LunaSix

Ok, so my name is Laura, and I've been exercising for about six months semi regularly , I'm bipolar II, depressed, borderline personality, generalized anxiety disorder, and I'm determined to prove that people with a schlew of mental health disorders can feel healthy and at peace. However, I know this is a steep mountain I'm climbing. I've been making logs, exercise logs to write how I feel or felt during a work out and what foods I craved afterwards. (initially, fruit and bread). I've learned that people with bipolar can actually go manic with exercise chemicals and it's important to keep an eye on it, and people with anxiety take longer to recover because their bodies are already stressed out. I've learned a lot from self analysis and self study. I've studied psychology on my own for about eight years and I've studied health on my own for about one year, but with a huge background of health (my parents were both body builders and I didn't eat ice cream until I was twelve at a friend's house, to give you an idea. but I knew what sprouts and vitamin E were). My approach to exercise has been, do it because it feels good, and then eat what feels good. So I started out by eating hotdogs after my work outs because that's what I fucking wanted, and so I did it. Then I started craving chicken, then I started craving rice, then brown rice, then potatoes, and slowly my cravings literally became salad. All I wanted was HUGE salads. I'm talking massive, I'm a vegan all I ever eat is salad I'm not hungry at all yes I am salads. Because that's what I fucking wanted. Processed foods like Kraft Mac and Cheese boxes started to make me angry. I was like, this is bullshit food. I'm not getting nutrients. This doesn't make me feel good. I have hallucinations. I've been recording how different foods make me feel. I have no scientific training, but I am recording all of my experiences and emotions, placebo or otherwise, and processed foods seem to have an effect on my ability to handle reality, or to differentiate between what's real and what isn't. The large salads made me feel like I was on top of the world at first. I literally refused to go a day without a salad in it. I told everybody. I was IN LOVE with salads. I was HIGH off spinach, mother fucker. But then I crashed. I got really depressed. Something came out in therapy for me that was so painful and deep rooted that I laid in bed for two days, sleeping in and out for 15 hours at a time. And you know what occured to me? What if eating healthy detoxes your emotional body? I like to think of it this way : I am an organic computer. My body is full of tiny things that need information - and that information is the DNA of the food I eat, right? Or something like that. So, what if whole, raw foods are easiest for my cells to process so they aren't stressed, or confused, and it's a program that's the best operating system for my body? What if I got updated, but my body is still processing the change and dispelling the old stuff? The junk food stuff? I'll admit I understand. Junk food is comforting. It puts me in a kind of stasis, where everything is normal, even and RIGHT. Because I'm used to it. I grew up healthy, but I dated someone who was an adamant lover of junk food for three years. And cigarettes. and Alcohol. and Pizza. and all the foods that make my mental health worse. and he stressed me out on top of that. I knew in my body at a certain point that that relationship was beginning to kill me. I have twelve grey hairs now that I didn't have before and a sag to my face and emotions that I didn't before I met him. But what if my eating healthy, has made me depressed because it's cleaning out the stuff that the bad food made dormant? I know that sounds outlandish, but what if? All I'm asking is you to watch your behavior with the different foods and recognize that maybe that's what's happening. I am mad, though! Of course you would be, too. All the commercials and Pinterest girls we've seen have LIED TO US! Eating healthy is supposed to make us smile and feel healthy and happy and flip our hair and want to smile at the camera, right? No. I think all the healthy food ads we see is what happens after you've been eating healthy for a long time, and you're committed to changing your lifestyle and those are the results, for some. Listen to your body. Give it what it wants, but be aware of why it may want that food. I'm still not sure why I crave McDonalds ... I know it means I need protein, and I know it means that I am "bad". but guess what? Maybe McDonalds does taste better than health food. Health food is more "animal" than other more processed foods. We made processed foods, I think, back 50-70 years ago, to be "fun" food. Food for a Friday night. but we all eat it all the time now because it tastes so good. But old home economic text books talked about eating healthy vegetables every day. My point to this long comment, is maybe your healthy food choices are correcting something very intimate in your heart, soul, body, emotions - the pain you've had for years, stashed away in your cells. This is a theory all based on speculation and records at this point.