Well, happy Wednesday. I had quite a shock this weekend. For the first time in ages I had a light headache Sunday and a raging headache Monday and half of Tuesday. Could it be pollen (say that out loud I dare you) related to seasonal allergies?
Or could it be sugar?
Saturday night was a dear friend’s birthday. We celebrated with normal amounts of wine – I’d even say light amounts of wine relative to my NYC crew or even a family dinner. So alcohol driven hangover seems unlikely.
What we did have that I haven’t had much of in recent history was dessert. A pile of desserts. They were indeed delicious, but I may not have the gut microbiome to handle that level of sugar. Dietary changes do cause microbiome changes.
Which got me thinking about the past few weeks. I had had a chocolate cake slice just over a week ago and felt headachey the next 2 days. At the time – keep in mind it’s Spring in Texas – it seemed reasonable to point to budding trees and pollen swirls. Tree pollens were (and still are) high.
But the tree pollen didn’t go down in the 10 days between those experiments. And I didn’t have those headaches. So . . . it’s looking far more likely that my ability to process sugar or whatever sweetener was used (I’ve always had big trouble with agave – cannot handle) is way down.
It’s a double edged sword. I might miss the random cake slice, but the agony of 48-72 hours of headaches is just not worth it. No cake has ever been that good.
In the name of science and sweets, I’ll test again in a more moderate way. We really did go crazy with the sweet tray. But not this week. I’ve got to get caught up!
I still think the benefits outweigh the detractors of this keto test, but this is friendly fire. I’ll miss you Chocolate Cake.