Guess who up and left without a warning! (FINALLYYYY!)

Since January of this year, something MAJOR had been happening in my life and honestly, it had been messing with my head. I was getting obsessed with it and my friends were getting tired of me. I'm talking about the all too (in)famous eye twitch, the peculiar characteristics of which I have documented in detail here.

Ladies and gentlemen, The Twitch has finally released me of it's torture. And for those of you who're wondering, YES! Yes, I've been walking around with crazy eyes for 9 months. People produce tiny humans in 9 months, y'know? And all I did was carry around an eye twitch for the same duration. Maybe the twitch is like my baby now and it just left my body to enter a new realm? NO! That twitch was the very devil. Diavolos! Okay in that context, it makes sense to call it my baby.

But the good news is, it's gone. No more waiting for my eyelid to behave so that I can apply some mascara. No more fear of winking at random strangers while making eye contact. No more forcing friends to look at my eye every time it twitches. No more realising that I sound like a crazy person when I make people stare into my eyes. No more sympathetic "It's okay, Ankita. We get it" from people who're concerned about my obsession. And no more slapping myself in the eye out of frustration. It's GONE! And I've never felt this free and liberated before! Not even when I passed out of high school.

People told me all kinds of things about this condition in the beginning. My mother's exact words were, "Since it's on your left eye lid, it's a sign of good luck. Or was it bad luck? I think it also has to do with whether it's the upper or lower eye lid. Upper eyelid means good luck. Or was it bad luck? I can't remember now. How's life by the way? Maybe we can get some clues from that". My only response to that was in the form of frantic eye twitching but since she could neither see nor hear it, she got mad and hung up on me. And if you're wondering, yes. Yes, you could hear it sometimes. But only from close quarters. I've heard it and The Husband will agree that he has too. Ignore what he says after that. Ignore the sound he makes after that too. Cuckoo!

Some said that it was caused due to lack of sleep, while some said it was the result of a careless lifestyle. Some asked me to see an ophthalmologist and some suggested the psychiatrist. And the only doctors I consulted (the doctors on the internet) told me that I was dying of cancer. So finally, I decided to do nothing about it and now it's gone.

But I know exactly why it's gone. Despite being the stubborn idiot who will not go to the doctor till the last possible second, I happen to be very conscious of my overall well-being. By that I mean, I do pay very close attention to my body in terms of what it tells me it needs. I just didn't figure out what it needed for over a year and a half because you know, I'm not a very smart person. The twitch was just hanging out on my eyelid for nine months as a subtle reminder of what was lacking and left immediately after I did what had to be done.

You see, the traditional causes for an eye twitch could be a) lack of sleep b) increased intake of caffeine or alcohol c) stress. If anything, all these things have become more prominent in my life in the past four to five months. I sleep for an average of five hours a day, I drink crappy instant coffee to stay up, there are at least two empty bottles of wine in this house every week, and stress has definitely been on the rise. But the twitch still left. And that's because I changed only one aspect of my life - nutrition.

From the time we started living together, The Husband and I got into the habit of skipping lunch. We were both lazy people and to add to that, we both ended up getting increasingly busy with time. Lack of time became a very convenient excuse for a habit that started out of sheer laziness. What we usually did was snack on chips or crisps or something easy and filling and sometimes, very rarely, I'd meet him at work for lunch. But overall, we had two proper meals a day with a 9-10 hour gap in between them and one of them would mostly be from a take-out menu. After returning from our long holiday in August, we both felt the need to pay more attention to the health side of things. We knew we were definitely not in good shape. So as a result of constant discussion and meal planning, we came up with a solution that has been working really well for us. This is what our daily food intake looks like these days:

Breakfast: Fruit/vegetable smoothie.

Lunch: Huel - which is basically "nutritionally complete food ​that contains all the proteins, carbs, and fats you need plus at least 100% of the European Union's 'Daily Recommended Amounts' of all 26 essential vitamins and minerals​".

Dinner: Home cooked, mostly vegetarian on weekdays.

We got into this habit in the beginning of September and in just one month, a nine month old twitch disappeared. The increased fruit/vegetable intake combined with properly spaced meals and regular home cooking has really begun to make things a lot better for us. We can actually feel the difference. And guess what? We're saving a hell of a lot of money doing this. We do still eat out at least twice a week but I think the whole adulting thing might be finally growing on us. After all, I'll be turning 25 in less than three weeks. About time, don't you think?