Full disclosure: this post may get icky and/or super personal. Yet I think that sharing my own experience discovering a mild lactose intolerance might help some of you out there.

Two years ago I wasn’t very good at listening to what my body was telling me. I had a stressful job that came with a floor-to-ceiling “snack closet” full of Cost-Co sized bags of chips, candy and even giant liquor bottles. Working 12-14 hours a day, I subsisted mainly on the contents of the snack closet, plus our nightly “catered” dinners (which generally were full of fat, butter and oil). Needless to say, I felt GROSS, and gained weight at a pretty rapid clip.

In terms of the “gross”-ness, well. I was sick to my stomach A LOT. I felt heavy and sedentary. Occasionally I was nauseous, but mostly it was queasiness in my tummy area and all the added super gross things that come with an unhappy intestinal track. I figured it was all the fatty, gross food I was eating.  I stopped eating it as soon as summer was over, but the icky body feelings didn’t go away! My symptoms reminded me of friends who are gluten intolerant, and I had this panic-inducing moment of OMG PLEASE DON’T TELL ME I HAVE TO GIVE UP WHEAT.

Then I talked to a friend who, for various medical reasons, had to drastically alter the way she ate (and dropped a lot of weight and got ridiculously healthy). She mentioned to me that she had developed a lactose intolerance during college, and that my symptoms sounded very similar to what hers had been. So experimented with an “elimination” test — namely I cut out dairy completely for a week.

Um, yeah, it was the dairy! It was a complete newsflash to me that you can *become* lactose intolerant as an adult. Now I am hyper aware of all dairy products, how much of them I can eat/drink (if at all), and how they make me feel afterwards. There’s an amazing positive feedback loop you get from feeling good (fit, lean, light, not too hungry/not too full) – when you feel good, you eat better (and less). I imagine that for years I would eat my beloved dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, cream based soups, etc. etc.), feel heavy and gross afterwards… and then figure “whatever” and eat more!

Now of course, I am not completely lactose intolerant.  I don’t get deathly ill, like people who are fully lactose intolerant may. I’ll survive if I have diary. But I’ll feel like incredibly ill for a few hours.

The good news? Not all cheese is high in lactose. THANK GOD. I can eat hard cheeses (I have no problem with sharp cheddar and Parmesan), but have to really limit my favorite soft cheeses. I’ve experimented with Greek yogurt and it doesn’t make me sick — YAY. But I no longer drink milk, put milk in my coffee (woe), eat ice cream (rarely, at least) and I avoid cream-based food items like cheesy soups.

I’m writing this because I feel that I’m not unique in this situation. Since opening up about it, I’ve found several of my friends are exactly the same when it comes to dairy! If you’re out there reading this, struggling with your weight and feeling gross, try an elimination diet. Definitely stop eating greasy fatty foods. If you still feel gross — cut out dairy! It’s been a lifesaver for me.

Also a lifesaver? Lactaid. When I really want cream cheese on a bagel or ice cream, I take one of these pills with my food. You can buy knock-off brands from pretty much every major drug store. I also use Lactaid brand “milk” for my cereal. For coffee, I’ve switched to Soy Creamer, though if I use just a *tiny* bit of half & half I feel fine.

There is a life after dairy… and it feels MUCH better!

Folks, we have our Jamie’s Food Revolution finale! The Los Angeles United School District has voted to GET RID of flavored milk in its schools.

Of course, the LAUSD won’t let Oliver have this one. From the USA Today article:

Some board members were rankled by the perception that the district was caving in to Oliver, who unsuccessfully lobbied the district to be allowed to film in local schools.

“I really don’t understand why we’re letting a TV chef dictate our policy,” said board member Tamar Galatzan, who noted that many health advocates including the American Heart Association say the nutritional benefits of flavored milk outweigh the harm of added sugar.

So it’s a coincidence that the LAUSD is getting a SHITTY reputation for being short-sighted and truculent on national television and then passed this motion? Ok.

I, for one, am thrilled. I take issue with some of Jamie’s myopic views on nutrition, school lunches and obesity (and this show is really wearing on my nerves something awful), but the one thing I am 100% with him on: flavored milk. In L.A., children get 8 ounces of fat free milk with 20-27 grams of sugar in the chocolate and strawberry flavored varieties. That’s a lot of sugar for 8 ounces, and they’re not even getting the “good fat” of 1% or 2%?! The LAUSD points out that many of the fruit juices they serve have 27-29 grams of sugar per serving… um, dude: SUGARY FRUIT JUICE IS ALSO BAD.

But I digress. If you give kids a choice between “plain” milk and flavored milk, they’re going to choose the flavored milk. Duh. I wasn’t allowed to have flavored milk much as a kid (either because my mom was being nutritionally sound, or we couldn’t afford Nestle strawberry milk mix — who knows!), but when I could get my hands on it OMG WATCH OUT. Naysayers say kids won’t drink plain milk without flavors. I disagree. If you give kids all these “options” and expect them to pick the healthiest one, you are dreaming. Children have no impulse control. They’re children! (srsly: there is fancy brain development stuff to back this up) If they have one option, and it’s a healthy choice? They won’t know any different and they will happily drink the milk.

I’ll close with the last few paragraphs of the USA Today piece. They hit the nail on the head:

“Thirty percent of our kids are obese or are on track to diabetes,” said Jennie Cook of Food for Lunch, a coalition advocating nutritious school food. She has been pushing the district to eliminate flavored milk for the past year. “This is a social justice issue.”

Emily Ventura, a researcher with the University of Southern California’s Childhood Research Center, noted that a number of experts did not recommend flavored milk as a healthy choice. She said 6,000 LAUSD parents had signed a petition to eliminate flavored milk from the district.

Some school districts have opted for a middle road, using natural sweeteners like cane sugar, beet sugar and Truvia to sweeten milks instead of high-fructose corn syrup based flavorings.

But others say children should learn to drink plain milk.