Hi everyone!
Posts have been few and far between round these parts, but rest assured it is for a good reason. Recently I have been really under the weather and it has been difficult for me to do… anything. Except work, ’cause you know, a girl’s gotta get paid. But even though I work with the cutest kids ever, it’s been a struggle because I managed to contract the WORST VIRUS EVER. That may or may not be factually correct, but it sure as heck felt like it. Let me walk you through it (don’t worry, no grossness allowed).
So, one of the things about working in a kindergarten is that they are a festering germ pool of germs and you are bound to get sick eventually. If it doesn’t get you sooner, it gets you later, and that’s just how it goes in the wild wild west. I have come to accept this, and I have also taken it on to keep myself healthy to try and preempt these disgusting bacteria from setting up home in my person. However, vitamins and vegetables can only get you so far when cute little kiddies are picking their nose and coughing without covering their mouth on the regular.
I should also add as an aside that last week I felt the inklings of this virus setting in, but I decided to fight it because it was FRIDAY! So instead of resting and recuperating, I decided to *hit the town* with my lovely friends and I had a whale of a time. It was great and fun and everything else. There was definitely a few emotional moments on the dance floor and that always signifies a good night to me. Great time.
The next morning, I woke up with a really sore throat and sort of sounded like a man. It wasn’t good, but at least it was funny. I saw another friend that I hadn’t seen in a million years/4 months, and we had a beautiful day. Perfect perfect perfect.
Which brings me to Monday.
This is when it all started to go wrong, and the annoying thing is that it’s all my fault. So, I had had a relaxing weekend and had felt pretty terrible the whole time but at least I could remain horizontal and no one would judge me or ask me if they could go to the bathroom. It was nice. But on Monday, it was hard getting back into the swing of things, and so I decided to “treat myself” with an iced mocha from Paris Baguette (the yummy bakery just next to our building which we frequent far too much).
On the first sip, the sweetness hit me like a punch in the groin and I didn’t know how I would make it through it. Being the trooper I am, however, I eventually finished this sweet, milky monstrosity throughout my day and felt okay. The problem is, I decided to get another milky drink from Caffe Bene (I’m naming and shaming here but it’s really no one’s fault but my own. Just trying to contextualise) and this is where it all went wrong. Instead of getting my usual green tea latte (omg yum) I decided to get something less sugary: an iced latte. You’d think it would be fine, until you (I) tried it and the creaminess was something out of this world. And I don’t mean that in a good way.
Milk and I have had an on-and-off relationship for a little while now, and this experience on Monday has prompted me to drop it for good. Why, you ask? Well, after these two lactose-infused time bombs hit my stomach, it was game over. I didn’t even finish the second drink, but that didn’t even matter. The damage was already done. To cut a long and uncomfortable story short, I spent the next 3 days without an appetite and ACTUALLY MISSED MEALS. If you don’t know how weird this is for me, trust me, it’s very weird. I love my food more than life (well, food is life to me) and so not being able to eat and not wanting to eat upsets me greatly. I had a lunchtime mournfully watching the kids eat while they told me that the next day I would be better and would be eating a “very biiiiiig lunch”. Too cute. But even then, the next day, I couldn’t stomach too much. It was all just a mess, and I am out of the woods now, but not without my scars.
Before the milk episode happened, I know I was already run down and coming down with something and it was gonna be gross anyway. But the milk, oh man, the milk. The thought of that creamy, hormone-infused latte sends shivers down my spine and turns my stomach to jelly (again). Coming from someone who used to drink tons of the stuff regularly, I have decided to go cold turkey and even go without my delicious cinnamon cappuccinos. God, they are good, but for me it’s just not worth it. I’ve been doing a bit of reading on the effects of milk on the body, and the consensus is: it’s not good.
One of the most ironic things I found is that milk actually causes a calcium deficit. Yep, you read that right: a deficit. After all this BS the dairy industry have been spewing for years (who clearly have nothing to profit from by saying so *cough*), it turns out that milk causes us to lose calcium. How? It has an acidifying effect in the stomach, and so the body needs to neutralise this. And one of the best acid-neutralisers? Calcium. One of the best sources of calcium? Bones! Milk sucks the calcium right out of our bones and uses it up in order to digest itself. Yuck.
Now I’m certainly no scientist, but this is just the icing on the cake for a very visceral, gut-feeling (so to speak) that milk and me just do not work. Yoghurt is luckily exempt, because of the fermentation process and the good bacteria present in each delicious little tub (even then, I’m cutting down, but god yoghurt is good). But milk… it just is wrong. We are the only species who drink another species’ milk. That’s really gross. It’s for baby cows, for goodness sake! What the eff are we doing?
So, in regards to the title of this post, when you lose your appetite I can highly recommend: 1) lying down; 2) binge-watching awesome TV (I am a late adopter of OITNB and OMG IT’S SO AMAZING; 3) drinking a hella lot of Yakult; 4) sleeping close to 12 hours a night; and 5) NEVER TOUCHING MILK AGAIN.
It’s really unpleasant for me to lose my appetite because food is just… oh, it’s just the best, isn’t it? The only good thing to come from this is that it’s a wake-up call for me to pay closer attention to my health (and also lose a little weight in the process, ohhh yeahhh!). Now that the thought of milk disgusts me, I’m trying to use it as an impetus to keep my eating clean and my vegetables green. In all seriousness, I’m taking it as a sign to calm down and take care of my body, because this is the only one I got for the next… long while.
Over the past few years, I have pretty much cut out most dairy, including cheese, cream and, weirdly, chocolate(!). Milk is the final frontier for me, and yoghurt I am allowing in limited doses. I have a whole other rant up my sleeve about how milk causes acne as well, so that is another benefit from going milk-free. MILK IS THE DEVIL (wait, who said that?). The dairy industry is beyond huge and so of course they won’t tell you this, but I will.
Take it from me: losing your appetite sure leaves a lot of room (and eating-free time) to do a lotta contemplating. Without all my energy going into digesting that acidifying devil’s brew (that’s milk, btw), I have a lot of neurones making connections and lighting up my brain to another way of thinking. And it feels sa good!
I would love to hear your thoughts on your experiences with milk and dairy in general, although if you’re going to try to convince me it’s good for me, please don’t waste your time. May I recommend you watch OITNB instead? It’s SO GOOD!!!
Until next time,
Steph x