Update: Other skin issues, and no honey for 1 month

I’m joining in a Refined-Sweetener-Free Challenge for the month of April. Cara over at Health, Home, & Happiness has done GAPS before and since going off it has been noticing she’s eating too much sugar. I haven’t gone off SCD, but find I’m doing the same thing with honey. I have done low-carb SCD before for short periods of time if symptoms have flared up. Now that I’m feeling much better, I seem to handle dried fruits and honey quite well. I have even added in cocoa to my diet. Why would I give them up if I feel good? Well, I know that I don’t do well with sugar. I know that it makes me not sleep as well, makes my face break out, makes me anxious, etc. All of these things have been problems lately, so even though digestion is good, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I should be eating sugar. So, I will be doing without ANY honey for 1 month. That is the only sweetener I use, so I will be sweetener-free. I will not be going low carb as I don’t think it’s necessary at this point in my healing. I will be getting plenty of good carbs from squashes, carrots, fruits, dried fruits and sweet potato (not SCD legal). Yes I’m keeping in some dried fruit, mainly because I use dried cranberries in my liver recipe, and eating liver is important!

I’m really hoping this helps clear up my skin. For most of being on SCD my skin was doing fairly well (ok, besides all the rash episodes) but since going off the pill it has been constant outbreak. Every morning I wake up with 5 or 6 new spots and they seem to be taking forever to go away. It’s not so much how it looks that is bothering me, but the uncomfortable itchiness that comes along with it. I realize sugar may not be the only culprit, but maybe if I have less sugar I’ll be replacing those calories with something more nutritious. I plan to try and get more minerals in my diet, especially zinc which is known to be helpful for acne. I recently had cooked oysters and really liked them. Oysters are a great source of iron, zinc and selenium so these will definitely be making a regular appearance in my dinners!

I know I’m doing this right after starting cocoa and that might seem a little odd. I can finally have chocolate but oh wait, nope I’ll stop having it because of sugar! Honestly I think I can go without too much cocoa for 1 month. I am not eating it every day anyways. I plan to make my SCD Truffles as a nice dessert, ‘sweetened’ with dates and coated with cocoa. So I’ll have a hint of cocoa in my life still. I will have honey again after this month is over. Hopefully I won’t overindulge in it. I plan to start eating honey again when the local farmer’s markets are open and I can get some really good quality stuff. That will be motivation enough to hold off until then!

I’m also motivated to figure out different snack ideas. Gotta think outside the box on this one…

PS – I just Googled oysters and zinc. It seems *raw* oysters are the best source of zinc. Might have to work on that one…

PPS – That photo up top? I’ve been going through almost a 1kg jar of honey per week. Yeah, that’s a bit much!

**This post is part of a Kitchen Stewardship’s Spring Cleaning Carnival: Get the Refined Sugar Out, this week hosted by Donielle at Naturally Knocked Up