On Sunday, I noticed that I was in a bad mood. Pretty much all day and I couldn’t snap myself out of it. I tried meditating. I tried relaxing. But nothing worked. Then, strangely, when I woke Monday morning I felt in a really good mood. This made me think – what’s going on?
The Last Week and Food
From the food point of view, last week wasn’t a good one. I was on a business trip in the UK and had a series of lunches and dinners which diverted me from my favoured raw diet. I was eating cooked (sometimes processed) food each day, and this ended with pizza for lunch on the Saturday before driving home to Paris. I can’t remember the last time I’ve eaten pizza.
Obviously, I wasn’t taking my own advice as outlined in this post – How to stay healthy in the business setting?
Stress
So, maybe my bad mood was the cause of poor food. But the week was also a stressful one, trying to keep up with the meetings and the demands of work. Sunday was certainly the first day I could relax properly.
But then, I was due to fly to Asia on Monday morning and that added stress to my Sunday. I knew there were plenty of things I had to get done before leaving again, not least was getting packed for the impending trip.
Other Signs – Tongue Scraping
When I’m at home, I’ve been using a tongue scraper each morning for the last couple of months. I’d read about them in various places and saw David Wolfe demonstrate their use in a video clip of his.
The idea is that, when you have toxins in your body, it tries to get them out any way it can, and one way is out through the mouth. During the night it tries to push as many toxins as possible out through the mouth. Using a tongue scraper (a smooth, curved piece of stainless steel), it’s possible to help the body eradicate these toxins (quickly and completely) by simply scraping them off the surface of the tongue.
Well, this morning, when I scraped my tongue I noticed quite a bit more build up coming off my tongue than normal. This suggests to me that my body had a lot more toxins in it than normal, possibly due to a week of poorer quality food and stress.
Other Signs – Body Weight
I weigh myself each morning when I’m home. I try not to obsess about my body weight (the main thing is being healthy, not the number that comes up on the scales) but I measure it just for interest (see also Don’t Obsess on your Weight – Visualize!).
Well on Sunday, the day after driving back from the UK, I was 199 pounds. That was 3 pounds heavier than last Monday morning when I left for the UK. That was a sign that I hadn’t eaten so well for the week.
But then, I had a good day (food wise) on Sunday. I didn’t eat at all until 6pm and then I only ate raw foods. I had a very nice, very healthy, raw green smoothie and some dried fruits and nuts. At the end of the evening I felt like I’d over eaten the dried fruits and nuts. I certainly wasn’t hungry.
Monday morning, I woke early to get ready to go to the airport. I did my customary 30 minutes of yoga (at least this is customary when I’m at home) and then weighed myself before my shower. To my surprise, I weighed 196.4 pounds. That’s almost 3 pounds less than the day before!
It pretty clear that my body wasn’t very happy, was high on toxins and needed a good food day (Sunday) to clear out a lot of the toxicity.
The more than usual tongue scraping was just another sign of the toxins being expelled.
Mood and Food
I’m starting to get a clear idea of what’s good for me. Having a fairly long fasting period each day, raw, fresh, whole, live foods, yoga, calmness, avoiding alcohol, enjoying time with family and friends – these are all clearly good for me. And now I can see the relationship between my mood and food. When I eat poor food for a while, it seems to have a negative effect on my mood. I get grumpy and can’t relax so well.
Of course, the week of poor food was combined with higher stress than normal, so I can’t say with complete confidence that there is a link between my mood and food. But it’s a good theory and I’ll work with it until future evidence tells me otherwise.
The other thing that I find interesting is that my food choices last week weren’t really bad when compared to the standard, average diet. Many people would think I was trying to hard to be healthy. It seems that my body has become more sensitive to food since I’ve been eating mostly raw. This is something that Matt Monarch talked about in his book “Raw Success”. I’m starting to understand what he means.
Do any of you have similar or related experiences? I’d be honored to hear about them if you do.
Related Links – Mood and Food
- http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-12028/5-reasons-why-everyone-needs-a-tongue-scraper.html
- Some Personal Experiences with Fasting
- Eat, Fast and Live Longer
- I got a message from Wesley over at imanscape.com who directed me to his page “20 Tips to Eliminate Bad Breath” that includes tongue scraping and many other tips. It’s worth a look.
You say that you have a fairly long fasting period each day? I was always much the same until I developed diabetes type 2 in late 40’s. Apart from the year or so prior I had never been overweight and even then not by much. My doc said I was probably genetically inclined for it but long periods without food could be to blame.
I manage to control my diabetes by diet which includes eating regularly – 3 meals a day and snacks in between. I never used to snack at all. Surprisingly, I quickly lost the additional weight although I was eating more than before.
I wonder if consistent long fasting periods is good for you in the long run?
Hi Sue. Thanks for your comment, it’s really made me think and examine what I’m doing. It’s the first time I’ve heard that long periods without food could contribute to becoming diabetic.
There’s a summary of how I got into fasting in this post – Some Personal Experiences with Fasting – and then I’ve recently seen the following documentary on mainstream TV (BBC) – Eat, Fast and Live Longer.
There’s no doubt that fasting seems to be doing me good, but there’s also no doubt that everyone is different. In the end, we are the only ones who can tell what’s good for us, if we listen to ourselves correctly.
Your comment has prompted me to think of my father. He was overweight until he became a type-2 diabetic. Then he radically changed his diet and starting eating small meals through the day at regular times. He lost a lot of weight and his health improved dramatically. So that proves that intermittent fasting is not a prerequisite for health, it’s just a useful tool if it happens to suit you.
I hope everyone finds a way to live happily and healthily, and it doesn’t matter what that is as long as we are happy, healthy and enjoying life (without harming other people or the planet).
I wish you all the best of luck managing your diabetes.
My struggles with stress and dissatisfacation with my life are the biggest triggers for me when it comes to eating poorly. Just recently, I wiped out some major gains in diet and health, just because I was falling back into old patterns that had me reaching for old “comfort” foods. Of course, these foods were junk.. And just made me feel worse.
I understand you completely, Jefferson. I have exactly the same problems. Whenever stress or self-doubt start taking over my mind, this seems to allow the subconscious to run the show and the old patterns re-emerge. I try and remain mindful and get some quiet time each day to re-align my thoughts, but it’s often a very difficult struggle.