4 ms·

I'm celiac, so my body has some crazy responses to food. I get withdrawal symptoms from a couple of foods and have cut them out because of it. Sugar was the mos

by TACIXAT 10y ago

I'm celiac, so my body has some crazy responses to food. I get withdrawal symptoms from a couple of foods and have cut them out because of it. Sugar was the most recent. When I stop eating it I get a sinus headache, I get the shakes (like drinking too much caffeine), and if it's bad, I throw up. What blew my mind in giving up sugar was that I lost 5 lbs. I'm was lean at 155 lbs and 6'1, I dropped below 150 now. It really opened my eyes to how much sugar is converted to fat. I gave up gluten (withdrawal symptoms), high fructose foods (digestive issues, celiacs wrecks your small intestine lining), caffeine (withdrawal symptoms), sodium nitrites (withdrawal symptoms, but I don't know much about this one, it's in bacon and deli meats as a preservative / cure), and now sugar (withdrawal symptoms). I feel so good. My nose used to be stuffy all the time, I used to have awful digestion, cutting out these foods totally changed my life. I'm honestly really grateful that I'm celiac, I think it magnifies all the shittiness that these foods bring. It got me to realize all the garbage I was sustaining myself on. I'm now incredibly healthy despite being 'sick'. One of the stranger realizations was that I now only drink water, and that I used to live mostly off of soda. All these industries have huge interests in selling people addicting food (caffeine, sugar) and maintaining their market positions. They put out so much misinformation on what is healthy.

csommers 10y ago
>What blew my mind in giving up sugar was that I lost 5 lbs. I'm was lean at 155 lbs and 6'1, I dropped below 150 now. It really opened my eyes to how much sugar is converted to fat. Pretty much all water weight.
- ubercore 10y ago
  I don't know enough to dispute this, but I'm curious what makes you so certain?
  - orasis 10y ago
    Its super common for people to dump a bunch of water weight after cutting inflammatory foods from their diet. Inflammation is, in part, water retention in that area.
- TACIXAT 10y ago
  Good to know. There wasn't a serious visible change, so that would make sense.
jerf 10y ago
"caffeine (withdrawal symptoms)," Do you mean that the caffeine itself doesn't bother you (above its expected effect), but that the withdrawal is pretty rough? I'm curious, because I also have celiac, and I've also ended up dropping caffeine because it was getting to be too much of a pain to manage it whenever I had to do without for some reason (travel mostly). I've noticed I have no grace with it; if I drink a 20oz Coke Zero right now, which is actually pretty low in caffeine (or, at most depending on your standards, "medium"), in 36 hours I will have a withdrawal headache. But I can't tell if this is "celiac", or just generally how people respond to caffeine. Most people don't pay attention that much. (As long as we're comparing notes: I've also noticed that alcohol has little appeal to me, because it mostly just makes me tired and gives me vague muscle pain before I'm "buzzed". In fact I can't say I've ever been "pleasantly buzzed" the way some people seem to describe.) (Also, before someone comes along and complains about "anecdotes" being used, I do try to keep up with the celiac science, but generally speaking what we're talking about here is way beyond the current science frontier. Science may be the slow-and-steady that wins the race, but in the meantime, we can't wait for science to figure out the perfect way to live with it and/or cure it in 30-50 years... we have it now.)
- Periodic 10y ago
  Caffeine is known to have withdrawal symptoms. Those headaches, for me in the face and forehead, seem to be a common symptom. As I went through my 20s I experimented with abandoning coffee a few times. I had developed the habit in college and I wanted to ensure that I was continuing to drink coffee for the benefits and not simply because I was addicted to it. This meant that I did handful of experiments with not drinking coffee for 2-3 months. The first week or two would be rough. Headaches starting 24-30 hours after I stopped and persisting for about a week. After that I would just settle into what felt like a normal life, but a lot more groggy. The main difference between my life with coffee and my life without seemed to just be how grumpy I was before noon. I still had insomnia, I still got tired after lunch. Those things seemed unconnected to the coffee. Maybe I need to go off coffee for a long time to really see the benefits, e.g. give it 3-6 months for my body to recover and stabilize. I'm not sure, but at this point I have what I consider to be a healthy consumption level and I get the benefits of increased alertness and focus in the mornings. I'm focusing on other elements of my life to address any health concerns.

by TACIXAT 10y ago

csommers 10y ago

>What blew my mind in giving up sugar was that I lost 5 lbs. I'm was lean at 155 lbs and 6'1, I dropped below 150 now. It really opened my eyes to how much sugar is converted to fat. Pretty much all water weight.

ubercore 10y ago
I don't know enough to dispute this, but I'm curious what makes you so certain?
- orasis 10y ago
  Its super common for people to dump a bunch of water weight after cutting inflammatory foods from their diet. Inflammation is, in part, water retention in that area.
TACIXAT 10y ago
Good to know. There wasn't a serious visible change, so that would make sense.

jerf 10y ago

"caffeine (withdrawal symptoms)," Do you mean that the caffeine itself doesn't bother you (above its expected effect), but that the withdrawal is pretty rough? I'm curious, because I also have celiac, and I've also ended up dropping caffeine because it was getting to be too much of a pain to manage it whenever I had to do without for some reason (travel mostly). I've noticed I have no grace with it; if I drink a 20oz Coke Zero right now, which is actually pretty low in caffeine (or, at most depending on your standards, "medium"), in 36 hours I will have a withdrawal headache. But I can't tell if this is "celiac", or just generally how people respond to caffeine. Most people don't pay attention that much. (As long as we're comparing notes: I've also noticed that alcohol has little appeal to me, because it mostly just makes me tired and gives me vague muscle pain before I'm "buzzed". In fact I can't say I've ever been "pleasantly buzzed" the way some people seem to describe.) (Also, before someone comes along and complains about "anecdotes" being used, I do try to keep up with the celiac science, but generally speaking what we're talking about here is way beyond the current science frontier. Science may be the slow-and-steady that wins the race, but in the meantime, we can't wait for science to figure out the perfect way to live with it and/or cure it in 30-50 years... we have it now.)

Periodic 10y ago
Caffeine is known to have withdrawal symptoms. Those headaches, for me in the face and forehead, seem to be a common symptom. As I went through my 20s I experimented with abandoning coffee a few times. I had developed the habit in college and I wanted to ensure that I was continuing to drink coffee for the benefits and not simply because I was addicted to it. This meant that I did handful of experiments with not drinking coffee for 2-3 months. The first week or two would be rough. Headaches starting 24-30 hours after I stopped and persisting for about a week. After that I would just settle into what felt like a normal life, but a lot more groggy. The main difference between my life with coffee and my life without seemed to just be how grumpy I was before noon. I still had insomnia, I still got tired after lunch. Those things seemed unconnected to the coffee. Maybe I need to go off coffee for a long time to really see the benefits, e.g. give it 3-6 months for my body to recover and stabilize. I'm not sure, but at this point I have what I consider to be a healthy consumption level and I get the benefits of increased alertness and focus in the mornings. I'm focusing on other elements of my life to address any health concerns.