This one is gonna be personal, but I wanted to share the battle I have been dealing with for over a year now. Let me first start off by saying, like many girls, I was diet obsessed. I am talking every diet out there, I tried! I gained and lost 20lbs three times in a year and a half. So. Not. Healthy. I would starve and deprive myself for weeks, loose the weight and then gain it back plus more. Food was all I thought about, especially the things I couldn't have, they consumed my mind. Im not sure where this obsession came from, I was never even very fat. My guess is maybe from when I use to be into modeling. I was signed with an agency and spent months doing runway prep for an upcoming show and all I kept hearing was to loose weight. Let me tell you right now if I was the weight I was then, I would be the happiest person alive. I could eat whatever I want and still have a six pack. I was bone skinny and that still wasn't enough for them....now cut to college. At 19, I moved out and realized I got to choose the foods that I ate, how fun is that? No more good for you veggies, all junk food and soda! Guess what happened? BAM 30lbs over the next three years. This is when my diet obsession started. I did weight watchers, counted calories, ate lean cuisines, drank only protein shakes, went to medi weight loss clinic, the 21 day diet and did the infamous HCG diet. Any of my close friends that I work with or live with reading this, you know how crazy of a dieter I was! After the HCG diet is when all of my stomach issues began. For 21 days I ate nothing but 500 calories. No breakfast, one protein with one veggie and one fruit for lunch and dinner. Can you imagine how unhealthy that is? I lost weight but I was the most miserable person ever!
When I started to eat real foods again after the three weeks of HCG is when I began to have awful stomach problems. I would bloat out like a balloon after every meal, healthy or not. It was awful, over the past year and a half I have seen several doctors. At first I was tested for a gluten allergy, negative. I then had a endoscopy for them to tell me I had gastritis. I then had surgery done to remove my endometriosis, which we thought was contributing to the enlarged stomach. Although it cleared up pain, it didn't solve my problem. I then was told I have a small lactose allergy (probably from not eating any dairy for three weeks and then suddenly eating it again) and I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I stopped seeing the doctors for a while after that due to frustration. A few months ago, I had severe pain in my right side under my right lung. I went to the ER and they thought it was my gallbladder, after a HIDA scan, my gallbladder came back clear and negative of any abnormalities. (Thank God) They also thought I had a stomach ulcer and I was put on prilosec for a month. At my follow up GI appointment my doctor told me I had SIBO, small intestinal bacteria overgrowth and put me on 2 weeks of antibiotics. This only made it way worse. I went back and we then thought it could be candida and I went on 7 days worth of diflucan, the anti fungal. Didn't work.
While visiting my holistic chiropractor (there for my back) I mentioned some of my stomach problems and she immediately told me to change my diet and gave me more information. That's how my new obsession started. I realized that everything I put in my mouth affects my digestive system. It has been 2 months now and although I still have bad days, I have a lot more good days. I am still trying to find out what I can and can not eat. What is gonna make me flare up and what keeps my stomach flat. The big thing is I no longer have stomach pain after I eat. It use to hinder my daily life, my poor boyfriend would only hear me complain about my stomach all the time! All of my free time went into researching how foods could heal the body and I found out that there are more people like me with stomach issues out there! I know it will take a while to completely know what makes me feel good and to loose these extra "college eating" lbs but I do realize that it took years of bad decisions for my body to get this way. I have no doubt that my countless diets have something to do with my GI issues.
As a nursing student, I do countless hours of research on my patients and majority of them have contributed if not caused their conditions. This is frustrating for me because I am there to make them better and when they leave, I don't want them going back to their old ways. Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol CAN be prevented. All of these problems cause additional harm to your body, making your chances of good health even worse. You can also reverse disease with food! I cannot preach that enough!
I can say for the first time in my life, that I am consciously healthy about what I choose to eat. It doesn't consume my thoughts and I feel satisfied after eating. It is a huge passion though, one I love to talk about ;) I no longer binge and count calories. I enjoy whole, good for you foods until I am full. I HATE the scale, I usually go by the way I feel in my clothes now. I don't weigh myself a lot at all. I am not a number and a number doesn't define me. My boyfriend is so great at telling me how awesome he thinks I look and that's good enough for me. I wish I had the power to get into every girls head and tell them everything I have learned and delt with. It doesn't have to be that way! Don't get me wrong, I still get self conscious! But I know I am doing everything I can do to be good to my body and I have just added exercise so it can only get better! Ok that was a hard one, very personal and humbling to talk about. Hopefully someone will relate, please feel free to ask any other questions!
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