Resistance to Eating Healthy and Following a Low Histamine Diet: A Personal Case Study

I know I need to eat healthier, specifically a low histamine and gluten-free diet. I have the resources to do so; I’ve met with a wonderful nutritionist six times and Low Histamine Kitchen has proven time and time again to be a wonderful resource.

Yet, the more I tell myself I need to get back on my therapeutic diet (different from a weight loss diet), the more I seem to resist. I tell myself to eat healthy and make a smoothie in the morning, yet instead I find myself craving and drinking a green Dunkin Donuts drink that looks radioactive.

Instead of shaming and guilty myself more for my inability to stick to a diet, I decided to get curious and start tapping. I started to tap on the present: “Even though I feel all this resistance to eating healthy…” I focused on that morning when I was craving, the feeling in my body of resistance (like black oil dripping down to the bottom of my legs, keeping me stuck).

Then I realized the reason I’m resistant is because eating healthy in my case takes a lot of planning and prep. I can’t eat leftovers, unless they’re frozen, because the fridge increases the histamine. So I have to make a lot of my food right before I eat it. I’m supposed to eat smoothies for breakfast, but my blender top is not easy to clean and food gets stuck in it. It’s a lot easier to order takeout and delivery, especially where I live in a big city with endless tasty food options.

Once I realized my resistance comes from the time and energy it takes to food prep and the lack of convenience, I tapped on where that might have come from in my childhood.

A few things came up. One was an image of my mom, slaving over the stove, looking unhappy. I remember the heat of the stove being so overwhelming; I didn’t want to be anywhere near the stove, or her. She told me she hated cooking and grocery shopping, yet she was stuck making two to three meals a day for a family of four. I tapped on the image of her looking so unhappy, the heat of the stove, my internal thought that I never wanted to get stuck like her. I know I consciously focused on my studies so I could become a career woman and never have a man rely on me like I’m his mom. I really didn’t want that for myself. But it became so that I lacked some very necessary domestic skills.

Another was a day that my mom told my dad, brother, and me to do the dishes after supper one night. I’d previously told my family that I really liked doing the dishes! And this was one of the first times I learned how your words can be used against you. My dad and brother decided that since I loved doing the dishes, I could do them by myself and they didn’t have to help at all. I tapped down all the aspects of this memory: the feeling of standing on a stool over the sink, the soapy water on my hands, the image of the green grass in front of the window, the words my dad and brother used, my anger and the body sensations that accompanied my anger. I released the memory via tapping.

Once I was done, I felt much less resistance to adhering to my therapeutic diet and even some excitement about planning and cooking creative meals. That night I was very hungry for chocolate (high histamine), Doritos, and sweets, but instead I filled up on my MCAS-compliant foods my nutritionist had recommended. It felt easy to do so; I wasn’t fighting the same resistance blocks anymore.

Update: November 4

It’s a little over a month later, and I wanted to share an update. Since this tapping session, I’ve gotten back on a much healthier diet and have been meal prepping and eating mostly homemade low histamine soups and smoothies (which my nutritionist recommended). I’ve started and stuck to an exercise program. I had to make adaptions for the week of my period because endometriosis prevents me from being able to exercise much. My partner even commented that he noticed I’m making more of an effort and that it looks like I’ve lost a bit of weight, and that I look less bloated than I did over the summer (when I was on a lot of medications that mad me bloat). I had a couple of days where I wasn’t following my plan, and I reacted very badly (vomited after eating). I am very thankful for reacting though, because it forced me to get serious about following a therapeutic diet, which for me means low histamine, mostly vegetarian and mostly gluten-free. I’m still not perfect but when I’m not, I pay for it dearly. And it’s all about progress over perfection; as long as I’m following my eating plan 80-90 percent of the time, it makes it easier to eat high histamine foods that other 10 percent of the time.

Conclusion: Tapping works, y’all! Instead of getting mad, get curious. This is the part that’s missing from most weight loss programs; releasing the emotional and mental blocks — the resistance and the old patterns subconsciously wired into us.

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