A few weeks ago, some of the ladies from CrossFit decided to do a ten-day holistic detox and invited me to join them.
No sugar. No dairy. No processed foods. No coffee.
Yes…no fucking coffee.
When I told my husband, he just looked at me and said, “I don’t know what’s left for you to eat. But if it’s what you want to do, go for it. More coffee for me.”
My thinking was simple. Even if I hated every minute of it, maybe I’d learn something about what was actually in my food. I read labels all the time, but I’m usually looking for the organic seal or the non-GMO label. I don’t spend my grocery trips reading every ingredient like I’m studying for the SATs.
Which, by the way, turns a one-hour shopping trip into a three-hour tour…a three-hour tour…
Whoops. Sorry. I’m back.
I made it six days before I was ready to sell my soul for a sandwich and a glass of wine. Sandwich optional.
But something unexpected happened.
I felt…better.
Not “I can run a marathon” better.
More like “my stomach finally stopped trying to kill me” better.
That’s when it hit me.
It was probably the dairy.
For years I’d blamed everything else. Stress. Eating too fast. Bad restaurants. A “sensitive stomach.” Growing up, my mom was convinced I had what she lovingly called a “spastic colon.” Apparently watching enough Marcus Welby, MASH, Quincy, Trapper John, St. Elsewhere, and Doogie Howser qualified her for an honorary medical degree from Bullshit University.
Thanks, Mom.
Looking back, the signs were ridiculously obvious. Ice cream always came with stomach cramps. Cheesy casseroles were basically a warning label. Milk and I had been enemies for years, and somehow I never connected the dots.
I’m not a doctor, so don’t take my word for it. Do your own research. But once I started paying attention, it became pretty clear my body and dairy were no longer on speaking terms.
Sometimes we get so used to feeling a certain way that we assume it’s normal. We adapt. We work around it. We tell ourselves, “That’s just how my body is.”
Sometimes it isn’t.
Sometimes…
Turns out it was the milk.
