Growing up my family lived the yoyo diet lifestyle of the '90s; Slim Fast, The Atkins Diet, Weight Watchers; Richard Simmons, Denise Austin, and Tae Bo with Billy Blanks, just to name a few. When my Aunt Wannie would find a new diet, my mom would always try it with her and if mom was on a diet, we were all on a diet.
Mom started nursing school when I was in middle school. She was always studying or in class, so we started eating fast food almost daily. I remember the summer before I started high school, we tried the 6-week body makeover, a diet and exercise program that was supposed to be tailored to your body type. I lost about 30 lbs that summer and tried to always use what I had learned as a guideline for how I should eat.
My dad was diagnosed with colon cancer a month before my 16th birthday. I spent that summer driving him to and from chemo and radiation appointments, eating whatever snacks were around. I ate like total garbage. When school was in, I was frequently going out to eat with friends and my favorite food of choice was chicken fingers or wings smothered in ranch and hot sauce with fries, or Chicken fried steak with biscuits and gravy and drinking on the weekends. Senior year, my mom put me on a new diet program, I don't even remember what it was called, but they weighed us and taught me portion control, and gave me guidelines to follow. I just ate smaller portions of junk. By the time I graduated High School I was over 200lbs.
I experienced a deep depression right after high school and decided I couldn't live the way I was living anymore. I went on a 6 week fast and spent time researching healthy diets and started working out 2-3 times a day and lived off of Blue Rockstar Energy Drinks because they were loaded with vitamins and antioxidants. When I did eat food, it was a chicken finger but I would take off the breading and use hot sauce instead of ranch and skip the fries, or an orange or the ice cream from McDonald's minus the cone. I wouldn't eat but drink alcohol instead, because I refused to eat carbs and no more than 500 calories a day. I was taking every kind of supplement to keep myself going. I lost 80lbs in 6 months. I was doing Yoga, Pilates, and Zumba, and working out in the gym. I thought I was doing awesome. 🙄
Fast forward to 21, when I had my first daughter. I ate as healthy as I knew how, breastfed her for 12 months, and then made everything from scratch. I refused to feed her processed baby food. She was never going to have junk. 🙄 I took outdoor group fitness boot camp classes and I would put her in the stroller and run 5 miles, every day. I eventually went back to the gym- 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, practicing heavyweight training and running the track. I was drinking 2 gallons of water, eating my weight in protein, and taking a handful of supplements. I thought I was in the best shape of my life; I was at the lowest weight since probably the 7th grade and my physical strength was unbelievable.
Meanwhile, I was ignoring all the side effects of PCOS, which my 80-year old Obstetrician told me was caused by working out like a man and he referred me to an endocrinologist, whom I will refer to as, Dr. Know-it-all. Dr. Know-it-all said I was his healthiest patient and I was put on Metformin for insulin resistance following a single blood test.
Mentally, I was a fucking mess; I had been drinking a liter of tequila, on the daily, for years. I drank tequila because there was no sugar in it, so it was good for me, at least, that's what I told myself. I developed a rash about 6 weeks into taking metformin and had gained 15lbs. Dr. Know-it-all insisted it was something I had done, even though the only change in my life was adding metformin to my pillbox. I saw a nurse practitioner for the rash and he informed me that it was from Metformin, which will only cause me to have worse issues in the future. I wish I knew his name, so I could thank him. I quit taking metformin that day and the rash went away. Dr. Know-it-all was livid at my decision and told me that being off of metformin would make my life worse. I ignored him and eventually, within a year, the tequila caught up to me. My Aunt Wannie was diagnosed with cancer and I was so sick of waking up sick every day, I decided I was done drinking and my last shot of tequila was August 7, 2017.
September of 2017, I found out that I was pregnant with our little fireball of joy, whom I'll refer to as Munchie, short for Munchkin. I started rapidly losing weight at the beginning of my pregnancy which I associated with diet change and lack of alcohol consumption. By the time I delivered, I had gained 60lbs but had a beautiful 9lb 2oz baby that refused to sleep. I was breastfeeding and I was walking 2 miles, 5 days a week, and eating relatively healthy, or so I thought. I had lost the pregnancy weight plus some and was feeling great.
By the time I was 4 months postpartum I started gaining weight. At my 6 Month postpartum appointment I had gained 30lbs, in 2 months. My new OB-GYN decided to check my thyroid. She referred me to my primary care doctor who ordered a series of blood tests and referred me to a new endocrinologist, whom I will refer to as, The Smart One. After multiple blood tests and more than one physical, I was diagnosed with PostPartum Thyroiditis in January of 2019. I was still breastfeeding Munchie, so medically, there wasn't much I could do. I couldn't do anything to elevate my heart rate, it was already 110 while resting. I spent my days caring for my toddler and taking Aunt Wannie to and from her various appointments.
Then, I started losing weight, without changing anything. People would comment on my weight loss, but it was all muscle. It got to the point where brushing my hair was a workout. I was diagnosed with Graves disease in April of 2019 and was handed a prescription to take 3 times a day, at the same time, every day, indefinitely. I expressed my concerns about side effects and The Smart One assured me that he was only prescribing it because he felt it was worth the risk.
My entire life I had thick, beautiful long straight hair, to my hips. My hair had been my identity. I lost my hair. I lost my identity, I lost my self-esteem, I lost myself and the next drug option was radiation. There was absolutely NO WAY that I was going through that. The Smart One recognized my determination and told me I had a chance at remission, through diet and lifestyle change. He recommended starting with yoga and researching foods for thyroid support and autoimmune diseases. I followed the Autoimmune Protocol and a 15-minute yoga series. I fasted and started slowly implementing things back into my diet. If the food gave me a reaction, I would completely cut it out.
It was actually my experience watching the way Aunt Wannie was treated by doctors that lead me to see that there is a HUGE GAP in health care. I felt that she wasn't being treated as an individual body, not even as a human. I felt the doctors saw her as a huge payday. She had great insurance and money. When her cancer was bad she was treated with compassion and when her tumor was almost gone she was treated as a diagnosis and they started encouraging her to eat sugar and rest; the things that feed cancer. Unfortunately, my aunt was a nurse and she held doctors' recommendations as law. She refused to try alternative, holistic, or functional medicine because her chemo doctor wouldn't recommend it.
I was so angry that I couldn't make her understand what Dr. Know-it-all taught me, that some doctors would never recommend something that takes away from their payday. Don't get me wrong, doctors are great, I just know that every human body is different and every human body needs to be treated differently, in order to heal. I know that I watched Wannie's condition go from bad, to better and back to worse, meanwhile she was my biggest cheerleader. She encouraged me while I ate my way into remission. I have been in remission since July of 2020. She was so proud of me and how far I had come.
If you are still with me, my dearest Aunt Wannie's battle with cancer took her from us in August of 2020. I decided then that I needed to help others in ways that I couldn't help her. I was determined to figure out a way. I knew so much about food as medicine at this point, I knew I could help, I didn't know how to deliver the message. I realized that the only way to fill the gap in health care is to become a practitioner myself. I contacted the board of drug-free practitioners to find schools and now here we are.
Let me just say, I knew A LOT about eating and the effects of food on a cellular level, but I have learned so much more about food as medicine and I have so much more to learn and I can't wait to keep sharing and helping others heal themselves through diet and lifestyle modifications.
This is excellent!!! So happy that you chose the natural route to help heal yourself. Love how passionate you are about helping others. ❤
ReplyDelete