In this big adventure of getting healthy...truly healthy, I feel like I need to remind my listeners/readers/friends of several things.
1- I am not perfect! You can ask anyone around me, I cheat. I know I shouldn't, I usually suffer for it, but eating healthy is NOT my first inclination. It would not be a stretch to call me an addict...a sugar addict. I love sugar! I know, in my head, what to do for good health, but I am not perfect. I am hopefully normal, working hard every day to be better and stronger and ultimately treating my body like the temple that it should be. I might get discouraged when I eat something wrong and feel bad, but I don't waller and blow it. I just pick myself up by my bootstraps and get back on the wagon. Even if I compare how I was eating 2 years ago to now, I am eating at least HALF the sugar, the gluten and the preservatives. Thats 50% less! I would say that is an accomplishment. That said, I would encourage anyone trying to be healthier, not to view it as a DIET...it is a LIVE-it. It is a process and you may not be perfect immediately. I am a work in progress and I have made dramatic improvements in my life and I hope to make many more.
2-You need to treat the WHOLE body. I had an "Ah-hah" moment last fall when I realized how hard I was working to eliminate bad foods and insert good foods. But what was I doing to my skin? I am a face product junkie and I used products full of hydroquinones, bleaching agents, and many other toxins. Our skin is our largest organ. Whatever we put on our skin (Hair, lotion, skincare products), they all go into our bodies and thru our liver. We have to treat our skin with the healthy "foods" too! Educate yourself as to the good and the bad ingredients. I have found enormous benefits and comfort in my oils products.
3- It takes time. I mentioned it above, but taking on a healthy lifestyle in a world of unhealthy habits and options every where we turn is hard! I have discovered that I climb on one wagon at a time, learn it, grasp it, and master it. Then, I start something else. For instance, I learned a lot about Stevia initially. It is a sugar substitute. I learned to look for products without sugar and with Stevia. I have found some great products that I really like that I use regularly that have Stevia, like my protein powder. There are different types of Stevia: spoonable, powder, liquid. I really learned how to use it and when it use what. Then, I started to learn about coconut oil and how I can substitute for other oils and use in which recipes. I just found it to be overwhelming to start from ground zero and change everything in my life at once. It is very easy to get overwhelmed, discouraged and throw it all out the window. Getting healthy is a process and every step you take towards a better life is improvement. You don't have to be perfect from the start.
4- Find Accountability. I started this adventure out of desperation. I was one sick girl and I had tried every avenue with my doctors and medications. Changing my diet was my last ray of hope. There is no possible way I could have accomplished what I did without the support of my husband, my parents and all my friends. Most importantly, the power of prayer is especially intense when you are looking death in the eye. The healing I have received is in no small part due to the power of prayer. I never take that for granted and know, thru object confirmation from my doctors, that my "looking like I do" does not match what my insides look like. God is good.
5- Foods have changed! The reason we have so many people with GI issues is because our "fresh foods" have turned into genetically modified chemicals. Diabetics are taught to use fake sugars which are nothing more than a science experiment. Our bodies don't know how to digest chemicals that were created by man. Fake sugars are terrible for our bodies. Wheat is no longer the same wheat that used to grow years ago. It has been tampered with in a lab to resist bugs and pests and grow bigger and stronger. In doing so, chemicals have been added to our "fresh" foods. People aren't intolerant to wheat or gluten...they are intolerant to the chemicals IN their wheat. Even if you are a very fortunate healthy person these chemicals, plus the known carcinogens that are considered "preservatives" in all our other processed foods are going to contribute to bad health.
6-You must advocate for yourself. Good Health works both ways. There is no way a doctor can ask you the perfect questions to get to the bottom of your health every single time. There are far too many reasons you can have a stomach ache, for instance. If you don't think your doctor is headed down the right path with you, tell them. If you feel worse than you think they know, ask for blood work. Every time I start something new (i.e. changing my diet), I ask for blood work. That way I have an objective measurement for myself and for the doctor to tell him what I changed and see what the results are 3 months later. I did the same when I started with my oils. I always want to be able to prove my feelings objectively. I want every line of defense to prove my intervention works!
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Monday, March 24, 2014
A Reluctant Health Nut Advocating for Herself
I am amazed daily at the eye-opening moments that I have about my health. I am also amazed at the opportunities the Lord continues to bring to me to share what I have learned. This journey is a reluctant one. I am reluctantly healthy. I love sweets. I love to eat. I am retraining my brain to "Eat to Live" instead of "Live to Eat". Eating is social for me. I love to entertain. I love to cook big meals. I have been "forced" into this journey, but willingly forced. I mean, who doesn't WANT to be healthy, right? I just don't feel that I am an expert on health and nutrition, but I do have a passion for sharing what I am learning.
When we are sick, we go to doctors. I was trained in the medical model as a therapist...find the symptoms and treat them. That's what MD's are taught. I am learning that this is not what I want for my body at all. Our symptoms are "red flags" telling us there is something wrong with a bigger system. So, if we treat the symptom, we are covering up the warning signs and we are totally missing the bigger picture. I want to find the root of the problem and treat that...not just the symptom. I take my sister as an example. For years she had migraines. She took migraine medicine, struggled thru lots of pain without 100% relief. She found out accidentally thru a stress fracture that, in fact, she had Celiac Disease and probably had for 15 years. Once she changed her diet, do you think she had migraines? Nope. The migraines were her red flag. A red flag that they consistently tried to cover up. She is now trying to heal her body of thyroid disease and osteoporosis (at age 44) because of all the years of untreated inflammation causing malnourishment. She never had a GI symptom.
I have also found that while there is a place for medication, I don't want the big guns that I have ingested running thru my veins any more. They are causing their own problems in my body. Being ill is enough to deal with. I certainly don't need to deal with side effects of the drugs that are supposed to be making me better. I want to try a natural remedy as my first line of defense. I fully believe that God created plants and flowers and leaves and barks for a purpose....all the many places we get natural healing oils and products. He didn't give us a pharmacy when he put man on earth. He put man on earth in a garden full of trees and flowers and plants. He gave man everything we needed...and without side effects! I believe we have created our own need for a pharmacy. Most doctors aren't telling us about eating healthy to eliminate our illnesses, obesity, etc. As a population, I would say that many of us would rather "pop a pill" than make the effort to eliminate our every day "bad habits". Even worse...go thru surgery because we don't want to eat healthy, but want to be thin. It's much easier, right? When I told one doctor that the only relief I found from my pain (despite loads of painkillers) was changing my diet. He replied, "Thats hogwash!" He prescribes drugs...not a healthy diet.
I know I am in a unique position. I have a medical background. I have endured Crohns Disease, getting progressively worse for 20 years. I am able to tell my doctors things that maybe someone without the medical knowledge couldn't. On top of that, my favorite GI doctor in Tulsa told me that Crohn's patients tend to know their bodies better than any other patient. I know "the why" behind meds and understand why one might work and another wouldn't. Or in my case, why none of them work for me. I can explain the difference between 10 different ways my tummy hurts...seriously, it amazes my husband every time.
I have always felt that my Crohn's Disease began in high school after a long bout with Tetracycline that my dermatologist prescribed. I was on it indefinitely and prophylactically. Subsequently, I got "puffy" for no reason, and had a yeast infection at the same time. That was the beginning, that I know now, of having a Candida Overgrowth. My doctors now don't know how to comment on that matter...at all. It is becoming much more accepted and believed that with our generation of antibiotic-users a high percentage of people have Candida Overgrowth. Within the year, I had my first tummy pain and each year got worse and worse until I was facing emergency surgery to open my stomach. Based on how I feel, I believe my Crohn's began due to overuse of antibiotics prescribed by my dermatologist. It killed the good bacteria. We didn't know about probiotics then, so the good bacteria was never replaced and the bad bacteria took over. With all the bad bacteria in my body, my immune system was suppressed and the Crohn's Disease appeared. I was probably harboring it in my body and because my immune system was suppressed, it couldn't fight it off. And so began my fight against Crohns Disease.
I have never been comfortable with suppressing my immune system in an effort to control my Crohn's Disease. But that is the only treatment that works for me currently. However, it is funny as I recently read that new studies are revealing that Crohns can be treated by balancing the good bacteria in the gut. If they had asked me years ago.....
I regret having the surgeries I did, as had I known I could treat the inflammation with diet and essential oils, I would most certainly have done that. But I didn't know. Just like we didn't know that Tetracycline would have so many bad lasting effects. The bottom line is that you have to advocate for yourself. Don't trust everything your doctor tells you. Research it. Read about it. Find out "the why". This is YOUR body. And you only get one healthy body. Treat it...like a temple. Just as scripture tells us to. I don't think people fully understand that until you have faced bad health. It's no fun and certainly not at such a young age. I am 39 and have been "sick" since I was 20....half my life.
I don't want to say that I have lost faith in Western Medicine, but I have gained faith in Eastern Medicine as a first line of defense. I believe in natural remedies, if not for any other reason than God put them on the earth for a reason. Eat as pure as possible and eliminate nasty preservatives from your diet. And finally, you MUST advocate for yourself. Don't assume that the doctors have it all right! Read, dig, research, and come up with your own opinion as well.
When we are sick, we go to doctors. I was trained in the medical model as a therapist...find the symptoms and treat them. That's what MD's are taught. I am learning that this is not what I want for my body at all. Our symptoms are "red flags" telling us there is something wrong with a bigger system. So, if we treat the symptom, we are covering up the warning signs and we are totally missing the bigger picture. I want to find the root of the problem and treat that...not just the symptom. I take my sister as an example. For years she had migraines. She took migraine medicine, struggled thru lots of pain without 100% relief. She found out accidentally thru a stress fracture that, in fact, she had Celiac Disease and probably had for 15 years. Once she changed her diet, do you think she had migraines? Nope. The migraines were her red flag. A red flag that they consistently tried to cover up. She is now trying to heal her body of thyroid disease and osteoporosis (at age 44) because of all the years of untreated inflammation causing malnourishment. She never had a GI symptom.
I have also found that while there is a place for medication, I don't want the big guns that I have ingested running thru my veins any more. They are causing their own problems in my body. Being ill is enough to deal with. I certainly don't need to deal with side effects of the drugs that are supposed to be making me better. I want to try a natural remedy as my first line of defense. I fully believe that God created plants and flowers and leaves and barks for a purpose....all the many places we get natural healing oils and products. He didn't give us a pharmacy when he put man on earth. He put man on earth in a garden full of trees and flowers and plants. He gave man everything we needed...and without side effects! I believe we have created our own need for a pharmacy. Most doctors aren't telling us about eating healthy to eliminate our illnesses, obesity, etc. As a population, I would say that many of us would rather "pop a pill" than make the effort to eliminate our every day "bad habits". Even worse...go thru surgery because we don't want to eat healthy, but want to be thin. It's much easier, right? When I told one doctor that the only relief I found from my pain (despite loads of painkillers) was changing my diet. He replied, "Thats hogwash!" He prescribes drugs...not a healthy diet.
I know I am in a unique position. I have a medical background. I have endured Crohns Disease, getting progressively worse for 20 years. I am able to tell my doctors things that maybe someone without the medical knowledge couldn't. On top of that, my favorite GI doctor in Tulsa told me that Crohn's patients tend to know their bodies better than any other patient. I know "the why" behind meds and understand why one might work and another wouldn't. Or in my case, why none of them work for me. I can explain the difference between 10 different ways my tummy hurts...seriously, it amazes my husband every time.
I have always felt that my Crohn's Disease began in high school after a long bout with Tetracycline that my dermatologist prescribed. I was on it indefinitely and prophylactically. Subsequently, I got "puffy" for no reason, and had a yeast infection at the same time. That was the beginning, that I know now, of having a Candida Overgrowth. My doctors now don't know how to comment on that matter...at all. It is becoming much more accepted and believed that with our generation of antibiotic-users a high percentage of people have Candida Overgrowth. Within the year, I had my first tummy pain and each year got worse and worse until I was facing emergency surgery to open my stomach. Based on how I feel, I believe my Crohn's began due to overuse of antibiotics prescribed by my dermatologist. It killed the good bacteria. We didn't know about probiotics then, so the good bacteria was never replaced and the bad bacteria took over. With all the bad bacteria in my body, my immune system was suppressed and the Crohn's Disease appeared. I was probably harboring it in my body and because my immune system was suppressed, it couldn't fight it off. And so began my fight against Crohns Disease.
I have never been comfortable with suppressing my immune system in an effort to control my Crohn's Disease. But that is the only treatment that works for me currently. However, it is funny as I recently read that new studies are revealing that Crohns can be treated by balancing the good bacteria in the gut. If they had asked me years ago.....
I regret having the surgeries I did, as had I known I could treat the inflammation with diet and essential oils, I would most certainly have done that. But I didn't know. Just like we didn't know that Tetracycline would have so many bad lasting effects. The bottom line is that you have to advocate for yourself. Don't trust everything your doctor tells you. Research it. Read about it. Find out "the why". This is YOUR body. And you only get one healthy body. Treat it...like a temple. Just as scripture tells us to. I don't think people fully understand that until you have faced bad health. It's no fun and certainly not at such a young age. I am 39 and have been "sick" since I was 20....half my life.
I don't want to say that I have lost faith in Western Medicine, but I have gained faith in Eastern Medicine as a first line of defense. I believe in natural remedies, if not for any other reason than God put them on the earth for a reason. Eat as pure as possible and eliminate nasty preservatives from your diet. And finally, you MUST advocate for yourself. Don't assume that the doctors have it all right! Read, dig, research, and come up with your own opinion as well.
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