My Food Puzzle

C. Diff round two caused a little more havoc to my insides that I would like to admit. I’ve realized that just taking the antibiotics is not enough. I need to step up the probiotics and heal my gut before I am back to better. When I realized that what I ate would play the biggest part in the healing process I started researching everything and anything related to C. Diff and food and healing guts and good microbes. I dumped a 1000 piece puzzles on the table and started flipping each piece over.  

There are moments when I am so excited about what I am reading and then I quickly flip to discouragement or anxiety and then back to excitement. The only thing I felt confident in for awhile was not eating sugar. The day before I got the confirmed diagnosis but had already been on antibiotics for a number of days, I felt impressed to stop eating sugar – specifically white sugar or other processed sugars. Sugar feeds the c. Diff (and other things too, but that was my focus) so it was pretty easy to just think “C. Diff wants that milkshake. C. Diff wants that cookie.” Very effective in curbing the cravings.

I’ll skip the details of all the research; I spend a lot of time reading and praying to have the spirit of discernment so that I can know what is truth and what will heal my body. I found comfort in reading posts from a c. diff support group online where others expressed that the pain and symptoms I am feeling are a normal thing. The pain can last for a year or more, and each person found their own way to recovery. This is not a one size fits all process. 

I’ve made a number of diet changes and after six weeks or so I feel like I finally have the border of my puzzle figured out. First, I stopped eating sugar. Second, I started drinking a quart of green smoothie every day to help clean my organs and gut after being on such intense antibiotics for so long plus to get lots of nutrients and other health benefits. Third, I started making and drinking kefir daily for the probiotics. Fourth, we refocused on a whole food plant based approach to our food. Fifth, I stopped eating wheat. This is something I was told to do from the beginning from a number of sources but I just didn’t know how and really didn’t want to. I refused to buy gluten free specialty products because they are expensive. After lots of firehose drinking and a sourdough starter from a friend I made sourdough wheat bread (with wheat flour, brown rice flour, and white bean flour that I ground myself) and let it soak for 12 hours with the sourdough starter and kefir before baking it. I discovered that making bread this way breaks down the wheat in a way that allows our bodies to digest it easier and may people who can’t eat wheat can eat it this way.  This new way of eating wheat and eliminating every other form has made all the difference this week for Nathan and I. I have so much to learn still about soaking grains and sourdough but I’m really encouraged so far with the results.

Emily has been very helpful. She makes and drinks the green smoothies with me. She figured out how to make our $30 blender actual blend all of the collards, kale, and spinach so we can drink them instead of chewing salad from a cup. Yesterday when she was helping me wash and bag all of our greens for the week she picked up a lettuce leaf from the sink and said, “I’m eating lettuce like a monkey.” Then she started dipping her lettuce into the water and said that she was eating it with ketchup. After we finished cleaning the greens she joined me for cutting the 5lbs of peaches to flash freeze and use in our green smoothies. She grabbed a big piece and told me she was eating a cookie.

Our greens for the week. Andrew and I have been trying to figure out how to fit everything in the fridge. Today we tried clearing off the top shelf for all the bags.  

 

Emily the monkey: