I’m almost on the other side of my illness. I’m very weak still but I don’t go to bed fearful of experiencing a horrifying night.
I come from a family who has a lot of confidence in occidental medicine and was brought up turning to drugs and pills the moment I had any symptom of unwellness.
Since I studied midwifery, 20 years ago, I started to understand better the balance between health and illness. I started to listen to my body and I’d try to understand what it was telling me without trying to make my symptoms disappear. Our body talks to us but the fast pace that life takes, especially in western countries, makes many of us not take the time to actually listen.
When we get sick, our body is telling us to stop and rest. Taking something to ignore its demands and carry on with a busy life is a very short-term patch that allows us to carry on without actually giving our body time to heal and recover.
My diet has always been quite healthy. We cook from scratch, raw, fresh ingredients in almost every meal, and have been doing this for as long as I can remember, even when I started to live independently on my own.
However, I have to admit I ate too much meat and loved candy in between meals.
I ate very little during my convalescence. Despite being at my mother-in-law’s who cooks so well, I’d just have very light food like soup or boiled or raw vegetables. When there were plenty of yummy meats my body would point me at what it needed.
I wasn’t worried. I understand there’s a reason why women’s bodies store fat in the way they do. And I also knew my body was talking and telling me exactly what to do.
One of the last days we were visiting family, they were worried and insisted I forced some food in me. I did in order to please them and I vomited a few minutes after.
Back to listening to my body when it’s about its needs.
Now I’m recovering, my appetite is back and I can feel now it’s urging me to make up for the lost time. I don’t crave refined sugar, I hardly crave meat. I crave fruit, carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, fresh salads, raw vegetables cold soups like “gazpacho” and “salmorejo”; I crave hummus and pulses. I’m in total awe seeing what my body is doing.
When I’m hungry again it quite clear tells me “a banana is what I want now”.
I can tell I’ve lost a lot of weight and now there’s no time to lose. When it comes to cravings the image of a zombie in front of a mortal comes to my head quite frequently. I’m in total awe of my body and how its priorities are clear. Now you need to rest, now you need to eat.
I’m slowly recovering and trying to get some fresh air even if it’s just to the pool area.
