One after another. Last week my dream job offer came, then happened the urticaria. It was itching & burning like hell! I had a dentist appointment that I missed as of the severe and constant itching all over. Went to a doctor about it and he said: “We don’t know why urticaria happens. (Doctors, eh?) Just take these antihistamines. There is no cure (I know hun) but you can manage the symptoms.” Another auto-immune! Well, I took those antihistamines and they made me sleep all day and forgot about the dental problem.
I’ve just watched2 Days, 1 Night movie starring Marion Cotillard, who was laid off during her sick leave as she was suffering from depression. She was informed informally by her coworker about this. Very similar to my case. But…
As I look back now, my case was far worse than her:
1. Economically, she was married and her husband also works, they own their own place and car, so no rent but a mortgage, which they can make a second mortgage or sell it as they own it.
I did not have anything, no car, no house and a high rent, not because my 50m2 flat is good but I live in a cosmopolitan city.
I did not have mortgage but had rent and payments of my PhD. I did not own anything worthy to sell.
So, economically I was worse off 🙂
2. Socially, she has people around her, a supporting positive-thinking husband who encourages her to fight for her job. I did not even have a boyfriend 🙂 She has two kids who are lovely. I do not even own a cat or a flower 🙂
3. Psychologically, my whole life was my career. For her, it was no more than a money-making job. I had major depression, was on sick leave for 3 days although she was for months. On the third day, I received an informal call like hers and they said “You are kicked out”. No voting, no chance to fight for it. It just happened. The worst thing was that, my so-called colleagues did not even say something against it. I was the one who had hired some of them. Can you believe that ?
It is like being stabbed from everywhere…
All the depression plus my auto-immune diseases including fibromyalgia, leaky gut, IBS, alopecia areata, urticaria, lichen planus plus candida, migraines, food allergies, fatigue etc. it is a miracle that I am still alive 🙂
Look where I am now. Quite a breakthrough? No, but maybe some breakthrough. At least, I am trying. Thanks to you, I have a reason to write. Some days were harder than the others for the past month, and those days, the only reason that I woke up was to write my blog and “try to try”.
I have had short hair for the past 6 years. I shaved my head twice before, once for fun when I was in college, once to support a friend a year ago who took chemotherapy for breast cancer. I wanted to show her that a woman can still be very beautiful without hair. It meant a lot to her and she shaved her head right after me and did not use wigs since.
When I shaved my head about a year ago, I was working in a consulting firm and my stupid boss got angry as I did not informed her beforehand. Why should anyone inform anyone for that for God’s sake? My boss threatened to fire me and she thought that I was trying to protest something in the office. I did not defend myself and tell them the reason. I thought that I should not have to be explaining myself for that.
They used this as an excuse and start mobbing me at the office and I was forced to resign 6 months later.
Afterwards they learned the reason and tried to reach me but not for a sincere apology, but to prevent me from suing them for mistreatment and mobbing.
People eh? Or should I say “corporate devils”?
Anyways, you know the rest, the major depression linked with my auto-immune diseases and constant pain in my life for the past 6 months. Read more on 10 THINGS ABOUT ME
Now, jobless, depressed and sick, this 35 year old career woman starts from zero.
With a shaved head again.
Third time, but this time it was not my choice. It is for neither fun nor support. This time I happen to have Alopecia Areata, another auto-immune disease, which causes patchy hairloss on the scalp, where white blood cells from the immune system attack hair follicles and keep them from producing hair. It generally looks like this:
Am I beautiful? Well, at least I still have my head on my shoulders. I still have my fingers to blog. I still can write my story. I still have you reading it. I am grateful. But do I FEEL beautiful? No.
When I shaved my head to support my friend, I did not feel bad about my look. I felt very beautiful then. It was my bold decision made me beautiful in my eyes maybe… Now that it was not my choice I feel forced to do it. I feel helpless. So, maybe this time, it will take some time to feel beautiful for me.
And when I do feel that, I will share a photo with you 🙂 But, I am not strong enough yet.
I am not happy today. It was all going good. Now I am back to where I was 3 weeks ago.
My stomach aches, I have severe diarrhea due to antibiotics although I have many supplements of probiotics etc.
As an extra, I have a fever due to tooth infection and 2 new cold sores appeared today because of that. I also have a sinus infection. So, pain doubled in my head.
I was watching Avengers and all I was thinking during the movie was: “Oh Thor, can you come and hit my jar with your hammer and end this please?”
A new one is added to my long list of auto-immunes, I now have Alopecia areata too. I am losing my hair. Doctor says that it could be another fungal infection or just without reason.
I was talking to one of my friends today on the phone. I told him about my situation and he simply said that:
“Oh honey, it is your negative thoughts which creates your illnesses. You are creating allergies yourself. You are very depressed, that’s why you have those auto-immune problems.”
I had to be very angry or sad but I only laughed. That person is trying to become a life-coach. He has some certificate which he gave $15000 to get. Not an ICF one of course. I cannot even consider him as a friend any more.
Can you go in front of a person with cancer or MS and say that? “Oh, honey, your negative thoughts created this! Now, let me help you with coaching!” What kind of an approach is this? Cancer and MS are the two of the most severe auto-immune diseases today.
I believe in positive psychology, I am a psychologist for God’s sake. But neither psychology nor medical sciences found a cure for auto-immune diseases. The only thing I need now are friends not like him.
Healthy people are very cruel sometimes, and the psychologists are the ones who lack emphaty the most.
I have to say, what is worse than a disease without a cure, is a person who blames you for this.
Yay! I’ve lost 10lbs in a week with my super healthy diet!
This diet was not supposed to help losing weight but it did work on that area too!
This is a healthy diet mostly for people who have:
Liver and bowel problems such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Leaky Gut Syndrome etc.
Auto-immune diseases like celiac or crohn, bowel related psychological disorders such as depression, migraines etc
Excessive Candida Albicans in digestive system.
Under-working immune system (mine was almost dead 🙂
High blood sugar and constant sugar cravings
I had all of the above 🙂 Luckily I developed The Alex – Diet to cope. As it worked quite well for me in the very first week, I will share it with you as a New Year present 🙂
Plus gain: My goal was to lose 30lbs by the end of January 2015. First part of the goal is achieved: To lose 10lbs before 2015 🙂
Beware that I am not a nutrician but a psychologist. I made this diet up by hours of research about leaky-gut diets, GAPS diets etc from academic studies to nutritionists (who sell their ultimate diet plans 0_o) and personal experience blogs. They are too restrictive for me in many ways and there are too many recipes to follow. That is, you feel coerced to buy the damn cookbook. I said no to that crap and start working on my own diet which I will share with everyone for free 🙂
During this diet, I also took L-Glutamine, Vitamin C, Milk thistle, Beta Carotene and probiotic dietary supplements.
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I believe, a diet for health should not contain many recipes, but the principles to apply to your tastes.
So, I developed 10 principles to follow:
1. Drink water as water (0.5 gallons a day). Not as tea, coffee etc. Just water.
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2. Eat nothing with a “light/diet/low fat” written on it.
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3. Every morning when you get up, drink 1 big glass of water. You can add 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, carbonate or apple cider vinegar in it. This is to detox your liver. After that, drink 1 tablespoon of black cumin oil and 1 tablespoon of propolis. Drink another glass of water. These are to boost your immune system.
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4. Wait for 2 hours till breakfast. You can drink water. No coffee or black tea allowed. Give your digestive system and liver a nice detox time every day. Oil and propolis have lots of calories and you won’t be craving I promise.
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5. For breakfast
This is when you start fighting with Candida in your system. You send the good guys (probiotics) to fight them.
a) Eat 1 bowl of probiotic yoghurt. You can add extra probiotic supplements in it.
b) Drink 200ml kefir.
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6.After breakfast:
a) if you want, you can have 1 cup of very smooth blend coffee or tea. 1 cup, no more…
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b) If you crave, wash your mouth with some Apple Cider Vinegar and you will feel better. If you get very hungry, you can eat 1 tablespoon of coconut oil every day. You can use this option if you have night cravings. No carbs, eat oil It will make you feel full.
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7. Never cook the oil. You can put the oil to your meal when you are on the table. I do not use oil for cooking, I drink it. Better for the bowel.
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8. Lunch & Dinner: You can eat the same things in lunch and dinner as long as they are healthy 🙂 You can be creative but keep it simple. No sauces, no extra fat and no breads.
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a) SOUPS
I mostly eat my meals as soups with home made bone broth.
I wrote about bone broth earlier.Click to see how to do it at home. Avoid buying meat/chicken stock ready. It will cause harm to you rather than good.
Bone broth is necessary to mend your leaky gut and fight auto-immune diseases.
You can be creative and use the soup recipe to make your favorite soups with different ingredients. Here is an example with the same cooking tactic. Same recipe, diffrerent soup. Easy, isn’t it?
Note: No extra oil in the soup as it has fat in itself. Avoid too much salt. Use turmeric and rosemary for taste and aroma. Also, no flour is used. No exceptions on that.
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b) MEALS
You can use any meat/poultry or fish + cooked/steamed veggies in your meals. I recommend cooking veggies with steam. So, you should buy yourself a steamer 🙂 You will use it almost every day… If you do not have a steamer, boil them in water in low heat. But they will lose some nutrients to water while boiling. So drink that boiling water too.
I recommend free range especially for poultry. Organic will be a plus.
You can eat boiled eggs too as a meal. 2 boiled eggs + yoghurt as dressing + veggies can be a nice dinner plate.
Yesterday I treated myself a really nice dinner. I wrote the names of the veggies I used. OMG salmon is sooo tasty I did not even put salt in it! I steamed vegetables first and then the salmon in steamer. It was ready in 30 minutes in total. (I did not steam the soy sprouts though, I ate them raw 🙂
Salmon is very oily and you should not use any extra oil.
Another option:
Bring it all together and make a salmon-veggie soup with the same ingredients.
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9. Manage your guilty pleasures.
a) If you want to eat desert, eat dark chocolate, eat 1 piece (up to 20gr) per day at the most. The next day you can eat again. So you are not giving up for life. You don’t have to eat the whole bar when you open it.
xxx
b) Tiny guilt treats: If you want to eat cake, cook it with gluten-free flour and eat very very little.
Small-size dark chocolate cupcake with 1 cooked cherry on top is my favorite (no cream of course)
Also, you can make tiny treats for yourself such as pumpkin desert or ginger desert. Boil them like you are making a marmelade. Do not overcook but boil them slowly with little sugar.
Another example with yoghurt sauce, not so guilty 🙂
c) No-guilt treats: Eat all you can eat treats. Beware, until your stomach stops creating gas, you should avoid fresh veggies. I started to eat them on the 6th day.
Try not to take sugar if you have excessive Candida growth. They love sugar. Let’s starve them 🙂
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10. What not to eat and NO EXCUSES!
– Cheese, milk, dairy products except for yoghurt and kefir.
– Wheat, wheat products, rice, corn, starch and starchy veggies like potatoes.
– Fruits as they are very high on fructose sugar. Candida loves fructose.
– Deserts including milk such as pudding etc.
– Raw veggies or salads until your stomach does not produce gas.
– All fastfood or junk food like chips etc.
– Any kind of smoked meat and fish.
– Alcoholic drinks, fruit juice (fresh or not), coke, energy drink etc.
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There it comes: The Principle Zero. Start with a decision.
Today is a good day as it is time to make New Year Resolutions. When you decide to live healthy, then clean up your freezer, kitchen, cellar etc. If they stay, you eat them. As the principle zero, get rid of them first. Tomorrow, go buy/order fresh veggies, meat and bones. Start cooking. It is very easy. Believe me, because I am very lazy 🙂
If a very depressed woman could do it, (I mean avoiding sugar and comfort food was not easy in the first days) anyone can.
My 35 Project 
