My peace with food

I used to think I’m unfortunate of having such a sensitive skin. I’ve been in and out skin center since I was 14, I think. The first 2 years were doing fine, I had probably the best facial skin among the other boys at my age, a friend of mine once made this metaphor that my cheeks are like an apple.

But to maintain such a good skin during puberty was very expensive and painful, I had to face the needles like once or twice every month, sleep with facial cream to heal the wounds after needling and prevent acnes grow. And everytime I came a few days late than what the doctor said I had to return, she would be mad at me. I can understand that without such discipline it would be impossible for the program to work, like if you’re having a diet program, so I don’t blame her for that, she’s just doing what she’s been paid to do. But it felt like a prison to me, so entering my second year of high school I finally gave up the skin care program. I felt so free trashing all those acne creams I had to apply almost every night. I grew my hair longer.

But it didn’t take long until the acnes started to grow, and when I started to feel stressful on my third year in high school—which caused my performance and grades extremely dipped, from 2^nd spot at an average 8.5 to 19^th spot at an average 7.4—the acnes went wild. It even developed to another problem on my scalp. After getting several doctor’s opinion, a dermatologist who specialized in scalp problem finally diagnosed me with a protein allergy. I had to take 10 weekly injections plus several other prescriptions for the following 3 months, and had to completely stop eating eggs and seafood. That was when I first got introduced to wheat bread, and I ate plenty of them during the following 1.5 years recovery from the allergy. So from prison my life had another shift to hell. And finally I returned to the skin center, facing the doctor that was extremely shocked to see how my facial skin had terribly worsened in just 2 years. It was one of my lowest points in confidence, being only 19 but had such a bad look and an eating handicap inside, while many of my friends enjoy their best times of their life. The only entertainment was sport, I watched and played more football, and I started to go to the gym.

My second stint in the skin center worked, though the result was never going to be like the first, and I continued in and out skin center with different clinics until I moved to Jakarta. It needed some laser procedures to recover many of the acne marks, which I haven’t done until now, that’s why it still has most of the “history” from the high school days :-)

It wasn’t until around 2 years ago until I discovered that the actual cause of my acnes, apart from the stress factor, are dairy products and high-cholesterol food. It began when I read in Wikipedia about chocolate, one of my favorite food, that chocolate didn’t cause acne and it was the sugar and milk which the chocolate had been mixed (and most of the times dominated) with that caused the acne. It made sense since the actual taste of chocolate was bitter, like a high percentage of cocoa in dark chocolate, and without the mix (and domination) of milk, and later sugar, it would be difficult for the majority of people—especially Asians and kids—to like it. This interesting fact encouraged me to do a little experiment with my body, by eating the 80% and 99% dark chocolates and stopping any kinds of dairy products—including cheese, butter and snacks with dairy ingredients. To my surprise, the acne didn’t grow, even though I finished the bar in less than a day.

This finding encouraged me to do another experiments with roasted plain peanuts (without any flour coating) and mangoes, two of the most forbidden food by the dermatologists, and I was very very happy to find that they were not as dangerous as told, though the peanuts could still grow acnes when eaten a large pack at once. It was the pork that didn’t pass the test… as well as any food with high cholesterol like egg yellow, squid, shrimp, lamb, duck, ribs, coconut milk, and snacks with extreme sweet and spicy taste.

It still leaves me with many handicaps, since milk and cheese are very popular ingredients in any bread, cakes and biscuits, and pork is one of the most popular ingredients in Chinese food… but I still have the chocolate, the peanuts and the mangoes.

My other handicap has almost nothing to do with acne, but with my blood and overweight. It’s a problem that many people also suffer from, though most still don’t make anticipation, which is carb intake.

As an O blood type, I am not recommended to eat too many (or even a normal portion of, like other blood types) carbs—rice, bread, potatoes, flour, noodles—as my blood wouldn’t digest these carbs easily. It will make it easier for me to get overweight, though it is also not suggested that I stop taking carb at all.

The hardest part of living in Indonesia, and perhaps many Asian countries than Japan, is the fact that our culinary is so rich in carb… so many menus made of carb, even double, triple, or quadruple carb combo. If we go to rice warungs, apart from rice as your staple food you can get spicy potatoes, noodles, and perkedel (potato meatball) or bakwan jagung (corn meatball) all in your plate. Fried rice and fried noodles are very popular food, and they are best eaten for dinner. Sweet martabak (giant pancake) is a popular street dessert, which is also best eaten at night, even late night. Salted or sweet rice cakes, glutinous rice cakes, layer cakes, green bean cakes are also very popular snacks, and somehow due to their freshness are healthier option than many preserved snacks in supermarkets, but they are all carbs too. When O blood type like me eat it like normally other people do, I will easily get overweight, so I had to really limit it, and find substitutes like peanut and soy-based food, or fruits.

Tough, eh?

Well, it is. But despite all those limitations, I’m still very happy to have my body. I never get sick after eating on the streets—like some of my friends who have extreme sensitivity towards food hygiene. I can still freely eat at warungs, which is still one of the best eating experience which only exists in Asia, especially Indonesia.

Let’s just say obeying those handicaps is the way I make peace with food. Besides, it didn’t hurt much if I broke it sometimes :-) Perhaps it’s nature’s way to put a brake pedal in my behavior, otherwise I would easily get diabetes, cholesterol and high blood pressure like many baby-boomers who were late or never deal with their eating handicaps.

I’ll be back to the skin center to do the laser someday. Meanwhile, the past one year I’ve been able to reduce my weight to 75 kg, 12 kg (25 lbs) less than September 2010. Still need to reduce a little more to reach the ideal number, but so far so good. The last time I checked my cholesterol level last month the number showed 140, pretty ideal compared to over 200 around 2 years ago when I was still at 87 kg.

I feel light, and ready to make up for that lost years of youth.

—

Some readings, pardon if some in Bahasa…

• Peter d’Adamo’s Blood Type Diet website, blog and interview

• Change Your Genetic Destiny, a book by Peter d’Adamo

• Relation between carb and sugar with acnes by American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

• The popular belief about chocolate and acne by Wikipedia

• Some articles about chocolate’s health benefits by Cleveland Clinic, AllChocolate.com and Stuart J. Adams, consultant nutritionist via NutraSmart

• Finding on milk by Dr. Hiromi Shinya, an enzyme and gastrointestinal specialist and founder of Shinya Medical Clinic

• PETA on cow’s milk