Re: drowning in ghastly food issues...need a friend.

It's not your fault. Your diet simply contains too little sugars to be able to maintain it. Your body and brain need sugars!! For me, the only fruit I seem to do fine with are apples. You can try eating apples on the days you limit your fat intake, to keep your weight stable... for example: one day eat avo, greens, cucumbers, tomatoes but no sweeter fruits, then the other day or whenever you feel like something sweet, eat apples and cucumbers/greens as your main foods for that day. You can add a few tbsp of coconut oil to your cucumber salads but keep your fat intake low on the apple days. On the avocado days, you keep your Sugar intake low. If you are going to deprive yourself of any sweet tasting foods, you will not be able to maintain your diet and you will be tempted a lot by crappy foods. I have been there too so I can definately relate.

It is really normal to be craving sweet foods cause your body needs this energy, but you are too strict and instead of just having a few apples when you are craving something sweet and juicy, you go for one of the WORST choices: dried fruits... they contain no water whatsoever, and too much fiber and sugars, calories. You will bloat up and gain weight (as would happen with me). At least if you 'cheat' with apples you will get loads of extra water, and a lot less calories. Find the kind that you like best, they are delicious.

Also keep in mind to keep most of your meals really simple and not mix more than 2-3 ingredients at a time, or it will over-stimulate your appetite. Eat salads of cucumber, apple cider vinegar and a little coconut oil (to boost your metabolism/ thyroid function), or even just snack on slices of cucumber a lot. Forget about doing recipes or buying those so called health foods or deserts at so called health food stores, they just want to rob us anyway.

You are being too hard on yourself and therefore you go into these extremes of not eating any sweet tasting foods to eating sugar-laden treats... that is tough, and I have made the same mistakes, until I realized and learned that if my body is craving something sweet, all I really have to do is just switch to having some apples and enjoy it. Soon enough I will feel like having something different again.

I really alternate and think about what I am craving: either something crunchy, salad-like (cucumber salad base with vinegar and/or coconut oil, tomato maybe), or something sweet and juicy (organic Gala apples), or something creamy and fatty (raw organic egg yolks with coconut butter and salt substitute or some sashimi from the sushi bar). I eat avocado maybe once a week since they make me constipated.

Right now my diet is still very restrictive and I mainly eat cucumbers, apples, raw egg yolks, coconut oil, and if I feel like having a sweet treat on a special occasion, I eat a melon or a couple of bananas. Just pick a few fruits that are OK for you in case of emergencies or celebrations/rewards. For example, I can go a couple of days (3-4) with no fruits other than cucumber or tomatoes, but then I may eat apples for 2 days, and if I feel like I need to have a treat, I eat bananas or cantaloupe, but not too often. I am salt intolerant so no salt for me whatsoever, and everything I eat is raw. I allow myself to have a few fruits, but I never even buy other fruits like berries, mangoes, pineapples, papayas, grapes, etc. I make sure the fruits I choose are well-ripened.
I will have apples if I crave something sweet, but I don't go to town and eat all these sweet tropical fruits and dried fruits are definately a NO-NO. This system works fine for me most of the time (apart from me having an eating disorder and always wanting to lose more weight). You can even try a 3-day apple fast, it is one of the most effective fasts to flush out junk and to lose weight actually, if you can make it to day 3 without getting bored.
I have a very restrictive diet, yet I hardly ever get bored because I have my 'sweet/juicy options', my 'neutral/crunchy' options and my 'fatty/creamy/salty' options, and I just alternate, and always allow time to digest these foods, and I combine them well. These rules allow me to eat and enjoy without gaining weight. If I break these rules of allowing my body the time to digest foods, I gain weight. If I am bored, the best remedy is to not eat for a while, so everything will taste amazing again.

Don't worry, you are not the only one with an extremely restrictive diet. The key is to keep it interesting by not depriving yourself of the two main macronutrients we need: sugars and fats. I mainly have 2 kinds of cravings: either something fatty, creamy and salty tasting, OR something juicy and sweet tasting. Keep the two strictly separate, and practise Natural Hygiene rules of digestion religiously. Work WITH your body, not AGAINST it! Don't fight you body when it wants a sweet watery treat. Don't punish it by depriving it of that and then overloading it with dry sugar/fiber bombs or desert mixes of fats and sugars together... You can do it, just control yourself when you are shopping (make sure you're not hungry when shopping), and only buy a few foods that you know work best for you. Good luck and just know that you're not alone...

Other than that, you can read about thyroid and hormone imbalances:
http://thyroid.about.com/
http://thyroid.about.com/od/drsrichkarileeshames/a/aug2005update_2.htm
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