Anxiety Diet Diary

In this anxiety diet diary I reflect on my latest findings of my body's nutritional challenges, and how I can help it return to perfect health primarily by nutritional means but by other methods also. The introduction to why I began this diet experiment can be read here.

I don't see it that way, however. Rather, I see it as peeling off the layers of illness, like peeling an onion. It is all part of the process of getting back to perfect health and as the body is finding its balance, it goes through different symptoms as part of the healing.

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Anxiety Diet Conclusions (separate article)

And I am slowly learning more and more about my health. And I am glad I didn't continue some of the initial raw food diets for longer than I did. There were still so many things to learn. Now I feel like I am starting to have many of the answers, and am probably soon ready to start another raw food diet trial. However, first I want to overcome anxiety with a more inclusive low-carb diet.

One thing I do believe is that having gone through long periods of eating 'clean', natural food only, and no toxins, has reset my system to reject toxins quicker. It's clear with caffeine. When I used to drink coffee as a teenager, I could have ten cups a day on the worst days and not have too many negative symptoms. That doesn't mean that it wasn't harming my body. Since I quit caffeine, I get dehydrated even from a cup of decaf green tea (because it still has 10% of the caffeine of normal green tea in it).

The same has happened with dairy and sugar, and possibly processed carbs as well. I think my body has been sensitized to these less-than-healthful foods. Although I do have a reason to believe that I have been carbohydrate intolerant for quite a long time, even before starting my extreme health trials.

Anxiety Diet Plan - Introduction

Anxiety diet 'rules' in the order of priority:

• Prioritise rest and enough sleep as much as possible.
• No sugar, grains, or flour-products. This means no bread, no gluten, no gluten-free flours, no porridge, oats, millet, biscuits, cakes, etc. No raw food cakes either, unless they are sugar- and grain-free.
• Make food, affirmations and exercise the third highest priority, even if it means no time to update this diary.
• No alcohol in any form and no caffeine.
• No sugary fruit, or concentrated sugar like honey or maple syrup. No fruit juice.
• Sour fruit such as lemons are fine, other less sour fruit, such as grapefruits, mandarins and sour apples in limited quantity.
• Starchy root vegetables in limited quantity.
• 15 mins of trauma release exercises every day.
• Spirulina or an equivalent chlorophyll source every day.
• 1-2 teaspoons of himalayan rock salt every day.
• Supplements: rhodiola rosea, valerian, B vitamin complex, zinc, probiotics.
• Hair mineral analysis redone for advice and if I can afford it, supplementation.
• Try to find time to walk outdoors every day.
• Magnesium oil and magnesium flakes to be used on skin and in the bath - daily if possible.
• Protein and/or amino acids on every meal.
• Morning and evening "rituals" with positive affirmations, meditation, yoga, muscle exercise, energy work and massage of stiff neck. In total half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening.
• Learn to reduce cooking time to reduce stress and increase free time: large meals in slow cooker, smoothies, juices, salads.
• As little processed foods as possible. Avoidance of toxins.
• Ensure enough calories, do not skip meals. Allow snacks.
• Ensure enough good quality fats in a daily diet. I am allowing organic dairy at this point although it causes a mucus problem, just to make this diet easier. I have decided I have to be quite gentle on myself if I expect to succeed on these trials, as I am slowly learning to improve on my self-discipline. The diet must make me feel better holistically, and not stressed, if it is to have a positive effect.
• If time: Self-coaching: writing about life goals, fears, stresses, confusions, unmade decisions. Reflecting on difficult topics when they arise and trying to find solutions.
• Research hydration and keep the body well hydrated.
• Antioxidants and raw foods for liver support.
• Eat quite high calorie but high micronutrient also.
• If time: monitor heart rate to eliminate as many food allergies as possible.
• If time: monitor pH and try to keep alkaline.
• Take a longer route to work three days a week: walk 40 minutes.
• Hawthorn berry extract to reduce inflammation in the intestinal tract.
• Progesterone cream to balance hormones.
• Write a list of things that make you happy short-term and long-term and try to think of ways to include more of these things into my daily and weekly life.
• Relaxation tapes, guided meditation.
• Organic food as much as possible
• Parasite cleanse herbs, silver colloid, blood electrification

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Anxiety Diet Conclusions (separate article)

Day 1 on Anxiety Diet

Monday, 3rd March 2014

I slept at 10pm last night and woke up at 6am. The alarm first went off at 5.30am so I got about 7.5 hours sleep. I felt tired in the morning so stayed in bed a bit longer and skipped the morning 'ritual'. Since sleep is a high priority on this diet I will go to sleep early tonight, at 8pm or so, so that I can wake up early tomorrow and not be tired. I took two capsules of valerian last night before bed to enhance sleep.

Weight: 57kg, 9 stones.

Breakfast at home:
Juice of one lemon squeezed in water
One whole lemon mixed with one heaped tablespoon of spirulina, and 8000iu of Vitamin D in drop form.
2x rhodiola rosea capsules
Water with pink Himalayan salt, about one teasp.

Breakfast at work:
Half a Biopot live natural yoghurt with box of fresh blueberries.

My eyes were very puffy when waking up. I am just coming off my period (this is the third day) so this is a normal symptom but it worse worse than usual. Yesterday especially was the worst eye-puffiness I've ever seen on myself. I suspect the rock salt doesn't reduce water retention like claimed here but in fact makes it worse. I will continue for a while with perhaps smaller amounts of salt, now I have been taking 2 teaspoons or even a bit more per day for about a week or so. On the other hand the second day of menstruation had a lot less flow than usual which is a good sign. I know my eyes get puffy if I have normal table salt late at night but it seems like the effect may be the same from natural salt.

I drank some water with pink himalayan salt and felt a little bit better. I also drank plenty of redbush tea all day morning.

Lunch:
One avocado, two soft boiled eggs, cucumber, half a can of kidney beans, mixed with olive oil, salt and balsamic vinegar.

After lunch the weak feeling continued, and I developed quite a bad headache. I am suspecting that all of this is because of a chocolate bar I ate yesterday. Or perhaps even the blueberries this morning contributed. I was so tempted to eat something sugary on the way home from work - huge sugar and/or alcohol cravings.

I had two decaffeinated green teas in the afternoon to try and help with the headache and concentration (decaf green tea still has some 10% of the normal caffeine in it). I just quickly swish the teabag in hot water and discard it, to make it very weak.

6.15pm: On the train home. Still have a headache.

I was trying to understand today when these symptoms started and when they started to get worse. I realized that they probably started in 2009, after I had returned back to London from California and had been teaching for a while. I thought first the symptoms, blushing and headache, were because of a sick building syndrome, i.e. mold in the old building where I was teaching.

[Later note: But I did start feeling self-concious and having difficulty in breathing and heart palpitations even before that, when I was studying in California. That is when I really started paying attention to my health, and started to reduce alcohol and other stimulant consumption. But also I think that all the stress from studies and fast living, all the partying and the bad diet started to catching up with me then. Especially after the stress of moving to the other side of the world and leaving my friends, family and boyfriend behind. But despite of the problems above, and the fact that I couldn't sleep too well, I didn't have a blushing problem then.]

The symptoms kept coming and going until this autumn they got really bad, after I started taking the full supplementation recommended by the hair mineral analyst. But even last summer I had worse than normal symptoms, before I started the full supplementation but was on adrenal glandulars. I also had three months off work last summer so the symptoms really started when I went to interviews and eventually returned back to work. But at the beginning of taking adrenal glandulars I don't remember having had these kinds of problems.

The adrenal glandulars are meant to have no hormones in them. But they very noticeably give you more energy when you take them. And no-one seems to know exactly why - the suspicion being that it is to do with the nutrients in the glandulars, which feed your own adrenal glands. I considered the option that these supplements might have had some trace amounts of hormones in them, which then might have worn down my adrenal glands and made them worse than before.

But I did get a second opinion before starting to take them, and the second nutritionist I saw, a live blood analyst, recommended the adrenal glandulars also. In addition, in the beginning the glandulars clearly made me able to withstand stress much better. So I will get another hair analysis done and see what the people who recommended the glandulars in the first place think is going on in my body now.

[Later note: The updated hair mineral analysis showed that my adrenal glands had recovered and were working a little too fast now, which explained why the glandulars caused anxiety, by boosting the adrenals further. I felt better when I finished the glandulars although the anxiety still didn't lift completely.]

Dinner:
A packet of cheddar crisps (Kettle)
Boiled sweet potato with slow-cooker dish made of: broccoli, mushrooms, soya sauce, peanut butter (sugarless), olive oil, chilli, herbs and spices.
Two valerian capsules and three C-vitamin capsules (anti-oxidants)

It was very hard to resist buying a chocolate bar or alcohol. So I bought a packet of crisps instead, at least there is no sugar, but the deep-frying in vegetable oil produces a lot of rancid oil and free radicals, so definitely not good for liver support!

At home I ate and took a bath, went to bed at about 10pm. Was feeling very tired but the headache wasn't as bad by bedtime anymore. I didn't have time for exercise today, seems like it might take a while to get into the rhythm of this full diet, especially with the long 1h 40min commute I have to work now each way.... and some overtime needed here and there.

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Day 2

My alarm clock went off at 5.30am and I got out of bed at about 6.30am, kept snoozing the alarm. To be honest, I might as well have got out of bed earlier, since the snooze just seems to make you more tired. In the morning I felt like I got a good night's sleep but now on the train I feel tired. I had no breakfast at home but will have some at work. Didn't want to take any supplements on an empty belly either. But I am sending off a hair sample today for a 'hair mineral analysis' retest. I still have a shadow of a headache/ earache noticeable now, on the train, actually. And my neck feels very stiff as usual. I think it is imperative for me to get an exercise and stretching routine going on, otherwise this office working life is gonna make me old!

Breakfast at Work: Half a pot of biopot organic live natural yogurt with a box of fresh strawberries.

I am wondering whether the breakfast was too sugary because I started getting a headache some time after (before 10.30am). I felt good earlier this morning. I drank two weak decaf green teas in the morning to try to combat the headache. It didn't get nearly as bad as yesterday though and surprisingly I didn't feel too dehydrated after drinking those. I also drank water with half a tea spoon of pink himalayan salt twice and red bush tea.

Warm salads are a good low-carb, anxiety diet food: Cook vegetables and eggs and mix them with raw salad ingredients for nice textures and flavours. Season with pink Himalayan salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, olive oil and lemon juice.

Lunch: Mixed baby leaf salad (spinach, rocket, watercress), one avocado, two soft-boiled eggs, 1/4 of a cucumber, half a can of kidney beans mixed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt, mustard and olive oil dressing for the salad.

1.20pm: Still have a headache but not quite as bad. Maybe it's related to menses. Very stiff neck and shoulders.

4.20pm: Feeling quite good and lively despite green teas. A shadow of a headache left and stiff neck and neck ache. Normally I would get very dehydrated from green teas and get a red face as well. But not this time. Maybe the natural salt supplementation and the no-sugar low-carb diet is working to keep me better hydrated.

6.15pm: Snack from the train station: Kettle crisps, cheddar cheese flavour. Also ate a small piece of cheese at work.

Six-minutes tanning on the way home from work.

Dinner:
One sweet potato, home-made tomato-coconut-curry sauce with a tiny bit of brown sugar in it.

Parasite cleanse drinks: black walnut powder 1/2 teasp in water, 1 teasp wormwood chips and some cloves in hot water.

Hot bath, magnesium oil, drank salt water. Bed: 10.30pm.

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Anxiety Diet Conclusions (separate article)

3rd Day on Anxiety Diet

My alarm went off at 5am and I snoozed until 5.30am. So I got 6.5 hours sleep only. I should make sure I sleep more, however, because it's the number one goal on this diet plan, to get enough sleep. If I leave work on time I get home a little before 8pm. Then after eating and taking a bath it is often 10pm. I will try tonight to just have a quick smoothie or a green juice for dinner, as I know I will have to stay until 8pm at work for training today.

Having said all that, I think my energy levels are really quite good today. I feel very optimistic about this diet working. I suspect it will get rid of my menstrual pain problems, like a sugar-free diet did on the McCombs Plan, and I also suspect it will give me a good amount of energy. The main objective is for it to clear my anxiety, however, and I think it will. But these are still all guesses, we will see soon enough whether it is working as I hoped it would.

Breakfast at home:
Smoothie: One sour apple (granny smith), water, lettuce, four brussels sprouts, hulled hemp seeds, dried hemp leaf, goji berries, macamadia nuts, pumpkin seeds, 1 tbsp maca powder, burdock root, 1 tea sp kelp powder, chia seeds, fo-ti root powder, liquorice powder, psyllium husk, etc. Thick smoothie eaten with a spoon (for better digestion). Tasted very bitter! Not a recommended recipe...

I got a delivery from Tree Harvest yesterday so now I have lots of 'exotic' ingredients for my smoothie ;) Something in the smoothie had too much sulphur in it however, as I can't stand the taste anymore. I think I overdid it with MSM some time back and started getting nausea from sulphur. Now it just tastes horrible and feels like it burns my throat a little bit after I've eaten it. I can't really have pure coriander (cilantro) smoothies anymore either because of the sulphur taste although I used to love them.

I didn't take valerian last night - could it be that I feel more awake this morning because of that? Some people report it makes them groggy. I also didn't take any supplements this morning but magnesium oil on the neck last night seems to have helped a little. Now I'm getting drowsy on the warm train... (Ended up sleeping all the way.)

1pm: Had a chickpea, tomato and spinach soup for lunch from Crussh but I think it may have had some carrot in it, not quite sure. [Update: Unfortunately these soups have some sugar in them as well!] At 1.40pm a headache started developing. At 3.45pm still had headache and some neck stiffness and felt like grinding my teeth (tension in the jaw). At 4.20pm the headache was completely gone, however.

Teas: two weak decaf green teas in the morning as well as schizandra berry, redbush, and rosehip & hibiscus teas throughout the day.

Early dinner at 4.20pm:
A small box of avocado, parsley and butter bean mix (from Crussh).

No anxiety symptoms today at all, but then again no stressful situations either.

9.50pm, at home: Snacking on organic cheddar cheese at home, and sugar-free peanut butter. Bath, spirulina and lemon drink, magnesium oil, C-vitamin capsules x3. Tea with wormwood, black walnut, clove. Washing my hair using the 'no-poo' method ('no shampoo': lemon juice, baking soda and salt for shampoo, and white wine vinegar water for conditioner) and as face cream I am using MSM cream with silver and gold colloids and other natural ingredients.

Went to bed at 11pm.

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Day Four

I woke up naturally a little before 5am. But felt tired so slept some more until 6.20am. In total I got about six hours proper sleep time, plus an hour of 'snooze' time.

Breakfast at home:
Juice of one lemon in water.
Smoothie: Lettuce, water, hemp leaf, hulled hemp seeds, goji berries, turmeric, big piece of ginger, fo-ti, burdock root, psyllium husk, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, 1 teasp coconut oil, liquorice, maca, etc. (A foul tasting smoothie!)
Supplements: 3x C-vitamin capsules, 2x rhodiola rosea.

I also put magnesium oil on my neck and shoulders this morning, and some on my lower back as I have had some slight sciatica type back problem for the last two months or so... The transdermal magnesium definitely works for muscles but I'm just trying on the off-chance that the magnesium helps for the back as well.

Going to sleep on the train again...

Breakfast on the way to work:
I bought a piece of cheese (which tasted horrible! normally I love all cheeses but this was too strong) and Naked gingerbread bar. The bar is meant to be raw food and is 55% dates. There is no added sugar but dates are very sugary. But I felt fine afterwards, I don't think it had too bad an effect.

Lunch:
Quinoa, blue cheese, chickpea salad from Daylesford Organic. In addition: mixed baby leaf salad, one boiled organic egg, cucumber, mustard and olive oil dressing, salt.

Drinks: One decaf green tea, many redbush teas, pink himalayan salt water, schizandra berry tea.

7pm: On the train back home from work. I felt very good today. Energy levels were good, only a light shadow of a headache. The only mistake I made was to drink a decaf green tea, as afterwards I felt dehydrated. I tried to combat this by drinking salt water and water in general but now on the train I still feel a bit tense, like grinding my teeth.

But generally I've felt really good today, almost no cravings, and walking outside I felt especially upbeat, like I'm getting back to my normal self - from many years ago - before I had fatigue and all the other problems of lack of energy, anxiety, shyness, lack of motivation, etc.

7.20pm: Now I'm sitting in the cold, changing trains, and the headache seems to be making an appearance slightly... Cold weather does not seem to sit well with me.

At home I had a bath as usual, and put magnesium oil on my skin. I didn't have much dinner, apart from a small piece of cheddar cheese and some sugar-free peanut butter from the tub. I had a parasite cleanse tea, however, with wormwood and black walnut hull. This is the most foul tasting tea ever - very bitter and strong flavour.

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Day Five

I slept some seven hours last night, felt quite well this morning. I still generally feel sleepy and a little unable to concentrate in the mornings and wide awake at night. Until when I lie down, then I fall asleep quickly, within five minutes or so. It would be great to be full of energy from the first thing in the morning. I didn't achieve such energy even on the McCombs Diet when I was sugar-, carb- and alcohol-free for three months. That diet was very good for me as I lost weight and looked good, but in terms of energy levels it wasn't revolutionary.

I suspect that I will get brilliant energy in the mornings one day, but perhaps my adrenal glands are a little sluggish still (we will find out from the hair analysis in about two weeks' time when the test results come back). And maybe I have to eat very clean and good for a longer period of time, so that my body can properly detox.

Maybe also I have to properly cleanse all parasites, as apparently majority of people have parasites in them, and especially if you have eaten white flour products, taken antibiotics, eaten lots of sugar or taken birth-control pills. The biggest changes to my energy levels seem to have come from quitting caffeine and from eating alkaline. I should pay a bit more attention to alkaline eating again.

The main challenge is what to eat and how to get a good daily routine of eating going. Making lunch at work seems to work well but it would be nice to eat something quickly so that I would be free to go for a walk outside or do whatever I liked during lunch time. Sometimes I also have to work through lunch so don't have time to prepare a proper meal. Most others (there are exceptions) rely on sandwiches, cakes, bisquits and coffee to get them through the day. The exceptions I know of spend a long time cooking both lunch and evening times and/or snack on a lot of fruit. Neither solution works for me though, because of long commute and extreme sugar sensitivity.

I really don't like shopping and cooking at the weekends. I would rather avoid it. So maybe I should always prepare slow cooker food in the evenings after work and order groceries online so that I always have smoothie ingredients. I also need to learn to make a nice tasting low-sugar smoothie because the ones I have been making now are not enjoyable to drink!

And then invent some emergency meals, to have on-the-go or to quickly make at home. Like a simple soup, porridge with chia seeds etc, my own sugar-free granola, beans with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salad with a nice dressing, almond and coconut flour pancakes, etc. So this weekend I will make some salad dressings so I that have them ready, as well as some pancakes and granola. I will also soak and freeze some beans so that I have them ready to eat whenever I need to.

I think I need to develop a healthy daily eating routine step by step, so that it feels easy and enjoyable.

Breakfast smoothie:
Courgette, lettuce, goji berries, turmeric, water, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, maca, coconut oil, psyllium husk, schizandra berry powder, hulled hemp seeds, hemp leaf. Didn't taste very good.

I felt a little itchy this morning.

Breakfast at work:
Smoothie from Crussh: Avocado, low-fat yoghurt (not very healthy), aloe vera, spirulina, 'detox supplements' (whatever they are), banana, etc.
'Naked' "pecan pie" bar, 52% dates, free of added sugar.

Lunch:
Quinoa, wild mushroom tub and avocado, parsley, butter bean tub, both from Crussh.
Some nuts in the afternoon.
During the day I also drank redbush tea, one decaf green tea, salt water.

I've been feeling good and strong today, no complaints. Just a bit of a stiff neck and a bit tired from sitting down all day. But not badly tired at all.

I tried to make some spinach-almond-coconut flour pancakes with butter but they didn't work very well at all. The dough didn't stick together. I ate some anyway, with salt, and I also had some peanut butter. Then I drank a glass of water with a lemon squeezed in.

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Day Six on Anxiety Diet

Saturday

Woke up at 8.30am, had about 8 hours of sleep.

Breakfast:
Half a tub of organic live greek yoghurt, lemon water, rest of the almond-coconut-spinach pancakes from yesterday. They also had some peanut butter, eggs and arrowroot powder in them. The pancakes do taste ok but I can't get the consistency right.

I just found out that I have been taking lecithin the wrong way in my smoothies. Apparently it gets very thick and gel-like in your intestine, so you should have 1 heaped tea sp of lecithin mixed in 8-16 ounces of water. And it should not be taken by people who are constipated, as it is a powerful remedy and will pull out a lot of toxins, but as it thickens, if it can't move out of the intestine it can get stuck and make you feel worse. So mixing it in smoothies, as I have done, is probably not a good idea because it won't be accompanied with enough water. You can try by leaving the lecithin in water overnight and seeing how thick it gets.

So as I was inspired by the idea of it cleansing the colon, I took 1 tsp of lecithin in two large glasses of drinking water, and also mixed in some zeolite clay.

I blew my nose and some thick phlegmy yellow mucous came loose - it felt like it was coming from deep inside my head! That is strange because this normally happens when I quit dairy but now I have been eating dairy. I guess both dairy and sugar, as well as white flour products, cause mucus, just like the Chinese doctor explained.

Lunch:
Three-egg omelette with grated sweet potato and onions mixed in, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, some home-made curry sauce on the side. Half a tub of live natural yoghurt.

I avoided drinking alcohol and eating sugary foods all day but it was hard. I think I should stay away from supermarkets and pubs for a while to avoid cravings.

[Later note: I have come to recognize this as low blood sugar feeling.]

When I went to bed at 11pm, feeling quite tired, I fell asleep for a bit and then got woken up by my boyfriend. (I always sleep with good earplugs and an eye mask on these days, by the way.)

Then I slowly started getting heavy heart beat, which felt like anxiety, and chest pain. I got worse and worse and then I couldn't sleep. Much later I went to the kitchen to eat a few nuts (protein) and drink some salt water. This didn't seem to help although it has helped sometimes in the past.

When this was happening, I started getting quite worried thinking that I should see a doctor again regarding this. I had blood tests taken before for diabetes, however, and they came back normal. I did an internet search for "is it important for diabetics to eat regularly" and found out that eating regularly was indeed an important recommendation for diabetics to keep their blood sugar levels stable.

Hyperglycaemia - some facts from diabetes.org.uk:

- Happens when your blood sugar level is too high, usually above 7mmol/l before a meal and 8.5mmol/l two hours after a meal (two hours after the first bite).

- One of the immediate causes is having eaten more carbohydrate (or sugar) than your body can handle.

- Another immediate causes can be stress and/or an infection.

- Symptoms include: passing more urine than normal, especially at night; being very thirsty; headaches; tiredness and lethargy.

- If your blood sugar level is high for a short time, emergency treatment won't be necessary, but if it stays high you need to: drink plenty of sugar-free fluids; possibly take insulin; and if feeling unwell - especially if vomiting - contact a doctor.

- Hyperglycaemia can be prevented by being aware of your carbohydrate portions and how they may be affecting your blood glucose (= blood sugar) levels; being as active as possible; insulin and diabetes medication.

- Diabetic ketoacidosis can develop if your blood sugar stays high for too long. Monitor your blood sugar and if it is over 15mmol/l for a long time check your urine or blood for ketones. If ketones are present it is likely that you don't have enough insulin in your body. In this case, especially if you are feeling unwell, you should contact a doctor.

I think my symptoms correspond closely with these symptoms of hyperglycaemia, so I will start measuring my blood sugar levels again (I have tried in the past but suspect that I did them wrong). I might see a doctor again to see what they say but it seems it may be unnecessary as it has been said that diabetes can be healed on a raw food diet (documentary: "30 Days Raw") and if I can figure out which foods are causing these symptoms, I could hopefully manage it myself. Like I said, it is probably a similar problem to diabetes but not the proper disease. I guess I should still see a doctor just to see what they say as well and if they have any advice.

I just found something a little scary while searching online:

"When you experience diabetes chest pain it is a serious warning of health complication related to the high level of sugar in your bloodstream. The pains can signal the beginnings of heart failure, if you are living with high glucose the complications to your health can be extremely dangerous and must be taken seriously. Diabetes chest pain can be a sign of damage to the heart muscle, the reversal of this condition early is important to avoid further damage. [...] living with a high blood sugar can mean a fatal heart attack or stroke at any given moment, diabetes chest pain is a sign that the heart may be under extreme pressure.

"The complications from high blood sugar come from insulin resistance, if you are diabetic it means that you have cells that are not taking in glucose for energy, your cells are insulin resistant and the glucose floods your blood stream, this is why you have high blood sugar. [...] A diabetic does not simply need a diet, they need an insulin resistance diet that reverses the damage from the sugar. Diabetes chest pain can be healed with the reversal of insulin resistance."

[Later note: Other sources say that anxiety-related heart palpitations and related chest pain are not dangerous. My anxiety and blood sugar seem very closely related, however, so the two different pieces of advice for the same symptom seem contradictory.]

Apart from this blood-sugar problem in the evening and at night, I was happy to notice that I had good energy levels all day. I walked a lot and also was carrying a lot of shopping bags and didn't get tired at all. Although my legs did get quite tired in the end, which I thought was too quick tiredness from too little walking.

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7th Day - Anxiety Diet

Sunday, 9th March 2014

Woke up at 9.30am, feeling quite worn out and a little 'hangover', without having drunken anything. It has been said that this is a common symptom of blood sugar levels dropping during the night and affecting sleep.

10am: I am drinking 1 teasp of wormwood (chips soaked in water) and 1/2 level tea sp of black walnut hull powder into an empty belly. Parasite cleanse.

I still had chest pain this morning, though less, and no heavy heart beat. At about 11.30am I had an omelette with free range eggs, sweet potato, onion, salt and pepper. Then I took a bath and now at 12.20am I feel fine again. A little post-exhaustion weakness feeling but pretty well. I don't want to panic too much about all this diabetes research, as I seem to know now how to keep those problems away: i.e. by limiting carbs and sugar; and eating regularly. But I will start monitoring my blood sugar levels - I just need to order a new disk for my blood sugar meter first because it has expired.

Will make a green juice now and go outside for a while, it is a beautiful sunny day and quite warm for early March, 17 degrees Celcius.

Lunch:
Green juice made with greens, lemon and cucumber.
Sweet potato omelette

Snack:
Granny smith apples (sour) with peanut butter.

In the evening I had a small glass of dry white wine mixed with sparkling water with my meal. This was a deviation from the diet. For dinner I had salmon with sauce but swapped the pasta for a salad. I also had some fries on the side.

At home, after the restaurant, I mixed a heaped tbsp of spirulina with a lemon and some water in the blender. And I took two valerian root capsules.

I got a little bit of heart palpitations from the wine when trying to sleep but not nearly as bad as yesterday. I think eating a largish meal and plenty of protein helped to balance the blood sugar. I listened to my (self-recorded) affirmations which always make me fall asleep and it worked this time again.

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Anxiety Diet Conclusions (separate article)

8th Day - Anxiety Diet

Monday, 10th March

I felt really good today, except a little bit moody. I just didn't want to be at work today at all. But I managed to motivate myself to keep going and to work quite fast.

My energy levels are stable and people comment that I look different - though I did have a haircut too during the weekend. The wine from yesterday didn't seem to have made much of a difference to today, luckily. This is a sign of progress too because normally I would feel much worse the day after even a little bit alcohol.

Breakfast:
Avocado, lime, yoghurt, spinach, spirulina (etc.) smoothie.
One boiled egg with spinach from Crussh.
Two "Naked" bars as snacks.

I started feeling slightly weak before lunch, this may have been due to the dates in the snack bars.

Lunch:
Spicy pea soup, dairy and gluten free, from Crussh.
One banana as a snack in the afternoon.

I had no problems after having eaten a banana. I have been avoiding them thinking that they are too sugary but perhaps they are fine.

6.30pm, on the train. I am trying to figure out a daily rhythm that would allow for morning and evening exercise and meditation "rituals", as well as healthy eating plan which would be high raw food and quite affordable. It is a very tight schedule I will have for the weekdays, out of necessity, with the long work days and the long commute.

I think I have lost one kg of weight as well. Nevertheless I want to be able to realize much more of the diet plan. I will start the supplements once I get my hair analysis report but the rest of the plan I will try to incorporate to an increasing degree.

I might introduce some oat groats into my diet, to save time in food prep. I might have oat groats for breakfast, always mixed with nuts, seeds, and other things, maybe berries. And other mornings I would have eggs for breakfast. I am also trying to find time to make a green juice every morning.

I thought a good approach to my short lunch breaks would be to have a smoothie for lunch but have more filling 'snack' raw foods while working. And to get used to carrying snacks everywhere. Not sure what these snacks would be, however, something not too dry and hard to digest... perhaps just fruit and peanut butter. Avocado. Liquorice balls. Bananas. Raw plantain mash. Home-made bean paste and vegetables. Hummus. Maybe I can make some kind of a dip with spirulina and chia seeds in it.

For liquorice lovers, and amazing sugar-free snack: Mash processed 100% liquorice (with no added ingredients) together with dried plums. Roll in coconut flour or in more liquorice powder. Recipe here.

And then for dinner I would have a salad with some sauce, often something I made in the slow cooker, like cauliflower and chickpea curry sauce. Or a very fast soup where everything is just soaked in boiling water for 10-15 mins. Or another smoothie.

I need to quit dairy too, it makes me phlegmy, is not a health food at least when pasteurized, and I think it can cause a bit of bad breath too. I also end up coughing after eating anything when I regularly eat dairy, because it causes a damp, phlegmy constitution (Chinese Medicine view). It is so tempting to eat cheese though as a filling snack when not eating carbs.

Dinner:
Some cheese
Lettuce, red pepper, red radishes, with slow-cooked broccoli, mushrooms, peanut butter (always sugar-free), soya sauce, etc.
Did a few simple exercises and stretches, as well as 20mins of trauma release exercises (just the two last exercises). Then I took a bath and went to bed. I felt very tired after eating.

Jump to: Anxiety Diet Plan - Introduction, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8

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