Quitting dairy was the very last item on my Find Out Whats Causing My Chronic Congestion to-do list. Ive been struggling with this issue since I moved to Tampa five months ago, and I am pretty sure its related to allergies, but I wanted to exhaust every possible scenario before opting for an ENT specialist. So far I have tried: prescription allergy meds, saline sprays, a neti pot, hypoallergenic pillows, a humidifier, an essential oil diffuser, nasal sprays, and Breathe-Right strips. I even had the maintenance squad at my apartment community do a mold inspection. Though, since these apartments were built in 2014, I was pretty certain they wouldnt find anything. They didnt.
So, dairy. Dairy is on the list of things to eliminate if you struggle with congestion. Ive always had a certain sensitivity to milk, but its never been something that has affected my life so much that I needed to eliminate it. I simply need to be close to a bathroom after drinking a Frappuccino, is what Im telling. But, I figured, lets try eliminating dairy! Who knows perhaps my sensitivity morphed into a full-blown allergy and merely haphazardly coincided with my move. Stranger things have happened, right?
Last week, I eliminated dairy from my life and it led to some really interesting epiphanies on my end. First of all, I never realise how much dairy I eat on a daily basis. I drink a cup of coffee with full-fat creamer most mornings. I like pizza and pizza rolls and cheddar-and-bacon potato skins and cereal with kine milk and sub sandwiches with mayo and butter on my veggies. I like cheese string cheese, feta cheese, mozzarella cheese, all of the cheese. And chocolate. Oh, do I love chocolate. Milk chocolate , not dark chocolate. I love creamy, delicious, soothing milk chocolate.
My diet? Was going to have to go through a drastic shift for this dairy-free experiment.
But I did it. I ran a week without feeing dairy.( Largely, I had some oops-I-didnt-realize-this-contained-dairy-until-I-ate-it moments .) It was a good week and it was a bad week, and I want to start with what didnt go so well.
It was bearing. Dairy is in every good thing in this world. I was so hungry the whole week. The first few days were outrageously hard. Ienjoy feeing healthy I slept better and felt more energized than I have in a while
