Paleo Week 3; Do I deserve a reward?

the paleo diet, itp, pasta

For the past two weeks I have not craved sugar or salt.  I have been eating such clean, nutrient rich foods that I find myself forgetting about salt and sugars.  With gluggy carbs on my plate I no longer need huge amounts of water to digest it, and then salt to make the carbs edible and replace the salts I lost trying to digest it.

Which is why I was blown away in my third week of eating Paleo, when I found myself dreaming of a giant bowl of pasta.  I want it – Wanted it!  I thought I deserved a reward for how well I had done.  I thought that I wanted to eat a giant bowl of pasta.

the paleo diet, itp, pasta
my big mistake

This pasta tastes a lot better than it looks in this rushed photograph before I devoured it.

I had been dreaming about my favourite bowl of pasta from a café around the corner.  I promptly handed over my cash, begged for extra olives and waited for the fun to begin.

Eating Pasta after Three Weeks Paleo. 

It was a terrible idea.  The pasta was delicious, but it wasn’t satisfying.  I wasn’t full.  I just leaned back in the chair in the sun and wanted to sleep (we did have a little sleep afterwards).  I had that sensation of wanting a catnap, which I used to have after every meal.  My belly was swollen out tight and I was thirsty!  I felt bloated and enormous.

Eating Paleo is just another way that I can help to curb the effects of taking crazy drugs.

Apparently, the digestion of carbohydrates requires more water than other foods.   This not only means that you need to drink more water on a carbohydrate rich diet, but also that your body will store water in the anticipation that more carbs are coming soon – ready to break it all down.  I am currently being treated for ITP, which requires me to take immune suppressing steroids, and as a result of that, my body is storing more water already.  Eating Paleo is just another way that I can help to curb the effects of taking crazy drugs for my blood disorder.

While my body is working hard to break down the medication I need to survive, I am going to make sure I give my body foods that are anti inflammatory and good for my body.

Eating a Paleo does not mean that you are cutting out all carbohydrates.  Fruit, vegetables and meat all contain small amounts of carbohydrates .  Eating Paleo for ITP means that you will be getting the right amount of carbohydrates relative to all the other minerals and vitamins you are eating.

So I will not be making the same mistake again.  It was nice to have such a huge reminder that I had made the right choice to go Paleo.

To read more on starting the Autoimmune Paleo diet, click here.

 Read more on going Paleo

  • The Paleo Diet – Why I am making the change.
  • Going Paleo – Week One – Fast weight loss, discovering new foods and cleaning out the processed food from the cupboards.
  • Going Paleo – Week Two – Feeling a dramatic increase in energy and starting to explain my choices to others.
  • Going Paleo – Week Three – Making mistakes, bribing myself and realising how much water it takes to digest a bowl of pasta.
  • Going Paleo – Week Four – Feeling amazing and solving the breakfast dilemma.

by Meg

Meghan Brewster is a writer and blogger. She is an ITP patient and launched ITP&Me in 2011. She is a coffee lover and a try hard dancer. @meghan_brewster

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