[Piglette]

Hello. I haven't been online in a very long time, probably not since the summer. I didn't get bored of the forum or anything, I just tend to do that. I am flaky and all over the place. Anyway...

I am struggling with something that I don't really talk about. I have just started CBT but I have not brought this up, and I'm getting so fed up with it that I think I might have to. The thing is, I worry about health. A lot. And I spend a lot of time online researching what foods are beneficial for a number of ailments, and what things actually cause illness. The contradictions are frankly amazing and driving me crazy. Such and such will prevent this but BE CAREFUL it can cause this! Also, things that you consider completely harmless are apparently very dangerous. Here are some things that are driving me completely wild:

- Bottled water can cause throat cancer from the plastic. I can't remember how this works, but I've been afraid of bottled water ever since, and we buy them a lot for convenience, and because I get light-headed a lot and need to take water out with me.
- Omega-3 can cause cancer, even though everybody raves how beneficial it is. We eat lots of fish and I eat oily fish for the vitamins and for its supposed benefits to acne-prone skin. Ugh.
- Soy causes breast cancer (an annoyance for me as I am a pescatarian AKA I eat fish but not meat.)
- Processed meats cause colon cancer.
- Soda contains ingredients like aspartame and acesulfame-K, which do all sorts of things and should be avoided. Even soda water should be avoided because it's carbonated. This does very bad things.
- Teas like spearmint and chamomile have deadly side effects if you take tricyclic meds like I do. This is annoying as I get indigestion and I wanted to try peppermint to help, but apparently I can't. They can also make indigestion a lot worse (how ironic).
- Vegetables do great things, but only as long as you cook them for the absolute perfect time. Any more minutes and the nutrients will die! No pressure then.
- We all know how awful sugar is. Checking labels for sugar is one of the most boring, frustrating things. Everything has sugar so why bother?
- Salt, also. I really don't want to spend life looking at labels.
- Crisps (potato chips) have an ingredient that I can't remember the name of that you should never eat, ever.

There are definitely more that I can't think of right now. I tire of worrying about it all. Even things that are not food-related drive me crazy, like chem trails. I don't want to worry about chemicals from airplanes falling down onto me when I go out.

I probably sound completely crazy. Being healthy is wonderful, but being afraid of everything? Spending a lot of time researching and worrying? Not so much. There are so many contradictions and warnings out there. A lot of scaremongering. I don't want to think about them any more. I don't want to worry about what something might potentially do to me. I want to just EAT like everybody else does.

How can I get over this? I want so much to feel healthy because I feel so ill and sickly all the time, and I absolutely loathe that feeling. I have light-headedness and foggy-brained feelings from my antidepressants, indigestion, muscle pain, and neck pain from terrible posture. These have nothing at all to do with diet but I hope that a perfect diet will make me feel better. I do eat things like chocolate so I don't deny myself unhealthy things, but I try to get 90% of my diet as healthy as possible. I'm tired of it.

Thank you for reading this rant. As I say, I don't talk about this. I wanted to get it off my chest.

[1776]

Never mind.

[eskielover]

I understand what you are saying.....I hate going grocery shopping for things I don't normally buy (which is most of the time)....because I read all the labels to decide which product I want to buy....& look for as much of the bad stuff as possible......but then, I haven't been sick in 6 years since I left my stressful marriage......so there has to be something about that also.

However.....I also realize we are all going to die anyway...& dealing with anorexia from stressful situations....I realize sometimes that eating anything is more important than worring myself into even worse anorexia because of the labels......so I do the best I can......NO MSG......unless it slips through in something I missed. I use raw sugar & agave syrup for sweetining......& I find sometimes I'm healther than those who are really worried about the labels even worse than I.

Some foods I just like to eat & that's that.......so I enjoy.....I just don't go over moderation on anything & that's really the key

[pbutton]

I had to get help with my anxiety to start to get past my feelings like these.