I’m confused.

If you’ve been following my journey, you’ll know that diet plays a key role in my health, and that I’m forever exploring how I’m fuelled in order to manage chronic ailments.

You name a diet, and I’ve done it! Not only have I done it, I’ve then preached about it to the rest of the World too. Often to my detriment…”Oh here he goes again with another fad diet!” Only for that diet to stop working within a few months.

So why do I keep going in these cycles? Why does something work so well on the offset then deteriorate into something that ends up making me feel worse?

For well over a year I’ve been heavily leaning into a high protein diet, after being advised to ‘go carnivore’. I have to say, despite my initial reluctance, it worked wonders for my energy levels and chronic ailments. Given I’d stuck to it for such a long time, I finally thought I’d figured my body out. It even fell into total alignment with my Human Design digestion type. I truly thought I was onto a winner.

This weekend I ended up in A&E in excruciating abdominal and lower back pain. While I don’t yet have an answer to the cause of this pain, it has been suggested that it could be linked to one of three things…kidney stones, gallstones or a ‘grumbling’ appendix. All three of which are linked to high fat, high protein diets. In particular, the consumption of full fat dairy products.

Now a big chunk of my existing diet is raw cows milk. I more or less use it as a meal replacement for breakfast and lunch. And have been having (what I thought to be) great success with it. Until now…

You might be thinking “Just eat some bloody vegetables Luke!”, and believe me, I’d love to. But it’s just not that simple. I used to drink fresh-made juice daily for around 7 years. One day I just couldn’t tolerate it any more. It turned my stomach and I forced myself to stop. Since then I’ve developed what’s known as ‘Oral Allergy Syndrome’ - which is an allergic reaction to eating anything pollen based. So I can no longer eat any fresh fruit or veg, and sometimes even the cooked stuff affects me. Which is very tricky when you’re trying to be a vegetarian! So I decided that this was my body telling me what it does and doesn’t need.

On top of that I’m also gluten-intolerant and haven’t touched gluten grains for years.

And this is why I’m confused! What can I actually eat anymore???

Last night I tried roasted sweet potato and carrots, today I’ve had an upset stomach. This lunchtime I tried eating some seed crackers, I got a tight chest.

I literally have no idea how to eat anymore. I feel low, confused, stressed and in pain all over again. Like everything I’ve worked so hard to figure out for my body, that I finally thought I’d resolved, has come back again in another cycle.

It’s all very reminiscent of my Dad’s journey through his digestive health.

There’s no purpose to this story, just an observation that I’m just a human having a human experience. And sometimes those experiences go in cycles, and sometimes those cycles are shit!

What are your thoughts? Can you relate to constantly going in cycles?

I’d love to know what this is trying to teach me. Maybe this isn’t about food at all? 🤔