Epic Bar that I can eat, despite them being a grass-fed and pasture raised meat brand. Frustrating!
4. Eating a Whole Foods salad for breakfast for a few days in a row really doesn't work well for me. So many raw vegetables, and the meat isn't anything special. It's also turkey, which can make me tired. My poor body doesn't like raw vegetables. :(
I hope to post more soon!
