I'm already a little fuzzy on the exact time-frame, which is why I am starting this now, before I totally lose track. About 4 weeks ago a friend of mine posted a link to a thyroid summit happening online. It was a 7-day event, with a bunch of different speakers. This started me on a research journey into the effects of thyroid disease on the body, and the different symptoms that could indicate problems with thyroid health.
For quite a while before that, I had increasingly felt less and less OK. For years I had been adapting my diet in order to seek relief to a seemingly random array of symptoms, dry scalp, shooting pains in my left arm and in my hands & one or two fingers, waking up with severe pins & needles in my hands. I am also now much heavier than I was 15 years ago, despite having made continual efforts for the last 10 years or so to be healthier, more active, to drink less and generally take better care of myself. I eventually completely stopped eating red meat about 2 years ago, when I realised that the shooting pains and numbness in my hands and arms happened when I ate meat. However, I felt OK after eating pork, chicken and fish, etc, so I continued with those. I stopped drinking milk a good number of years ago, opting instead for rice milk (when I was in South Africa) and soya milk when I moved to Korea. I stopped eating yoghurt almost completely, and figured if I cut out most other dairy products, I can still enjoy cheese. That worked, to a certain degree. I used to eat a LOT of dairy, especially as a kid, and would have sinus problems afterwards. It wasn't severe enough for me to give it up totally, so I cut down a bit. Sometimes. But seriously, I freaking LOVE cheese. I have never been too big on sodas, and I stopped drinking Coke altogether many years ago (guys, this stuff is poison, please don't touch it). I like juice, but had been diluting it by about half for many years, finding that it's just way too sweet. I also only buy 100% juice, unsweetened - except that in Korea it's really hard to find, and they seem to have a serious sugar addiction going on. Also, my very limited Korean skills meant that I never really knew what was in any products that I bought. More about this later. I LOVE pasta, and used to eat a lot of it - often, and in HUGE portions. Usually topped with a mountain of cheese. I also like bread, but I prefer rye, seed loaf, etc to the fluffy, nutritionally impoverished white breads. In short, like most other Westerners, I consumed a shit-ton of wheat in all of it's many forms. I heard an estimate that about 60% - 80% of our diets are made up of wheat, which I think is scarily accurate. OK, that's enough back story.
Before I moved to Korea, everyone told me how I would lose SO much weight here, how everyone just shed pounds effortlessly due to the Korean diet, and that we walk here more than at home. Generally speaking. Well, guess what - I didn't lose a thing. The traditional Korean diet is healthy, sure - lots of vegetables, kimchi, which contains probiotics and reportedly has anti-carcinogenic properties, lots of seafood & seaweed - but it also contains mountains of white rice, as well as noodles, which are often consumed in one meal. I would choose one or the other - either rice, or noodles, but never the two together. Then, for quite a while, I stopped with the rice, pretty much completely. Two of my favourite dishes, kimbap (seaweed rolls with vegetables ans sometimes some form of meat -they are pretty much like sushi rolls) and bibimbap (rice topped with fresh & lightly cooked vegetables, combined with spicy gochujang chilli
paste) are based around rice, so obviously when having those I would eat it, but generally I caused a minor commotion around the lunch table at my school because of not eating rice and meat. This also meant that I often was left with not too many choices. In Korea, at least in the Korea I inhabit (in the country, IOW not Seoul), people don't understand vegetarianism. I have seen Korean friends of mine sneer and scoff when they hear that someone doesn't eat meat. Also, announcing that you don't eat meat is usually met with, "Oh, but this is pork, not meat." or "But chicken is OK, right?". You see, 'meat' means beef, to most Koreans. However, by far my favourite response is, and this is delivered with eyes squinted down and by indicating the very tip of a finger, "Oh, there's only a liitttllee meat in there." The concept of not eating meat because you don't want to eat animals is not even a consideration! Aahh, Korea. How I love thee.
OK, this post is getting way too long. Part 2 to follow.
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