Progress Update!
A year ago, I couldn’t fit into my workout shirts without looking like I was trying to stuff
Today, being able to slip into my workout shirt again, I’m just grateful I didn’t give up. Trust me when I say that there were many times that I wanted to do so.There’s still so much more I have to go to get to my healthy weight, and with the holidays right around the corner, it’s gonna get even harder, because I love to cook the traditional dishes for my family. I'll just have to modify, even if I get grief from the clan. I know this stuff isn't easy. I still struggle with terrible salty-spicy food cravings that leave me pining for Hot Flaming Cheetos, yes, I said that right, I pine for those things so bad, I feel like an addict withdrawing as I'm walking away from them in the aisles. These junk food manufacturers know exactly what they're doing to get you hooked to those things. I know they contain excitotoxins that stimulate your brain and make you crave more, so I get how hard it is to give up that stuff. I really believe that food addiction is so much harder to resist than drugs, because it's so easily accessible, but that's a conversation for an entirely different blog post.
When it comes to weightloss, if you’re comparing yourself to celebrities with personal trainers, full-time nannies, and private chefs, STOP! As women, we tend to be terrible about this, especially at the check out aisle, surrounded by those Photoshopped, glossy magazines. That's just not how the rest of the world lives. Many of us are struggling to pay bills, keep our families fed, watch over our own kids, keep up with the daily grunt work, and on top of that, we have to find time to stay healthy, so don't be so hard on yourself. Every person is their own island, and you're the one who has to decide how you're going to live in it. Use yourself as the only measurement by which you choose how you're going to improve the quality of your life both spiritually and physically.
If doctors keep telling you there’s nothing wrong, and you know there is, get another opinion. For me, it started with a decision. The decision that I needed to find better doctors who would listen to my problems. Then, that decision led to action. I researched as much as I could to find the answer and followed through with doing the things that were going to make me feel better. If you want to read more about how I did that, you can click here, but if I were to do this over again, I probably could've avoided all those medical bills by doing things in this order:
Jax
myself into a sausage casing. I don’t say this to degrade myself. It’s the best way I can
describe what I saw, and I wasn’t happy with what I was seeing. Whatever body shape we are, we all need to be happy with what we see and how we feel, and I can admit with complete honesty, that I didn't feel happy. The person I knew I could be on the inside- happy, energetic, creative- was not reflecting what I looked like on the outside. I feel that if we can admit with total honesty that we can do better about our health, then we can start working on the root cause of the problem, and start making some real, positive changes in our lives. Whether it’s genetics, emotional distress, nutrition, imbalanced hormones, chronic stress, there’s a root issue that is not just keeping us from losing weight, but from feeling well, from being the best version of ourselves that we can be, and unfortunately, most traditional doctors couldn’t solve my problem. In a span of five years, which started in 2012, after I got back from a self defense certification, my body crashed, and I started a rapid weight gain that totaled to about 75-85 lbs. I really can’t give an exact number, because I stopped looking at the scale after 75 lbs. It was demoralizing to see the weight rising each time I got on the scale, no matter how hard I exercised, or what I ate. I knew there was a solution, I just didn’t have the answer. I felt like agent Mulder from the XFiles: "I knew the truth was out there," I just had to keep looking for clues to help me find what was causing all my problems with inflammation, brain fog, fatigue and the sudden weight gain. Ok, I admit that last sentence is a little corny, and I may have overshot just a bit- that’s my sense of humor, talking, sorry- but you get the point. I guess for me it started with a mindset, that this chapter in my life was not how it was going to end.
Today, being able to slip into my workout shirt again, I’m just grateful I didn’t give up. Trust me when I say that there were many times that I wanted to do so.There’s still so much more I have to go to get to my healthy weight, and with the holidays right around the corner, it’s gonna get even harder, because I love to cook the traditional dishes for my family. I'll just have to modify, even if I get grief from the clan. I know this stuff isn't easy. I still struggle with terrible salty-spicy food cravings that leave me pining for Hot Flaming Cheetos, yes, I said that right, I pine for those things so bad, I feel like an addict withdrawing as I'm walking away from them in the aisles. These junk food manufacturers know exactly what they're doing to get you hooked to those things. I know they contain excitotoxins that stimulate your brain and make you crave more, so I get how hard it is to give up that stuff. I really believe that food addiction is so much harder to resist than drugs, because it's so easily accessible, but that's a conversation for an entirely different blog post. When it comes to weightloss, if you’re comparing yourself to celebrities with personal trainers, full-time nannies, and private chefs, STOP! As women, we tend to be terrible about this, especially at the check out aisle, surrounded by those Photoshopped, glossy magazines. That's just not how the rest of the world lives. Many of us are struggling to pay bills, keep our families fed, watch over our own kids, keep up with the daily grunt work, and on top of that, we have to find time to stay healthy, so don't be so hard on yourself. Every person is their own island, and you're the one who has to decide how you're going to live in it. Use yourself as the only measurement by which you choose how you're going to improve the quality of your life both spiritually and physically.
If doctors keep telling you there’s nothing wrong, and you know there is, get another opinion. For me, it started with a decision. The decision that I needed to find better doctors who would listen to my problems. Then, that decision led to action. I researched as much as I could to find the answer and followed through with doing the things that were going to make me feel better. If you want to read more about how I did that, you can click here, but if I were to do this over again, I probably could've avoided all those medical bills by doing things in this order:
- Getting the bioidentical treatment first (Bio-TE, I'll be posting about this procedure soon), that would've faciliated my sleep and given me the energy I needed.
- Eliminate gluten and gotten tested for gene mutations to address the nutritional issues I was lacking. Although having MTHFR mutations is one of the main genes that cause issues with methylation and detoxification, I do want to get DNA testing for my whole family, since there are others genes as well that are problematic (see my book review of Dirty Genes, here), but I'll have to do that when our family budget is ready for it.
- Focus on reducing chronic stress.
Jax
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