Wednesday, November 22, 2017 // The Statement
6B
Personal Statement: No more pretzels
“
Why even drink coffee if you’re
gonna just have decaf?” I could
probably buy my own coffee
shop with the number of times
someone has asked me.
“I like the taste but I don’t want to
get addicted and then start to need the
caffeine,” I would reply. Then it’d start
a discussion about how they don’t taste
the same. (Sorry, guys, even after having
flirted with drinking coffee for almost
half a year, I still taste no difference.)
Besides, I’m really much more of a
tea person. But all tangents aside, the
rationale for my seemingly backward
coffee-drinking habits was simple: Drink
one cup of cheap, decaf coffee when I
crave the taste of it (coffee connoisseurs,
don’t @ me) and that, in turn, would leave
me satisfied for at least a month or two.
I thought allowing myself to have a little
when I was really craving it would be just
enough to satiate my hankering but not so
much as to turn me into a regular coffee
drinker.
Cue junior-year second semester. I
was sluggish and tired, and the nausea
and stomachaches I’d always had, but
chosen to ignore, were now almost daily
occurrences and were worse than ever.
My mom suggested I see a nutritionist.
After I described my symptoms to her,
the nutritionist seemed to immediately
understand what was going on.
“I think you have a candida infection,”
she told me. “Essentially, there is yeast
buildup in your bloodstream. So, you need
to eliminate gluten and sugar from your
diet. Some low-sugar fruits are OK, but in
moderation.” (Read: no more than half-
cup of low-sugar fruits per day.)
At this point, I was already intolerant
to dairy products and, more recently,
eggs, so this was the icing on top of a
really burnt, dry cake. So, even though I
saw it would be a challenging road ahead,
because I’m one of those people who
trusts health professionals, I let her send
me on my way with a recipe book of dairy-
free, egg-free, sugar-free, gluten-free,
air-free (I’m just kidding) meals to cook.
Fast forward three weeks or so: I’m
sitting in the newsroom of The Michigan
Daily, munching on a salad from Au Bon
Pain. It was the southwest chicken salad
(hold the tortilla strips). It was the first
real meal I’d had all day, and the second
time that week I’d had this salad.
Almost
immediately
after
starting
the diet, I went back to school. It was
my first semester as co-editorial page
editor — a job that consumed at least 20
hours of every week — and four classes
that had multiple assignments due every
week as well as a mountain of reading for
each lecture. (Thank you, sociology and
Spanish majors.)
Just like any other busy college
student, I had no time to spend hours in
the kitchen preparing alternative meals.
So, instead, I spent it obsessing, worrying
about what I was eating. I started eating
less and less, until I was only having one
whole meal a day to avoid having to deal
with the dreaded question “What was I
going to eat?”
And because my eating habits became
so messed up, I would snack on whatever
fit the diet, and in large quantities — bags
of popcorn, corn tortilla chips — because
my meals weren’t satisfying enough. Then
I quickly got sick of those foods, too.
Breakfast used to be my favorite meal
of the day, but without toast and after
being told I should “stay away” from
gluten-free bread — “Who knows what
preservatives they have in there!” — I had
lost my favorite meal. I hated thinking
about food.
This semester, I cracked. I started
getting hungrier and unhappier. Because
I hadn’t been allowed to eat so many
things, I started eating more sugary
treats and junk food than I’ve ever in my
life. I started eating way more of the basic
foods I’d loved but had been told to stay
away from.
I began to lie awake at night, thinking
about how bad I’d been at keeping with the
diet and whether the pack of Starbursts
I’d had was making my infection worse.
This, in turn, made my sleep worse and my
eating habits kept spiraling downward. If
I was already giving up on this diet, what
was another gluten-filled sandwich or
pack of sugary fruit snacks?
One day, though, as I went to The
Daily’s vending machine and saw I was
about to take the last Starbursts pack
(sorry, Michelle), I realized I’d eaten
more Starbursts that week than I’d had
in my entire life. I love Starbursts, but I’d
always had them only once in a while, and
they were a special treat I looked forward
to.
But as I sat down with my fifth pack
of Starbursts that week, I realized the
only reason it was eating more sugar
than I normally do was because of the
unreasonable restrictions of my new diet
I wasn’t used to. While the nutritionist
may have been right to tell me I’d been
having too many family-sized bags of
pretzels, asking someone to eliminate
something entirely is a tall order. Some
may be able to do that fairly easily, but
everyone is different and, for people like
me, extreme restriction manifests itself
as a stressor in an already stressful life.
I could likely achieve the same goals of
getting better sleep, warding off infection
and leading an overall healthier lifestyle
— if I just practiced limiting these foods
in moderation. I knew my body best.
Now, I’m still not a coffee drinker. But
it’s not because I forced myself to cut it out
completely. I simply let myself indulge in
a cup now and then, enjoying the flavors
when I want to. Though I realize it’s not
always feasible to practice moderation —
as some people with allergies or severe
intolerances have to abide by strict diets
— I implore us us as doctors, nutritionists
and a society to work moderation into our
discourse and health care programs to
recognize that people are different and
what works for one does not work for
another.
by Anna Polumbo-Levy, Editorial Page Editor
ILLUSTRATION BY AMELIA CACCHIONE