My DH and I started the SP diet 2 months ago. We have followed it to the letter, with no cheating. My Dh is slender and basically healthy, but had begun to feel that he was aging. I on the other hand have been very ill for many years and am slogging along with little wt. loss and feeling terrible. His response was incredible! Within 3 weeks he acted and felt 20 years younger. He decided he was well and has started cheating with coffee, sugar and not eating all the food groups at a meal. Yesterday morning he woke up in a bad mood. This is very unususal for him. He is very even and very rarely gets down, and never has a temper. He ate some jam on his toast. All day he kept getting more and more irritable and last night he exploded, complete with cursing, over nothing. I was shocked and he was horribly confused and embarrassed. I ended up lecturing him about taking risks in bringing himself out of transistion by cheating, that it si much too soon to assume that he is completely healed enough to eat sugar. That is the only thing we can think of, that he has been feeling so good because he is basiclly healthy and has been healing and then caused himself a set back. Has anyone had experience with eating sugar causing irrational emotional upset?
Carolyn

When I do not eat right I am very crabby, cannot think straight and sometimes get really angry when asked a question or am nagged at by my DH. I tend to not know when I am hungry (only since on SPII). So when I am crabby and confused I know I have waited too long. I would imagine that if his blood sugar is off this could cause these symptoms. Also if he is even tempered but holds stuff in AND has blood sugar issues that may be one reason he cannot hold back. My husband is very even tempered, most of the time, but when he holds on to stuff/issues and does not discuss them or find an outlet for them he blows after a while. Comes out sideways so you do not know where it came from. Also when he has not eaten right (he is very healthy) this problem is a lot worse.

Hope this helps.

I never knew which came first, the emotional blowup, or the sugar. I know they are related.
Donna

The emotional melt down and the eating of sugar are probably 2 sides of the same coin. Feeling irritable means seratonin is down and the brain is wanting to medicate, so it pushes in the direction we associate with feeling good, in his case coffee and a little jam a favorite breakfast in the past. Then the sugar high and then the crash. I am really noticing how much I am going through, good, and difficult, because of getting off of sugar. I had no idea how much sugar was hidding in manufactured foods. I am still following the SP plan to the letter.
Carolyn

Carolyn, Good for you! I know this is really hard. The question I have to ask myself now when I want to make a bad food choice is "Do I want to take the chance of feeling really horrible after I eat this?"

I was lucky (in hindsight) that I had already been off of sugar mostly when I started this. So I think my symptoms were not as bad. Although I did feel pretty bad off and on while doing it in the beginning. I still have my low points but I can see the beauty of this food plan for life.

Have you done your testing? How long does it take to get the results back? Take care and be good to yourself in every way you can. Treat yourself to a manicure, massage or curling up with a good book, because you deserve to be healthy and free of feeling bad.

Marianne

Have you got the results to your Scharzbein tests yet? Let us know. Thanks Marianne

I just finished reading a book you might be interested in...Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. She talkes about clearning mind clutter, mental clutter, body clutter, emotional clutter and spiritual clutter. It is very enlightening and goes along with some of the things you have said about your husband and yourself.

I have had some stuff come up lately that I needed to take a look at. I am de-cluttering my house and getting ready for my daughters graduation from law school. Then after she is home for two months she is moving to Philidelphia.

Life is interesting for sure. Take care. Let us know how your testing comes out. We have not heard from you lately. Hope all is well.

Marianne

Hi Marianne.
I did get my tests back and I had my conference with Dr. S this morning. She said I had the "worst type of metabolism," and "it only gets worse." So, I have a long road ahead of me of strict adherance to the SP II diet, supplementation I will find out about in my conference with her nutritionist tomorrow morning, HRT. I have an overall cortisol level of 10 and 23 is minimum normal. She said my parasympathetic nervous system is completely shut down, and my sympathetic nervous system is on all the time on overdrive. She emphasized this is beyond my control, and thinking positive or any of the stress release things we do would be useless. I am to do EMDR to recover from the trauma I have been thru before my adrenals will start healing. Not great news, but now I know. Thank you for writing me.
Carolyn

My saliva test showed the following results:

1. 6am 3.15ng/ml

2. Noon .45ng/ml

3. 4:15p .27ng/ml

4. 9:40p .27ng/ml

the last three are in the low normal range.
Does this jive with your numbers? I am confused about your ranges. Do they take the decimal points away or what? Curious, because my Doctor told me to do the Insulin sensitive/burned out adrenal gland plan but now I am wondering if I need something else to feel better.

Take care. Thanks for being so open and honest with us. You are helping more people than you probably will ever know.

Thank you.

Marianne