Forgive me father, for I have sinned. It has been a long time since my last blog post.
No excuse really. Except that I've been writing and haven't been sure how to write about writing.
Not sure that makes sense, but it is a quandary I've been in.
Before I moved up to Gympie I had plans. Big Plans. I'd get the first draft of my book done in six months and then reassess where to next.
It's been six months and sadly the book has not written itself. It turns out I have to do that.
Everytime I wrote and rewrote a sentence I hit a wall. Then another. And another. Until I felt I was in a maze with no way out.
So instead I parked it and focused on me. Anyone who knows me and has spoken to me in the last couple of months will know I've had a bit of a health epiphany. A lightbulb moment.
For years I had suffered with stomach upsets, sinus, headaches, drowsiness, nausea at weird times of the day and seriously unlady like gas.
Despite being a regular runner, netballer, rockclimber and salsa dancing aficionado, I never seemed to shift weight and felt like I was running in the same spot on a treadmill.
All this sounds all well and good I know, but what does it have to do with my writing? Well to put it simply, I needed to get healthy in order for my writing to get healthy.
Late last year I discovered that a protein which acts as binding agent in all breads, pastas, cereals, snack bars was turning into darth vader the minute it entered my body. Gluten. My arch nemesis.
Within a week of cutting gluten out of my diet I discovered I also suffered from Lactose intolerance a type of sugar found in milk and dairy products. Within two weeks of cutting both out of my diet I felt like a new woman.
Sleeping the whole night, no more hayfever, no more headaches, no more stomach upsets, no more drowsiness or nausea and most importantly no more unladylike gas.
As I continued down the blissful gluten free yellow brick road I discovered I also couldn't handle much sugar, especially refined sugar. So I started to cut this out. I found low gi and low carb foods provided they didn't contain gluten seemed to agree with me most.
So I threw out my old way of thinking and re-wrote my own lifestyle habits, creating a new way of living. Gluten free and happy.
As I adapted, so did my body. Bit by bit I've lost 17kg over the last six months. Slowly my body returned back to a healthy state and recovered form years of putting foods I was intolerant to into my body.
Somehow along the way, as I shut the door to gluten, lactose, refined and added sugars, another door opened. The one blocking the writing from coming out and making sense.
The phrase healthy body, healthy mind has never felt more real and relevant than what it does to me right now. For the first time both my mind and body are in synch and the writing is pouring out of me.
How I managed to ignore my food intolerances for so long, I'm not sure. All I know is that listening to it for the first time in my life means I now feel better than I ever have.
I'm in touch with everything that goes into my mouth including where it's from and if it has wheat products in it.
Sure its a challenge being a gluten free girl in a gluten rich world, but as the wise people say, when one door shuts another one opens. In this case, its the door to finally being the writer and person I want to be.
xx
:)
No comments:
Post a Comment