I’m amazed to realize it was already nearly a decade ago when, early in 2015, I paid a pile of money to have a functional medicine doctor guide me in an elimination diet.
I had been having all manner of annoying and uncomfortable symptoms, some for years: A recurrent dermatitis across my face, painful knees, tiny growths on my knuckles, unidentified allergies, and more.
All of which – every last one – had disappeared by the end of the intensive initial month.
Ultimately, everything the doctor had me avoid returned to my at least semi-regular diet except for the big three: gluten, dairy, and sugar.
I mean, okay, no perfection. I still eat gluten, dairy and sugar.
Only now, I eat it with far greater discernment.
Stripped away are the casual and thoughtless sources of gluten, dairy and sugar: Forgettable restaurant bread rolls, flavorless cheeses, sugars used to make the highly processed more addictive.
This leaves the occasional delicacy. My mom’s homemade bread. Ice cream from the local shop that makes it in-house. (Oh, their blueberry and goat cheese!) Chunks of flavorful blue cheese or the special-occasion melted brie.
The truth is, some of the symptoms have returned though with far less severity. And I’m okay with that.
Because the deeper truth is: I’m giving up on trying to be healthy.
My mom and I often refer to things as “another egg,” as in one day, eggs are called a great source of protein and the next, they’re called the source of all heart-health evil. Anything for which, then, the Truth changes with some regularity is “another egg.”
Trying to be healthy, at its most problematic, can turn into the most confounding of research projects, can slide into its own version of optimization where joy is quickly eliminated from the equation leaving only micronutrients and pseudo-science metrics like BMI, amounts of water, and numbers of steps.
Me, I think joy is integral to health, not peripheral to it.
And so I eat eggs when they’re what my mouth is craving.
I eat scoops of the blueberry and goat cheese ice cream and slices of my mom’s seed-studded bread, though less often than I would have before I realized that they can flair my allergies and, over time, revive my dermatitis and all the rest.
That is, instead of trying to be healthy, I’m trying to be a good steward of my heath – mindfully, staying within my ethics and being responsive to each day.
Instead, I’m trying to let tuning into myself guide my daily choices rather than reactive emotions.
Instead, I’m trying to move toward feeling good holistically instead of moving away from my fears of repercussions of doing health imperfectly.
I’m not just giving up on trying to be healthy, either.
I’m also giving up on trying to have great days.
I’m giving up on trying to be the best version of me possible.
Instead, I’m trying to be the best steward I can be of this brief, unpredictable, rich life.
Instead, I’m trying to make space for my whole, messy, imperfect humanness.
And you, friend?
What part of you could use a little more space, a little more of your own loving attention, a little more of your caring stewardship?
