My Zero Tolerance To Last Night's Food...and why I'm gonna stick to "safe" eateries for the rest of 2011...

I feel like crap.

I woke up groggy--9.5 hours after I went to bed.

Right eye was nearly swollen shut from some allergic reaction. I had assorted rashy bits across neck and arms. My voice was altered. My nose was stuffy.

I felt lethargic ...and still do, hours later.

This is what eating in a chain restaurnat will do. I am sure I ingested things that are bad for me in the way they prepared stuff...and after eating clean for nearly every day this summer, and the vast majority of the days since January, I have not much tolerance for ...crap.

I remember reading the blogs of folks who were on plan for weeks and months, deviated with binges or just overeating or just slipped in a junk food, and then got diarrhea or joint inflammation, etc. Seen it over and over.

Now, it's me. I felt GREAT most of this year from eating better. High energy. Today, my skin is blotchy, my nose is congested, and I don't have the vim to do much other than sit.

There it is. This is how I felt 10 of the 11 years of this millenium. Crappy. Why? I used toe at a lot of stuff that, clealy, I ought not have.

And though I didn't have much of said stuff last night--the scale today was 183.4, back to Monday's weight, which is proof I didn't totally go off the rails, a mere .4 blip upwards--I FEEL IT. Not in bathroom issues or nausea. But in my immune system's wacky reaction.

Real food, good food, solid food heals.

Chain restaurant food is deadly.

There are some restaurants we frequent with no issues whatsoever. Some of them, I've talked to the cook/owner and know what goes in. Not always perfect--the Mexican place we like uses Safflower oil, which I prefer to margarine and soy or canola, but still wish they'd use olive or butter or other less inflammatory fats--but I know they're not rejiggering the food, adding weird flavor enhancers. I can see them cooking. I can ask. They're small mom/pop place. I can make special requests. I don't get sick there.

I remember when hubby and I regularly did Chili's. Then I read THE END OF OVEREATING...and we never went back.  Ditto McDonalds. I have done some chain ones--Chipotle (no reaction to the salad with meat or chicken toppings, salsa, guacamole) and Ruby Tuesday's (only the salad bar this year). But I know that there's stuff added to and processes created to make those foods addictive to excitable, binge-prone overeaters like me. It's not fresh food made by a cook. It's processed/bagged/frozen/manipulated food "assembled" in a kitchen for mass production. Best avoided.

I consider this a lesson. I like having energy and not having eczema and congestion. This means: Only eat in "safe" restaurants. Safe is not necessarily perfect. It just means it doesn't derail me. :)

Home cooking is the safest, but some places, especially those with real cooks in the kitchen and real produce and real meats/proteins that haven't been uber doused in breadings/MSG/etc....those places will continue to get MY moolah.

I know I got glutenized and MSG-ed yesterday, and I was a co-conspirator in crashing down my vim and health status. Stupid me.

But..hey, today, so far, eating my food--honeydew was amazing, I may say!--and making my own java, sip, sip, sip. Trying to heal up again and feel human, not like something a gang of mutant hyper-allergy-causing cats clawed over and spit on.

For those on plan, keep on it.

For those recovering from being off plan, let's do it.

For those messing up: Stop it. Regroup.

And...be well...(or better)...today...