The Weight of the World

  

According to BMI I was bordering on obesity.  Overweight my entire life and completely uncomfortable in my own skin.  I thought there was nothing wrong with eating a whole bag of chocolate chips in one or two days.  If you are a male and you can eat a whole pizza or a whole cake by yourself you are THE MAN, you are cool.  If you are a female and you can put it away like that......you are not so cool! At least that was the observed attitude. I had a problem, a big one.

Not only did I deal with the adversity of being overweight most of my life, but I had a lot of health problems over the years.  Some of these problems were weight related.  I had childhood migraines which I sort of grew out of, but I still get them sometimes and with Aura, which is extremely horrible.  From day one of the monthly gift, each woman has the privilege of receiving, I had issues.  It's the gift that keeps on giving and the one you can never re gift, even though you want to sometimes.  After years of visiting doctors with no answers or help, I started to develop white coat syndrome, and yes it still plagues me!

One doctor thought I had endometriosis, but to be officially diagnosed you had to have exploratory surgery, as per the new guidelines!  I'm pretty sure that is what ailed me all of this time, I had every symptom.  The doctor also told me I would probably have difficulty conceiving and possibly wouldn't be able to have children, but "we will worry about that when the time comes" he said.  Yeah that puts a girl's mind at ease!  He also told me that we could start early menopause if the birth control was not working anymore. The birth control helped balance my unbalanced hormones and eased the pain. "Yeah Doc that's what I want to do, I want to go through the emotional roller coaster of a woman in her fifties when I'm 20!"

After doing some of my own research I came to the conclusion that being overweight can possibly  mess up hormones, affect cycles and can even cause infertility.  Funny how no doctor ever mentioned to me that losing weight might help.  If they had told me that even in my teen years, I would have taken it seriously, but no they had plenty of pills and hormone options for me instead! 

My younger brother goes to the Doctor for a routine check up and the doctor flat out tells him if he keeps going down this path, he will not live for very long.  He was obese.  The very next day all he eats is fruit, nothing but fruit for months.  I have never seen such discipline.  He lost over 100lbs in about a year.  That was nearly half of himself.  I remember attending my Grandmother's funeral and family members who had not seen him in the past year mistook him for my boyfriend, funny!  He was a new person.

He inspired me to start my own weight loss journey.  I tried doing a lot of different things, but  nothing worked. I couldn't get the weight off.  My problem was food.  I could exercise all day long, I loved exercise, but it was not enough.  When I learned more about nutrition and eating healthy, I started to lose the weight.  I hired a health coach from Herbalife Nutrition and I began using their products.  I was extremely skeptical, but desperate and willing to try anything......that seemed safe.  I did not feel good.  I was suffering from fatigue, worsening headaches, eczema, and other gut related issues.  For 9 months I had meal replacements to help me develop new habits, good vitamins, someone to answer to, and someone to motivate me.  As soon as I started losing the weight some of my endometriosis symptoms went away.  Not all of them, but I was able to get off of the birth control and feel mostly normal. I felt great!  In fact I had never felt this good before in my entire life.

The company I work for gives a quarterly award called the Dr. Kjeldsberg award.  It is a health and wellness achievement award started by Dr. Kjeldsberg (former CEO), it's kind of a big deal.  The company always encourages a healthy lifestyle.  I received this award in 2011 for losing 45lbs and changing my lifestyle. I went from a dress size 14 to a size 6 for a total of 5.8% body fat lost.  I have been able to keep the weight off mostly, but I have had two children since.

  
As soon as I had a baby the endometriosis was gone, I have had no problems since the birth of my daughter.  This confirmed to me even more that what I had been dealing with was in deed endometriosis.  One thing that can cure or lessen the symptoms is to have a baby, ironic since those who have this condition sometimes can't have children, but many do.

One day I looked in the mirror and had the thought, "This is what I'm meant to look like, this is me".  Finally I felt comfortable in my own skin.  I had this overwhelming feeling that Heavenly Father wanted me to go through this, not only to be healthier, but to be empowered and to be who He needed me to be.  This was the weight of my world! 

After all of that those gut related issues I mentioned earlier started to creep into my life and with full force!  I was now dealing with leaky gut! I think that was the after math and a price I paid for eating so terribly most of my life.  I truly did not take care of myself.  This was probably the worst I had ever felt before. Even with all that I had learned through weight loss, here was another opportunity placed before me to learn more.  I got to a point where I could not eat anything but fruit, without getting knots in my stomach and curling into a fetal position.  I was lactose intolerant for 4 years.  I was severely malnourished.  With leaky gut, holes develop in the intestinal lining and so the body does not absorb the nutrients it needs.  I thought I was developing celiac disease.  I don't want to go into too much detail here, but food is not EVER supposed to look the same coming out as it does going in.  My body was not breaking down anything.  I had eczema all over and hives as well.  Eczema can be a sign that the body is trying to purge itself of toxins or other things that are not supposed to be there (undigested food escaping into the blood stream due to holes in the intestinal lining).  It can be a sign of digestive issues. 

My sweet and amazing husband just happened to help produce a radio show for a chiropractor.  After listening to many of his shows he thought that he could help me.  Again, going into this with great skepticism, we went in and I had a biomeridian test done.  Long story short, this test gives you an idea of how well your organs are functioning, sure enough digestion was weak.  So, they tell me to go on the GAPS diet and eat bone marrow soup for 2 months, along with the Standard Process gut cleanse.  Suddenly I felt like one of the snake victims Moses advised to look at his staff to live.  It seemed so simple, too simple, really? That is going to heal my gut?  With my past medical experience in mind this seemed simple to me, no extensive testing, no journey to find the right medication plus side effects, no surgery, and no additional appointments to address unknowns.

This process was difficult and time consuming, it took discipline.  As per the GAPS diet, I went off of ALL grains, sugar, most meat and I had to cook my fruit and vegetables.  I made my own almond flour bread every day and I had to make bone broth soup every week, not to mention it was the middle of July.  Cutting the bone marrow out of bones was no picnic either.  When people say "eat Grandma's chicken noodle soup when you are sick, it will help you feel better", there is some truth to that.  Back in the day this is how people made soup, with the marrow.  It does have healing properties, especially for rebuilding the gut.

After 2 months of this, I was no longer lactose intolerant, I could eat anything I wanted!  Now I really felt better than ever before.  My gut has been in tip top shape ever since!  The gut literally is your second brain and it has just recently come to the attention of the medical community.  "The gut is more important than we thought", I have read in recent years.  Take care of it.

Moral of The Story

If you want to change, you can! Trust me if I can, so can anyone! You have to believe in yourself and make it happen.  If there is something about yourself or your life that you want to change, you are the only one that can do it!

Sometimes we over complicate things or look beyond the mark when really the solution can be simple.  Some people thought I was crazy and still do.  People told me I couldn't do it!  It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, I know for myself that it worked.  For me, good nutrition is the baseline for good health.  Nutrition is a good place to start if you want to feel better.  Nutrition is simple, input equals output.  Think about it like this, how well would your car run if you only put vegetable oil and water in it? So it is with our bodies, if you don't give it what it needs, it won't function properly.  The world we live in is all about the fast food and convenience meals, but you can't always get good nutrients from that.  As a working mom, I love convenience meals and packaged food, but I am aware that I must be cautious in what I choose to consume. Once you get back to raw whole foods or organic products you will notice a difference in taste (salt, sugar substitutes, and artificial flavors) and the way you feel.  What you eat will affect you for better or for worse.

I am in awe at what our Heavenly Father has given us, we truly have everything we need.  At my most recent doctors appointment, I told my doctor I was taking cinnamon to get my A1c down.  Diabetes runs In my family, so that is something I always keep my eye on.  He pointed out that if I was eating 4 cups of greens a day I wouldn't need the cinnamon.  Food can be such a simple solution to heal ourselves.  One important thing I've learned is that there are several different pathways you can take to get to the same destination.  There are many lifestyles, diets, medications, herbs, and food out there.  The choice is yours.  Good health is priceless, don't take it for granted!

Empower yourself! Do something to improve your health.  When we feel good it's easier to do good!

What is the weight of your world?  Is it time to shed it?  Whatever the weight is that you carry, there will always be others to help with the burden and if it feels like there is no one, there is one!  You can always turn to the Savior of the world, He will help lighten the load.  I have learned not to underestimate the power of help.  Don't be afraid to ask for help if you need it.  I could not have accomplished what I did without the help and support of others, and my Savior, Jesus Christ!