User Profile

This journal has morphed from a diet to lose weight journal two plus years ago, to a changing my diet to find health, find hope and find healing.

When I started this journey, I was going to have gastric bypass because I had no idea how to lose weight or be healthy. I had become pre-diabetic and no matter how I ate, how often I exercised or what I did, I was gaining weight and feeling like shit. I wasn't getting help from the health care field either, for the most part.

My first visit to my rhumatologist she suggested bariatric surgery because I had 'such a pretty face' ... she knew it wouldn't help the fibro (being a very thin fibro sufferer herself) but thought it tragic, for some reason, for me to be so pretty yet so fat. I ignored her, but the noise kept in the back of my head as life went on and as the weight kept increasing.

That rhum diagnosed thyroid disease which, eventually, led me to an endo. That endo was Dr. #1 who did not place 'blame' on me for my weight. When getting on thyroid meds didn't help the weight loss (though I did stop gaining and stabilized around 335 pounds) he ran all sorts of tests to see if there were other issues going on endochrinologically that he could address. When nothing presented he had at least giving me hope that there was more to this than will power.

Over the next two years I struggled. My health insurance would pay for gastric bypass but not for a nutritionist since I wasn't diabetic... yet. I saw the surgery as my only way out of the hell that was my body with pain, fatigue and now, it looked like, inevitable diabetes and all the complicating factors that come therewith.

My husband... so amazing... he asked me to try something else. Anything else first. He'd seen this fail and people get so ill from it. I love him and loved his tenderness so I agreed. I joined Weight Watchers (more to document and prove I couldn't lose weight than anything else) and, through my thyroid community here on LJ, learned about Dr. Diana Schwarzbein's program. She's an endo who teaches us how to eat for health and has changed the face of the 'traditional' diabetic diet so that it's healing rather than killing.

I was able to lose about 20 pounds using her dietary guidelines and felt a lot better, but wasn't quite there yet. The last things I held onto were gluten and diet soda, both of which she suggested cutting out completely.

Well, finally, I had to have an endoscopy for my acid reflux to see what damage was being done by the fibro meds. During this time my prayer to God also changed... I stopped asking for a cure and started asking for direction to find healing. Semantics, really, but important. It signified a change in my thinking and desire to effect change... and God responded.

The endoscopy came back fine, but my need to find a reason for my illness drove me to looking up info about the procedure in gastroenterology medical journals. I found one on-line and found an article that I will NEVER forget. The title was simply: Fibromyalgia, Autoimmune Thyroid disease and IBS linked to Celiac Disease.

Dude.

I had the first three... Dr. Schwarzbein advocated going gluten free... why the hell not?

AMAZING results. I felt sooo much better so quickly.

After that I learned more pieces to the puzzle of my health: Candida overgrowth, leaky gut syndrome, copper overload.... all of which required strict dietary changes. A fat girl who was now faced with cutting out:

Yeast
Gluten (wheat, barley, oats, rye and all derivitives thereof)
artificial colors/flavors/addatives/preservatives/sweetners
cane sugar
dairy
softdrinks
soy

.... and since we all 'know' being fat is the result, purely and simply, of a lack of control over food, how was I to do this? Simple. When I cut out the gluten the malnutrition in my body began to reverse and the need for vast amounts of food for minimal nutrients went away. I started eating more normal portions. When I got the candida under control the cravings for sugar and carbs to feed it went away. As healing happened, energy returned and life slowly became good again.

So, this journal is where I process, record and track my health and eating. It's where I find my patterns and record my experiments and research. Because of this, it's important to me that it also be a public journal where anyone can come for guidance, sharing, to guide me, etc. So... if you're wanting to see my story broken down into snips and snatches, go ahead and read... feel free to comment, to advise, to discuss, to play devils' advocat (nicely) and to find bits and pieces to your own struggle for health, too.

As a quick disclaimer, I have a habit of being way TMI in many cases since it's the basest of bodily functions (farts, bloating and poo) that tell us how our digestive systems are working and that's where my problems lie. I don't cut anything here, so just be aware, ok?

:D