Being Sick: Eating Junk Food

Being sick with a tough chronic illness like Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome “should not” mean that you’re eating food that’s really junk.

(Today, the common vernacular for that is eating junk food.)

However, I know that when I was so horribly sick and a virtual, bed-bound invalid, I did exactly that. So, I’m wondering today, why would I do that? Well, to answer that question is the reason for this post today.

As humans, we can be tempted to make excuses about the food we eat and feel sorry for ourselves. We feel so badly that the only thing we can muster is the will to stay alive one more day… hoping that tomorrow will be better.

Here’s an alarming article about how recent medical finding are linking obesity and the risk for getting Fibromyalgia.

This look at me reveals a glaringly ugly spotlight on a tough, chronic health problem. So let’s talk about 3 stark “reality” reasons why I was eating junk food and maybe why you’re doing it, too:

1) I felt horrible. Comfort food felt like a salve to my soul and my stomach. It’s true that junk food does comfort one temporarily. For me, I felt a lot of anger at being so sick, losing my career, having to put my family’s needs on hold. I needed comfort badly. So… one moment after the other after the other, sugar, fat and calories passed through my lips. They seemed to be the only thing that calmed my raging inner beast. It wanted to scream, cry or simply strike out at my unseen assailant. But instead, I lay in bed in such a sick stupor of pain, brain fog and utter exhaustion that I did not care what I was doing to myself. At all. Instead of directing my revenge toward something constructive, I rebelled at being so sick and it came back on me. My body suffered that much more.

2) I felt so exhausted 99% of the time that I could not stand up in the kitchen to cook a meal or even prepare a decent salad. It was a legitimate excuse. Yes, I tried to cook real meals for my husband and son, but often for days afterwards, I would feel so thoroughly depleted that I simply went to bed like the lady in the picture, sulking, sneaking and eating “pity me” food. Today there’s no way I could count how many boxes of vanilla wafers I consumed during that time period!

3) I felt totally uninspired to care about what I ate, what my eating habits had become or what they were doing to me. I guess inside I knew that I was behaving poorly, but I couldn’t help but think that surely my current health problems were simply a bad dream and would go away soon! When they did, I’d be well again. Then I would care again. Then I could get back to being healthy and happy. Sadly, I must report that when that didn’t happen for months and years on end, I continued to eat poorly.

Now, this is the situation and the feelings that I went through, but I’m betting that some of my descriptions ring true for you, too. Personally, I gained weight eating such a poor diet. Other people can lose extreme amounts of weight when they are too ill to eat properly. In the end, both types get undernourished and underfed physically, emotionally and spiritually. Health suffers.

I suspect that being like this is one of the reasons why the outside world often believes that we’re lazy and can’t be bothered to help ourselves. It’s not that way at all.

When a person is extremely sick with an illness like Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, they no longer have the same capabilities or the same motivation to be healthy that they had before becoming so ill. There may be true depression going on here or it can be a temporary state of sad feelings that feel alleviated by eating junk food. It’s common in Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for a person to have swings in their hormone and body biochemicals. [E.g. Serotonin (the body's "feel good" biochemical) may be out of balance or in short supply. I suspect that dopamine may play a part here, too, but I've never read anywhere that that is true.]

No matter what, giving into this type of eating pattern for even one seemingly valid reason can be a serious mistake. A few hours, a few days? Maybe just a shock to your sugar balance, your gut and your immune system. But months and years of this pattern will add to your health challenge and surely make it that much harder for your body to get healthy again.

Some twenty years later, I’m still working to pull myself out of the habit and history of eating junk food. In my interview with Dr. Christopher Lepisto last week, he mentioned that candida and fungal infection can set one up for the long term to crave sugar, eat poorly and not achieve the best level of health possible. I believe him!

(HINT: If you didn’t hear his short interview on the Health Matters Show podcast or his longer appearance on the teleseminar, well, you really missed a big treat- and this one had no calories! I urge you to put his name in the search box on this website and you’ll see everything I’ve written about Dr. Christopher Lepisto.)

Today, I resolve to eat really healthy. I’ll go back to basics and I’ll do Sacred Cellular Healing protocol on myself to see if their are leftover remnants within me of fungal infection and/or an imbalance of good bacteria and yeast (Candida) in my gut. I suspect that there is. The evidence is all too evident. I don’t need some expensive laboratory test to confirm that I’m still eating poorly or that I crave sugar.

That’s why I know that learning something like Sacred Cellular Healing comes in so handy as a life skill. It’s wonderful to have the capability of figuring out what’s going on in your body and then being able to initiate the healing process. And no matter whether I’m 100% successful right away or my motivation takes awhile to achieve, it’s important for me to continue moving forward with my health and healing. If I’m not totally effective right away (Remember that candida is a bear!), I’m not above asking for some additional help. Not at all. I’ll call up Dr. Christopher Lepisto or one of my other nutritional guru friends in the business. Wish me luck with this challenge. It’s a big one for me.

Oh, patient, thou art the healer!

I’m sending you good wishes and the courage to take steps forward with your eating, nutrition and health challenges. Thanks today for listening to my junk food story. I invite you to share your story by commenting on this post. Are “junk food” and your eating habits helping or hurting your recovery from illness?

I’m Cinda Crawford, host of the Health Matters Show

Tagged as: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, comfort food, Dr Christopher Lepisto, Fibromyalgia, junk food