My Weekend Lesson!

After 5 years on the Maker's Diet, you would think that I knew better!  I had quite an adventure (not a fun one!) this weekend and had to share with you all.  On Friday night, a gracious and much appreciated friend volunteered to babysit our boys after they went to bed, so my husband and I could go on a much needed night out.  "Let's go to that organic restaurant downtown for dessert," my husband said.  So off we went, thrilled to be out together sans the little ones, as much as we love them!

 When we got to the restaurant, we were seated outside, and the waitress brought out the dessert tray.  Normally, I do not eat any desserts out of my own home, no matter how tempting they look.  But, since it was an organic restaurant (although we'd never eaten there before together) I thought I would be in the clear.  However, I should have known better!  Just because products can be "organic", does not mean they are not refined!  I should have questioned the waitress further to find just how refined their organic dessert ingredients were.  I would have saved myself quite the painful experience.

We decided on a peanut butter chocolate piece of cake.  I took one bite, and knew it was not a dessert made with organic, sprouted, or at least whole grain flour, and Rapadura instead of sugar.  And it didn't even taste good.  The peanut butter topping was insanely sweet, the cake too chocolate-ey, and just overall tasted like something one would buy at Safeway.

I believe I took one more bite after that initial one, and decided my initial evaluation was correct! I put down my fork and drank water instead.  After we left, we walked around a beautiful, open shopping center.  The night was gorgeous and everyone was dressed in their summer finest, but I just wanted to go home.  My stomach, which was fine when I left home, was now feeling like a dead weight had been transported directly under my rib cage.  I so wanted to enjoy this special time with my husband, but all I could think about was how badly my stomach hurt.

Finally, we got home, and I kept guzzling water, and prepared for bed.  I took some of Garden of Life's phenomenal digestive enzymes, called Omega Zymes. (I don't know where I'd be without these!)  I took 4 of them and went to bed, figuring that with only two bites, and the digestive enzymes, I'd be fine by the morning.

Boy was I wrong.  I couldn't have been asleep for more than an hour or so when I awoke with gut wrenching pain. I felt like I was being stabbed directly under my left rib.  I took some more water and several more Omega-Zymes, but it wasn't going away.  Then, I started getting that awful feeling in my stomach and throat, when you just know you'd better hurry up and get to the bathroom.

I'll spare you the lovely details, but the short story is that I spent most of the night vomiting, and in such awful stomach pain that most normal people would probably have woken up their spouses, and gone to the hospital.  (I'm still working on achieving the status of normal!) 

The next day, my stomach still hurt, all day, until Monday morning.  I couldn't believe all that I went through, all for a cake that didn't even taste good!

So the moral of the story is: if you eat very healthily the overwhelming majority of the time, spare yourself the trouble and don't cheat.  You'll probably get sick. (Even if it's "organic"!)  If I had eaten at another organic restaurant near our home, which serves organic, unrefined sugar and organic whole grain flours in its desserts, I would have been fine.  But my body absolutely rejected the refined stuff, albeit organic! 

And the second moral of the story is: if your diet is so "healthy", you might want to ask yourself why it doesn't react immediately when you eat things like trans-fat and chemical laden McDonald's, refined sugar and flour desserts, pastries, and bagels,(or coffee drinks), or pesticide laden fruits and veggies. 

Just something to think about.

I hope you all had a better weekend than I did!