I thought I would make my come back by talking a little about my current diet, aka eating intuitively!! 😉

My diet & eating habit have been so up & down & I’ve taken a very relaxed, very simple minimalist eating approach, which is one of the many reasons why I am planning on re-directing my blog to become more about mind, body & spirit instead of just focusing on food being the center of the theme! I will still blog recipes and blog what I eat in a day but FOOD will not be my main focus, as it’s only one part of being healthy! Don’t get me wrong I really do believe diet is VERY important if you want to thrive in life, but what you eat doesn’t have to be complicated or anything fancy just simply natural! 🙂

Although food is a big part of my heath journey, I also realized that making it the centre of my world is exhausting! kinda obsessive for someone who struggled with food, and most importantly it takes the intuitive eating element out! If I am constantly just thinking about creating recipes and what I am eating next for lunch, breakfast & dinner, I am basically ignoring my body’s signals for whether I am hungry or not & just eating for the sake of it. Does that make sense? I prefer to just eat when I am hungry & stop when I am satisfied. No calorie counting, no macros, no fasting with fixed times, just eating intuitively. You will be surprised this might actually be hard initially, as we are so programmed to diet, eat 3 times a day, snack maybe twice, don’t eat before bed, don’t skip breakfast and so on, to the point we forgot to listen to own bodies & it’s needs.

Anyways, I am still plant based & eat mostly vegan, I say mostly because sometimes I do fancy a bit of fish! Other than that my diet is mostly vegan. Moving to shanghai 17 months ago was initially hard on my diet especially since I am also gluten free & speak no Chinese which made shopping experience overwhelming! But as soon as I figured out where to shop & connected to other vegans, I realized you can find anything in shanghai! LITERALLY ANYTHING!!

However having struggled initially, I did go back to consuming dairy & gluten & although I am ashamed to confess! I am actually glad I did, because I learnt a lesson, the hard way!!

Firstly, I am sure you are aware of this but shanghai air quality is not the best! And prior to moving here I was really worried about that as I have a history of asthma, allergies & my body super sensitive to anything & everything. But I kid you not, one of the first things I noticed in my 1^st few months was that every foreigner I met here complained about this nasty cough they had and phlegm! Some even had sinuses pain, which they never experienced before moving to China, & everyone will tell you it’s the air, but I honestly believe it’s their diet – specifically DAIRY! Let me explain, sinuses & phlegm are all inflammation & mucus problems. Dairy increased mucus in the body & being exposed to such poor air quality aggravate the problem and this is why I believe people experienced those symptoms. I personally didn’t have any of these problems when I first moved here and then few months later after going back to consuming dairy (just having it in my coffee when ordering outside) I experienced the exact same symptoms, first thing in the morning. My nose & throat felt dry and blocked! It’s really not that complex or maybe I am just really in touch with my body. But If you try and understand your symptoms & why you’re body reacting a certain way, you will be able to heal yourself instead of just covering the issue. And for me this experience has really showed me the power of a clean diet & taught me a good lesson in regards to inflammation (which I will talk more about in my next blog post, so stay tuned) 🙂

*** Both dairy & gluten cause inflammation in the body & if you suffer from autoimmune disease you definitely want to remove these two from your diets.

Similarly, I also went back to consuming gluten & initially I thought wow, my gluten intolerance is healed! I am having no symptoms at all… but few weeks in, I noticed I was struggling with fatigue all over again & both my muscles & joints were painful. My back felt really sore and you might think how is that related to gluten? But honestly, I just suspected it was gluten, so I did some research which confirmed my theory! What I was suffering from was inflammation & my research on gluten shows that gluten should be removed from the diet for anyone with autoimmune disease (me!). More on that also in my next few posts… 🙂

Gluten is inflammatory for the gut as the gut can’t digest it & it is therefore the No.1 cause of leaky gut! Unfortunately, a single exposure to gluten can take 6 months to heal from! L So sadly I am starting again from scratch, and going back to my old ways of no gluten and dairy!

You might also want to watch out for other grains (including gluten free ones, like buckwheat) because they also mimic what gluten does. More on that also in my next few posts… 🙂

*** Gluten = damage gut lining = inflammation = stop your body from absorbing nutrients

In summary, I am plant based, gluten free & I eat intuitively 🙂 I am learning to listen to my body when it comes to when I should eat & stop eating!

For all of those suffering from autoimmune disease, such as IBS, allergies/hayfever, thyroid problems, celiac disease, artiritis and so on, you might want to consider cutting gluten & dairy & see how you feel 🙂 I am sure you will wish you done it earlier!

I will write more about autoimmune disease & inflammation in my next blog post so do follow me on here & stay tuned 🙂

Also follow me on instagram @arwaali5

Arwa X