The Journey, Part 4

I do not believe that my illness is some form of punishment. I believe its genetic and that the hormone therapy I spoke of earlier negatively effected my endocrine system and was simply the key my body needed to jump-start multiple autoimmune diseases that would have eventually started on their own. Doctors do not know the cause of Hashimoto's but you can read more about their theories here.


I believe in God. And I believe that through prayer and worship I have everything I need. That he gives us everything we need. All the information I need to help myself is out there. I just have to have my eyes open and be willing to look for it.

I know many will ask, if I worked so hard, if I lost those 25 lbs and was finally looking in a mirror and liking myself again, why did I let myself slide back? Well old habits die hard, I guess. And honestly? I just changed the outside. I didn't do anything the first time to deal with emotional and spiritual side of my issues. We've all heard one person or another, or watched a scene on a TV show or read an article about this exact thing: LOSING THE WEIGHT DOES NOT MAKE ALL OF YOUR PROBLEMS MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR!

The weight is just a symptom, it is NOT the problem.

And now in March of 2013, my faith in God has brought me back here. To my blog. Many will find the title of my blog a little disconcerting when placed alongside my faith. Please don't, because I'm not perfect. And at the end of a long day sometimes I drink a glass of wine or two. And that doesn't make me any less of a Christian. It just makes me an honest one. I'm sarcastic and kind of vain. I'm not always the best mommy but I'm trying. I don't always do what I should and I recognize that I have faults. And I want to share my knowledge, my life lessons and my journey with all of you.

My hope is that this blog helps me to let go of the control I so desperately cling to. To put it all out there and know that ultimately nothing on this Earth is within my control. To know that sharing our lives is why we are here and that if we don't, we will leave this Earth not having given everything we could. And when I've spent my last days here I want to know that I've done everything within my human power to leave it a little bit better.

Eating whole foods and learning as much as I can about food and nutrition has become a passion I want to share. Thanks to my pilates trainer, who is also a health coach, my beliefs about food have greatly changed.  Please check out her blog The Whole Beet. You will learn so much!

I'll post recipes and crafts. I'll post style guides and fashion tips, exercises and outfits. I'll post medical knowledge that I learn, and as I go along on this journey of treating my body with whole foods, I'll share it with you. I'll post my kiddos shenanigans, my kiddos sweet moments, funny stories about my husband and our relationship. Helpful hints on how to make your marriage amazing (it's become one of our focuses this year, so I'll share that journey as well). And last but certainly not least. I'll share my faith with you. I'll share my God with you. Because I am called to. Because I need to.

I hope you'll join my journey.   

The Journey, Part 3

Time to make changes. Well the sentence seems easy enough but it just wasn't that simple. I've heard it said about Celiacs, that giving up gluten is the hardest thing in the world to do because everyone eats it. Gluten is everywhere. It's a part of our culture. And that no Celiac will ever just give it up and be done. There come a moment where a choice has to be made, and that choice is to view gluten as a poison. And that until you view the gluten as a poison, that every time you put it in your body you are poisoning yourself, you will never give it up completely. How does this correspond to me? Well, I sometimes eat junk. Highly processed, full of crap junk. Why is this important? Well it upsets the natural balance of my endocrine system. And since my endocrine system has little balance to begin with, basically I'm f*cking up the inside of my body.  (Sorry if the language offends, sometimes it is very much needed.)

And what's worse? I don't feed my children that junk. Just me. My oldest son, Carson, is allergic to corn. That means corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup as well. And basically from the time he started consuming table food instead of baby food, the pre-packaged, processed crap has never been in our house. And for the first year and a half we just didn't buy it. Then we started buying it and not eating it in front of him. And then we started buying it and just telling him he couldn't have it. Which now, looking back on the behavior, was just plain mean. And what it all boils down to? Selfishness. I wanted to eat girl scout cookies and candy bars and chips and sugary cereals and candy and snack crackers and the list could go on and on.

So in January 2012, I went on the Reboot Your Life challenge with the help of my Endocrinologist. Please go read all about it, I highly recommend it. Keep in mind, it is not for everyone. We tested all my nutrition levels, protein specifically, because during the Reboot you give up all animal products. Basically you go Vegan. And my husband, God bless him, did it with me for the most part. He ate what I ate. So did my kiddos, only I'd grill up a chicken or turkey breast to add to their meal. They are growing boys after all! I purchased a juicer and I started. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't the hardest 15 days of my life. Because it was. I learned a lot about fruits and vegetables. What is organic? And why it's better for you. What veggies and fruits should always be organic and which ones can you successfully wash and clean. Which vegetable has more potassium or Vitamin C or Zinc. Same for fruit. Why I should eat which one and what do they do in my body?

We ate baked acorn squash with mushroom and oregano stuffing. We ate cold soups (turns out I like those) and tons of salad. I juiced beets and fennel and celery and cucumbers and pineapples and pears and strawberries and kale and spinach. I learned about fiber content and why you shouldn't juice the spinach and the kale and you should blend it into your juice afterwards.

And halfway through I had to add lean protein back into the mix as my levels had become too low for my doctors liking. But you know what? By the end... no hives. I went 14 days without a single hive for the first time in over a year and a half. It was pure heaven! And the best part of it all? I stopped taking the steroids. The day I started juicing, I threw out the bottle. And I've never looked back.

And thanks to the juicing I was able to start working out again. I still had to shower immediately afterwards, as leaving the sweat on my skin is a big no-no for the hives, but as long as I drank my juice daily, going to the gym and giving 110% was not a problem anymore.

The juicing gave me back my life. And while that sounds over-dramatic, its not. It changed my belief system about modern medicine and healing our bodies with food.

At the end of my Reboot I had lost 7 lbs, and my doctor and I had that discussion about my weight. I was now sitting at 200lbs. We ultimately decided on prescription weight loss. Phentermine, click for more information. I was nervous, the side effects were definitely scary sounding but I knew I needed help. And they worked. The only side effect I had was dry mouth. And when I worked out I was sweating more than normal but to be honest that one didn't bother me.  In a matter of 3 months I dropped 25 lbs. I was ecstatic!

And so she took me off the phentermine. And while I kept up the exercise and the diet, slowly the weight began to creep back up on me. It was Spring so being outside more meant that I was moving more and the weight was slower to come on this time.  Summer came and we traveled and ate out more, so I got lazy. In Texas, the heat becomes unbearable by August so you stop going outside as much and find yourself sitting in the AC. And preschool started back up for he boys and I found myself looking in the mirror.

It had taken about 6 months until I had gained it all back + some. And by October of 2012, I was back to hovering around 200 lbs and I was back to hating my body and myself. And with the self loathing came the little voice who said it was okay to eat the junk. And the more junk I ate, the worse I felt. And the worse I felt the less I cared. And the less I cared, well that was the downslide that brings me here. Once again overweight. Once again suffering from the hives. Because even though I know, food is the cure I can't seem to make myself cure myself. Why?

Well because it is human nature to be selfish. To want things even though we know they are bad for us. To do things even though we know we shouldn't. To not do things even though we know we should.

Something else happened in October of 2012 though. We, my husband and I, found a church. Grace Avenue Methodist Church, I believe found us, that God put me there. Because finding Grace Avenue is what has led me to this point, where I can be honest and up front about my journey. Re-focusing my life back onto my faith. Focusing on God, teaching myself to let go of my silly need to control everything, has centered my mind and allowed me to look at what I've done to myself with both forgiveness and honesty.  I let my human nature lead me away from everything that is important. I let my wants and desires rule my choices. In terms of the Christian faith, which is what I believe in, I sinned.

So what next? Why am I here, telling you my story?
  

The Journey, Part 1

Almost 2 years ago I began breaking out in hives for what appeared to be, at the time, no reason. I had put on over 40 lbs in just over a year, even though there had not been a drastic change to my diet. I was lethargic and exhausted and if I found the motivation to go to the gym, it wasn't much of a workout and didn't last for long. At the time I was 27 years old and a stay-at home-mom to a 3 year old little boy (5 now) and an 11 month old little boy (almost 3 now). And thus began my search for answers. That search has been a whirlwind of a journey to say the least and now, I've decided to share this journey with the blogosphere and the world.

 

It all began Easter weekend 2011. I was in my hometown with my family and after going for a walk and doing a little mat Pilates on the back porch with my sister Julie, I noticed what I thought was a bug bite. I'm extremely allergic to most bug bites, meaning that I don't get the normal little bump or red area but something more like the size of a half dollar, raised welt. To be honest I just didn't think much of it. I took a Benedryl and went about my day. As the weekend came to a close, I had noticed a few more of these but again, just thought I'd gotten into something, popped a Benedryl and went about my day. The next couple of weeks progressed and became scary and strange.

These welts, turned into full blown hives. And when I say hives, I do not mean a small rash. I'm talking huge raised, red welts that itched and burned and if God-forbid you should dare to actually scratch one in hopes of relief, the pain and burning was close to unbearable. This coming from a woman who went through natural childbirth with my oldest. I can tolerate most things pretty well. And they were not in places where you want things to itch. My rear, my private areas, all over my breasts, my stomach and back, my "trunk" for lack of a better term was covered. They were not all day and were definitely worse at night. Benedryl seemed to control them but I was to the point of taking 6-8 per day and living on an influx of caffeine to keep myself going. Needless to say, this was not the way to parent, let alone live. So I finally went to our family doctor.

He prescribed steroids. Which makes perfect sense. I was describing what appeared to be an allergic reaction to something and over-the-counter antihistamines were no longer cutting it. Besides the nasty side effect of being wide awake, the steroids did nothing. I saw no relief from the hives. And then one day a migraine hit. This was not abnormal, I've gotten hormone induced migraines that correspond with my menstruation starting after delivery of my first son. Hormones, ladies and gentleman, are in charge of your body, don't you ever forget it. So I took a prescription strength (800 mg) Ibuprofen and waited for relief. It didn't come and in fact the hives that had been relatively small that day in comparison to days past just got worse and worse. Until I was not able to sit down or be still at all, I was crying, I was in pain, I felt like my skin, all of it, was on fire. Besides the fact that my behavior was scaring me, it was scaring my children. So as soon as my husband walked in that door from work, I went to an after hours clinic. That was the day that it was explained to me that Ibuprofen makes skin conditions worse. I had basically done this to myself! I was given a steroid shot, which worked, even though I had been on steroids for over a week with little to no relief. And I was told to follow up with my doctor.

So I did. We decided to see an allergist. And until I could get to the allergist I was to track everything I put in my body. I've been food journaling now for over a year and a half. It is almost 2nd nature to me. The allergist asked all of the basic questions. Had I changed any of my soaps? Detergents? Cleaning products? Was I eating anything new? Was I doing anything new? And the answers to all of these questions was no... well sort of.

In February of 2011 I had started undergoing a series of hormone injections in hopes of slowing down the growth of pre-cancerous cells on my cervix. Since I was 18 I have undergone multiple procedures to remove these cells and this time the cells were much more aggressive than they ever had been before so we opted for a newer treatment. The hope was to give me a few more years, child-bearing years that is, before we needed to discuss other options. I've also for years had been dumping my eggs from my ovaries. I'll go through months where my ovaries release multiple eggs at a time and then have a year of complete normalcy. All of this internal behavior... hormone related. These hormone injections made me moody. I gained weight. I began to suffer from depression. I was put on yet more medication to help alleviate the side effects. And by June of 2011, 2 months into what I describe as "hive hell", we were done with the hormone treatment. And for all intents and purposes it worked. I've gone 2 years without any more growth of these cells and have not had an ovary dump (that's my own little catch phrase) since.

But at what cost to my body?

By July I had had allergy testing done. I was allergic to everything, at least it felt that way. Chicken (you read that right), all squash (yellow, zuccini, pumpkin, butternut, etc.), strawberries, pineapple, peaches, broccoli and the list of environmental allergies is too long to get into. But grasses were a big one. So for 6 weeks I gave up all of that in hopes of something. Anything! And by this time we were 2 months into summer. In. Texas. That meas 105-degrees and no wind and 2 little boys who wanted to stay busy. And I noticed something. Heat and sweat made the hives significantly worse. So not only was being outside horrible it kept me from going to the gym. The confinement of a sports bra (I'm a DD, so we must be locked and loaded for exercise) added to the heat and sweat meant that before I could get in my door and in a cool shower, the hives were rampant and I was miserable. So lets do the math: hormone treatment + steroids + no gym time = a very overweight and unhappy girl.

I know where some readers are going to go here, so I'll just stop you now. Obviously I have some fault in the over weight factor. I could've cut my calories from 1600 per day to 1200 when I realized all the other factors at play. But I didn't and hindsight's 20/20. It doesn't help me any to beat myself up about it now. And to be honest while I know it would've curbed the gain a little, it wouldn't have curbed it all.

And besides it turned out there were other problems to contend with...

Stay tuned for The Journey, Part 2.