My body has a knack for knowing what it needs, at least as far as ingestion goes. See, a few years ago, I developed rheumatoid arthritis. Fortunately, it never got anywhere near as bad as what you see in the pictures but it was always a possibility.
Before I got diagnosed (it took four months to go from my noticing a swollen and sore joint in my hand to being told "this is what you've got"), I started having some other odd symptoms. I got really, really dizzy sometimes. I also started craving rare steak (I'd never had it rare before). I also randomly craved orange juice. I craved orange juice to the point that I had about a dozen mandarines and two big glasses of OJ, all in one sitting, before I felt sated.
I only found out a few months after my diagnosis that rheumatoid arthritis can cause iron deficiency, and that vitamin C helps you absorb iron. My body very clearly knew exactly what it needed!
Then there was starting to take Ritalin. Suddenly, I was no longer craving chocolate. I later learned ADHD is partly due to a lack of dopamine in the brain, and that chocolate increases dopamine, as do CNS stimulants... Again, my body had found something which gave it what it needed and craved it on a regular basis. In fact, one of the ways I can tell my medication is wearing off is that I start to crave chocolate :-p go figure.
I do sometimes like the way my body works.
Bah. Internet ate my comment.
ReplyDeleteI was saying that your body sounds like a great communicator. But that you are also a great listener, and that's what really makes it work. If more people really listened to what their bodies were asking for, there'd be a helluva lot less dietary problems in the west.