The journey to discovering diet's role in how I feel and why food is the center of my universe.
I am the classroom teacher at a small alternative high school for students who did not find success at public school. What this often means is that I get to teach the students who were the most challenging to manage in a traditional classroom setting. I absolutely love my job, and I think more people should spend time with the incredible young adults in my classroom, but the reality is that classroom management is a significant challenge. It's not that they're purposefully trying to make my job difficult; they are just not wired to sit inside using critical thinking skills. Many of them have extreme anxiety associated with schools. So, I've tried to employ all manner of techniques in keeping them engaged, moving around, etc, but at the end of the day, sometimes it just sucks for all of us.
That's when I need to be at my very best, for all of our sanity. Yet, I found myself struggling, over and over. I felt exhausted, anxious, sick to my stomach. I would get a strong urge to just crawl into the corner and either take a nap or cry. I'd get migraines and a temper, sometimes yelling at these poor students who just need love and understanding, not another angry adult. After years of struggling with those moments, I started to wonder if I just wasn't cut out for this particular job. Maybe I didn't have the temperament, wasn't patient enough, or just didn't want a job that left me so empty.
Flash forward to this year, when I figured out that what I was experiencing was not actually just stress, but symptoms caused by a very real (and treatable!) disease. Doctors recommended that I start a low-histamine diet. I had dealt with gut issues since grade school and had tried my fair share of diets. A few months earlier I had tried the FODMAP diet, full of hope, only to be crushed when it didn't help. So I fully expected this new diet to fail. I decided to go all out -- to think about the one time in my adult life when I'd felt well, and only eat foods that were both low in histamine AND had been a staple during that semester in college. I came to three foods -- oats, chicken (only fresh, organic, and hormone-free), and wheat (no added ingredients, so basically just matzah).
I felt AMAZING. I had hoped for my digestive issues to improve, but I never expected everything else to clear up as well! My migraines disappeared, I suddenly had energy again, I stopped having constant pain in my entire body, dizziness, nausea, and so much more. With the weight of these symptoms off my shoulders, I could do so many things! I could get away with sleeping fewer than 9 hours without feeling like a zombie. I could hang out with friends without being grumpy. I could sit or stand without pain and hold my head up all on my own.
One of the most unexpected effects was how this diet impacted my teaching. I felt like a fog had been lifted and I could now think in full sentences. I didn't have to ask students to repeat themselves ten times. I could actually do math again (important, since I teach math...). I also felt my frustration and impatience with students melt away. In those difficult moments, I somehow didn't feel the need to yell, or to point out what they had done wrong. A well of compassion that had been used up for so long suddenly became available. I don't know if my newfound serenity became contagious and students no longer felt so edgy in class, or if I'm calm enough that their tough moments don't feel so tough anymore, or likely both, but the frequency in which I feel the need for disciplinary action has dropped dramatically. When it does occur, I can handle it without feeling anger towards the student, inadequacy towards myself, or feeling as though I've used up all of my energy for the day in one go.
But... the reality is that I can't survive on those three ingredients for very long. The focus of my last several months has been adding in foods one at a time to figure out what I can tolerate and what I can't. This practice has brought a unique kind of mindfulness to my eating; I've learned to identify the nutritional benefits, "taste nodules" as my family calls them, and symptomatic reactions to each new ingredient. It has led to an understanding of food that I never would have expected as someone who identified with the "food intolerant" Kate on The Katering Show.
This section of my blog will be mostly tips, recipes, and fun cooking stories as I've transitioned from hating mealtimes (and the sick that would follow) to seeing food as my greatest healer. I will share things I've learned about nutrition, myself, socializing, and our society through an exploration of my own food habits.