Every so often I get indigestion and don’t know the reason for it.  This doesn’t count any time I get indigestion because I’ve knowingly eaten the wrong thing or overeaten.  I don’t do that too often these days, but there are times that I just feel like I need to have that bread or those noodles and I overdo.  Bread and noodles are for me what pastries and chocolate are for other people.  I believe that in moderation anything is fine, but when I eat bread or noodles, I am not in a moderate state of mind; I’m in my emotional eating state of mind.  After a big bout of indigestion last year, I began keeping a food journal: writing down everything I ate and what time I ate it.  If I got indigestion, I wrote it down and then looked back over the previous few days to see what might have caused it.  Keeping a food journal has been real instrumental in letting me fine-tune myself to be more intuitive about what my body needs and how it reacts to certain foods.

One thing keeping a food journal did was make me realize that when I find myself wanting egg drop soup (with or without Ramen noodles), having it usually began a period of eating too many starches and a bout of indigestion within a week.  When I say indigestion, I don’t mean I burp or have heartburn.  I mean I get a very uncomfortable feeling 3-5 hours after eating, feeling bloated and blocked, or as if a mass of hard mud were moving through me.  It makes my lower back ache, which I recognize as a radiant pain from the indigestion. It usually takes it 7-9 hours to be done with.  During that time, I cannot sleep due to discomfort and it feels better to keep moving around.  I may or may not be nauseous.  I don’t barf or have diarrhea.  I’m not constipated and may or may not eliminate during the 7-9 hours waiting for it to pass.

Saturday morning I had a bout of it – when I’d not been overeating – and I set out on a mission to figure out what caused it. For breakfast, I’d eaten a scrambled egg (1/4 cup of Egg Beaters) cooked with 2 sliced mushrooms along with 1 small sliced (raw) Roma tomato and 2 tablespoons of cottage cheese.  A small meal, maybe 6 bites.  Five hours later, I felt icky as my tum went through the cycle where I felt like I ate 4 foot long hot dogs and a beer. I was bummed to think it might be my beloved tomato or cottage cheese, since neither bothered me before.  I also knew it could just be a temporary something moving through me and not related to what I ate at all.

But I know that as I refine my eating habits, my body continues to fine tune itself and give me signals along the way.  I’m finally learning to listen and have learned a lot.

Facebook friend Dee Corbett Smith asked me “Would organic apple cider vinegar help?”  I’d just the night before suggested to a friend they try organic apple cider vinegar and was reading about it at –>organic apple cider vinegar.  But since I was researching for him and not for me, I completely missed the signal my guidance was giving me by getting me to the website.  I had some in my refrigerator and did not even think of using it.  It happens: me forgetting what I already know, despite signals from my inner guidance, even when they flash it right in front of my face.

So 7 hours into my tummy upset, I had a teaspoon of Bragg’s organic apple cider vinegar in a cup of water and within minutes felt a wave of “much better”.  The odd backache that comes when I get that in-digestion feeling, that disappeared within minutes also.  An hour later I had 2 tablespoons of Chobani Greek Yogurt with 1 teaspoon of Polaner Raspberry All Fruit.  Facebook friend John S  Shore suggested adding the yogurt to organic pumpkin filling to further benefit the intestinal flora.  I’ll definitely try that.

At this point I remembered that last week I bought a bag of banana ice popsicles, maybe 30 in the package, and ate them all.  I know it wasn’t a food that would typically bother me, but they are all sugar which I typically don’t eat at all.  I don’t have glucose problems, but maybe the increased sugar played a factor somewhere down the line, impacting some helpful body function.  Maybe I just needed to counteract the imbalance because of that.

Real life gal pal Cecelia Danas brought over some of her magical alkaline, ionized water for me. The water cured her shingles and I’ve had friends say it cured their ADHD, fibromyalgia, Asperger’s, diabetes, arthritis, HepC, too many ailments to mention.  Email Lifecoaching7746@aol.com if you want info.

As with the apple cider vinegar, within minutes of drinking it I felt even better.  I drink plenty of water on a regular basis and know how important hydration is to my physical body and my mental alertness.  I’ve learned it even impacts my ability to receive inner guidance and access my intuition.  Drinking healthier water can only be an upgrade.

I appreciate the Universe fine-tuning me to be more intuitive about what my body needs.  Now I just need to tune in more often.

Andrea

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