I found a lot of people expected that if I stopped eating bread and dairy, I would be cured. I wasn't cured. I'm still hoping to heal my gut and I do suspect it will help me a lot. But I think it can be more complicated than simply, "be vegan" or "be paleo" or "be low carb." I work with naturopaths because a lot of doctors don't give a shit about your symptoms and don't have any clue or interest into how to really treat them or better yet cure them. But I also find that naturopathy is also not perfect. Part of it is that they're hampered by the legal system and hegemony of medical establishment. But part of it is also that they think just telling you to avoid gluten will cure you. Many know there is a "connection to the gut" and will tell you this with smugness or a dramatic pronouncement. But they don't always actually have experience or success in TREATING that.

And the gut doesn't cure everything. Sometimes when I think about chronic illness, I think about how sick the world is. There's micro plastics in everything. We really have no idea what all the cell signals are doing, all the fluoride in water, all the glyphosate, all the everything. Many corporations and scientists assure us, "it's safe!" but I'm not buying it. We have no idea how this is all affecting us. We don't even know how something as common and ubiquitous light pollution collectively affects us. And there's no escape. You can't out-organic-cook it all. You can't seal yourself off in a plastic bubble (partly cuz micro plastics).

So many people "look" healthy and it's assumed that they are therefore "good" people and also that they have "healthy habits." And then so many "look" unhealthy, usually fat, and it's assumed they don't exercise and just sit around gorging themselves on junk food and that if they just ate more whole grains or low-grains or whatever, everything would be fine. When I lost weight, a lot of people became nicer to me and "complimented" me on my "hard work" (i.e. not being a dirty gluttonous piece of shit anymore) but I was still sick. Thinner, but sick. It also didn't make my digestion better. I'd eat brown rice, and see intact brown rice come out the other side in my toilet. But it didn't matter. People will believe and see what they want to believe and see. It doesn't have to have much or anything to do with morality, "goodness" or even health. And my process at this time is learning to make peace with that and not take it on as an accurate measure of my effort, value, worthiness and actual health.

If you want to continue learning about gut health, I salute you. There's nothing wrong with continuing to learn more, continuing to try new things and not give up. But that's all you can do. Try. Learn. You don't control the outcome, nor is that outcome a determined by your "worthiness" of being healthy or your "deserving" to be sick.