Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm wanting to make some changes in my life as I currently lead an unhealthy lifestyle and it's ruining my life. I've just turned twenty seven and all I drink is coke and I eat way too much sweet stuff. Luckily I'm really thin still but I think the coca cola especially is affecting my health negatively, I get a lot of abdominal discomfort and bloating, dizziness and at times extremely tired.
Recently I noticed I've been suffering these symptoms more, and an increase in my anxiety which is becoming increasingly difficult to manage so I've decided to try and make some changes. But I think because of the autism I'm struggling to change my routine so this is proving more difficult than I thought. I looked up withdrawal symptoms online and that's scared me a little because some people can experience really bad effects. My own fault of course but it's something I'm going to try and do gradually.
If anyone's been through this and has any advice or suggestions I would greatly appreciate your own experience with this.
It's going to be a long road ahead I think but it's going to be worth it in the long run I'm sure.
I second Kate's "Small Changes Very Slowly".
There's a proverb from somewhere that suggests we 'act like an ant' to get anything done. Carry just one small stone at a time, or focus one thing at a time. However:
Matty said: get a lot of abdominal discomfort and bloating, dizziness and at times extremely tired.
This sounds as though you could potentially have allergies/intolerances, which could also mean being thin is a side effect of being malnourished.
Autism tends to go part and parcel with gut-health issues, and there are a great deal of medical papers supporting this, the result of this means biological anxiety (stress), a stressed immune response, a mental fogginess and so on. I personally have found a supplement with Lion's Mane can help.
If you'd like a plan to try and work out what the causes of this are, I would highly suggest looking at the FODMAP diet as a temporary starting point. For me, this set of 'safe foods' can generally work for most, and from here, you might be able to introduce one new thing for a few days to see how you get on.
I've mostly swapped out sugar for: honey (and honeycomb), maple syrup and date sugar. But I do know that sugars can cause problems in the gut as well including candida overgrowth. I eat a lot of fruit and a little dark chocolate. Sometimes, if you start by changing the sweet intake from refined to unrefined natural and single source (instead of a cake, berries), it's much easier to manage.
I've seen past threads with allergies and we can all be different. For instance, I'm intolerant to the entire mustard family:so no rapeseed, spinach, Brussels, asparagus.