Recalibrating my taste buds

As I posted last week, I am on a type of elimination diet and have gotten rid of most refined flour, sugars and synthetic sugars from my diet over the past two weeks.  This is the first few days on the road for work since embarking on this, and new challenges have cropped up.  Where I no longer am at home where we have lots of bread, crackers, chips and candies, I also only have a small fridge, no real way to cook other than a microwave.  Fortunately the hotel I am staying in cooks hot breaksfasts to order, and I have enough nights at this chain to get the breakfast "comped".  Of course there are all the pastries I normally enjoy, plus a waffle iron I have used many times in the past!  But they also do eggs to order, fruit, and have milk available.  The team I am part of doesn't really eat fast food, so that is good-I never seriously looked at a fast food menu until recently and saw how much of the food is basic, over-processed starch!  I've already hit the grocery stores twice in three days to stock up on romaine lettuce and sandwich fillings that aren't too bad.

One thing I also noticed is despite knowing better, I have the typical modern American diet:  Lots of white bread and buns, daily french fries, little fruit and vegetables, and too much soda-whether diet or loaded with sugar.  My taste buds have gotten acclimated to "sweet", "salty" and "peppery" and little else.  Not only is this not very heathy, it actually was quite boring once I reintroduced natural sugar from a variety of fruits, whole vegetables but no potatoes, and piece of romaine lettuce instead of even good breads as "sandwiches".  While I hope to go back to eating a few pieces of quality bread a week I honestly don't miss whole wheat bread sandwiches compared to the romaine lettuce!  I also am back to eating many small meals a day most days.  Last night was the exception, as we went to a Mongolian grill and I definitely enjoyed it!  I resisted eating a whole bowl of rice by myself which also allowed me to get thirds (yep, thirds) but truly enoy the vegetables and an extra serving of meats.

One thing I learned from my friends who are unfortunately going through chemo right now is that our taste buds are rapidly growing cells, and as my body replenishes them, the longer I go without overwhelming them each day with lots of sugar and salt, they become more sensitive to normal amounts instead of mega-doses of these tastes.  I had two small thin mints over the weekend, and was nearly shocked by how strong they were, instead of eating them by the handful.  Two were enough-as the tastes exploded in my mouth since I hadn't had chocolate in about 10 days.  While losing weight wasn't the goal (better health was) I have dropped nearly 12 pounds in just over a month and still feel healthy and am just as strong.  This is further proof that if we eat foods closer to the way God made them and enjoy all the spices and flavor in natural foods, our bodies respond with health and vitality.