Why I Don’t Eat Processed Carbs or Sugar

You Shouldn't Eat Processed Food

You shouldn’t eat processed food. I’m sure you have heard that before. I know I have heard it more times than I can count over the years. Until recently I would eat it anyway. I didn’t care what people said. I liked the store-bought cake. And if I liked it, I wanted to be able to eat it. I tried to eat it in moderation which of course never worked.

Now I have no proof and I’m not trying to share some conspiracy theory, but I swear, they put something in our food that makes us want more. Now that I am not eating processed foods, when I do, I always want more, and it gets harder and harder to stop. Of course, I am somewhat joking about this, but I do wonder if there isn’t some truth to it.

What Happened When I Gave Up Processed Food

Now, on the real side, there are some side effects I did not realize before. I have not had processed food (except my milk) in a while. I went from June to September not eating any processed foods. Now, I just have my milk most days. Once in a while I will eat something else.

Like today I had a store-bought brownie, a store-bought cookie and a cheeseburger from Sonic. Once I had the brownie it was hard to stop, and I became more hungry than normal (saying this because of what I said before about them adding something addictive to the food – just saying). When I visit my family, I usually have some sort of processed food. Usually there is bread or some sort of dessert or both.

The First Time I Ate Processed Food Again

Now when I first decided to let myself eat this other food, I didn’t think much of it. I knew I would be careful and not eat very much of it. The first thing I ate was pizza. I knew it would probably upset my stomach since I had not had anything like that in a while, but I was willing to risk the upset stomach.

I guess now is a good time to explain for those who have not been following me…I am very limited on what I eat on a normal basis. For breakfast I eat one piece of chicken. I make a smoothie with strawberries, blueberries, peanut butter, and Lactaid (lactose free milk). I split this in half and have half of it for my morning snack and the other half for lunch. Then I have two pieces of chicken for dinner. To understand why I eat this way take a look at this blog post I wrote about Why I Eat the Same Thing Every Day.

How My Body Reacted

Now, back to what I was saying. I knew the pizza would upset my stomach but that was all I thought it would do. It did so much more than upset my stomach. I felt very sick the next day. I was tired and could not seem to get any energy. My whole body felt swollen. I felt like I never wanted to eat pizza again.

I thought this was because I had not eaten anything like this in a while. Turns out again I was wrong. I have since eaten other things that are different from my normal diet. I do not do it all the time, but maybe once every one to two weeks. I do not get an upset stomach most of the time anymore. However, I always end up feeling swollen and bloated. My hands are always swollen. Like I said today I had a brownie. Within about an hour of eating that brownie, my hands were swollen. On the good side, it makes me not want to eat these foods. I know I’m going to feel swollen, and I hate that feeling so I think before I eat foods that will cause the swelling and make a conscious decision whether or not to eat that particular item.

Of course, there are other side effects when I eat these foods, but they are more normal (in my opinion). I get tired and have a hard time staying awake. It might affect my bladder or my bowls. My skin gets more oily or dry. These are very common side effects of eating processed carbs or sugar for me.

A Challenge For You

However, the swelling seems odd to me. I’m sure I am not the only one who has experienced this. Go a few weeks without eating any processed carbs or sugar. Then try eating something small and see what happens. I’ll bet you end up having some swelling as well.