A review by kellyreadingbooks
Food Isn't Medicine by Joshua Wolrich

challenging informative reflective fast-paced

4.5

 I've had a really tumultuous relationship with food since I was a teenager. I suffered with really bad acne and incredibly heavy and painful periods that put me in the ER with no answers. I started attempting to eat "raw" vegan in a house that was BBQ heavy. I beat myself up because my parents couldn't afford to eat the way I thought would "cure" me. I also became obsessed with weight loss since I had always been a heavy kid. When "raw" lifestyle was out of bounds I asked for Snackwell 100 calorie packs, light yogurt, weight control oatmeal packets, etc. I went on our treadmill for an hour every day and went on the Special K diet. I counted my steps and went to dance class. I got commended for losing so much weight. Which left me more confused as I felt like what I was eating wasn't "healthy", but it was portioned for me and marketed at me to lose weight. Enter my early 20s where I started getting digestive issues like vomiting, diarrhea, frequent loose stool, shivers, heartburn, stomach cramps. I went and saw an allergist that identified over 20 foods I was allergic to in a panel. I continued to restrict. I did Low FODMAP, Carnivore, Paleo, vegan, WFPB, just to fall off the wagons over and over when I still had symptoms and I was maxed out on "willpower". After supplements, countless prescriptions that made me worse or not better, colonoscopy, gallbladder removal surgery, etc. I was just left diagnosed with IBS. I've also been trying to repair my relationship with food after realizing I was suffering with Orthorexia. It's not been easy at all. I've blamed MYSELF for so long. My weight and my health was simply because I have never been able to crack the code of eating perfectly for my own body's needs. That I was a failure. I am still struggling. I don't have answers honestly. But books like this help ease the burden, because I am left feeling like no one truly has the answers per lack of research coming up with true answers. This leaves me in more of a neutral state. Being neutral is hard. We all want to be in this constant state of moving towards something BETTER- our bodies are better, our minds need to be better, we need to be evolving into the next version of ourselves and if we don't, that's on us. I am now working on neutrality. Body neutrality, food neutrality/food freedom. This book explains much of the fear mongering out there in Wellness culture. And while *some* of it could be potentially correct (like maybe, 10%... because it can't be the alkaline water crazies lol), I'm left knowing that we all just have this one life and just do the best we absolutely can without driving ourselves up a wall during the one precious life we are given. Because in the end, it's truly not that serious- that's what I tell myself anyway.
Sorry for the tangent- just read this book if you blame yourself for your health or if you feel like you're tired of diet culture noise.