27 lbs down...

I'm not a writer... Or really even a blogger... unless I'm in a foreign country on an amazing journey that God blesses me with. But even though I haven't blogged in years, I wanted to lay my heart out on the table this week and share with you what I've been going through in the last few months...

For about 3 years I have wondered about allergies or intolerances to certain foods but I have not been super serious about listening to my body and looking into what it's telling me. When I came back from my first missions trip to Thailand in 2010, I felt like I had developed an intolerance to lactose or dairy. At first, I tried to avoid it but eventually I was always feeling crappy and dairy tasted delicious and avoiding it didn't make me feel better, so I would just eat it anyways.

I decided to get serious about my health in June 2013 when I was in daily pain after eating, which made me want to “rip out my intestines”. I felt like wishing I could remove my intestines was probably not a healthy thing so I made a naturopath appointment. Apparently, the naturopath I went to was very popular (because he's so good) because I had to wait 3 months to get into see him. So I did what I could while I waited for my September 10th appointment (that I booked in June) and made an educated guess... I guessed that I should stay away from dairy and gluten. Seemed like the most obvious allergies that people have nowadays. After noticing a pattern of intestine pain, I later added eggs to this list. It helped a bit to stay away from these things but not fully.

Prior to my first naturopath appointment, my hairdresser had noticed me loosing excess amounts of hair and wanted me to get checked out for a thyroid problem. I found out that I do not have a thyroid problem but was diagnosed with an iron deficiency which explains why I'm tired all the time. I started taking iron supplements and eating more foods that naturally contain iron.

Finally, the awaited day had come, September 10th, 2013. I went to see the naturopath and he looked at my blood under a microscope. Within about 5 mins of Dr. Ewing meeting me for the first time he proceeded to tell me that I was “really sick,” and I agreed! But I thought it was crazy that he could tell from just looking at my blood. He then continued to tell me a number of things that explained why I was feeling so sick.  I discovered I had 3 parasites, 2 of which were dirty water parasites and one of which was a malaria parasite (lucky me). He also told me I have inflamed intestines (lightbulb moment– that's why I wanted to rip my intestines out!) something called “leaky gut syndrome,” my liver is not working properly (the parasites live there), I am allergic to wheat and that I can’t eat sugar anymore.

Wait, wait, wait... let's back up. I can't eat SUGAR anymore? Like ANY sugar? Like even some fruits have too much sugar? Pasta has sugar? Whole wheat bread has sugar? Potatoes? Dried Fruit? Cooked Carrots? White Rice? SERIOUSLY?!?!?! ....Oy.

Yes all those things have sugar and the naturopath put it this way: Sugar = Pain. Eat sugar, feel pain. Don't eat sugar, don't feel pain. Plain and simple. But for a self-proclaimed sugar-aholic giving up "the sweet stuff" is not that easy of a feat.

However, I hated feeling the pain of wanting to rip my intestines out of my body so I thought, I'm going to do this! What could it hurt? (anymore than it already did) But let me tell you, it hasn't been easy. When I stopped eating things with sugar, I literally had sugar-WITHDRAWAL. I felt like I was detoxing from the sugar and even though I realize it is not alcohol or drug withdrawal…it felt BRUTAL! With that and my new found iron deficiency, it hit me hard and I found myself going through the motions just to try to make it through each day. The only way I can describe how I felt was “un-functionally exhausted”. There were many many days I would force myself to go to work but I wasn't fully present. I was thankful to have routine work and not many system changes during my sugar withdrawal period because I honestly couldn't handle trying to grasp a change at that point. I was so thankful to have a co-worker who understood what I was going through, just because I told her. She knew that sometimes I just couldn't answer the phone; that required too much thinking. Or sometimes I just couldn’t talk, I needed to focus on my work because I was barely functioning. Sometimes I needed to talk and complain that I was exhausted or in a certain kind of pain. She could see the change in me and understood if sometimes I just couldn't function at 100% or even 10%. She understands that I'm constantly sick and it's not a sickness people see which I’ve realized is the hardest type of sickness to help people understand. It's not a cold or a flu that will go away in a couple days or a week. It's a sickness in my organs and insides that goes to the core of my being and affects everything, both mentally and physically. And I've realized, I couldn’t make people understand that I couldn't just call in sick for work whenever I feel sick because if I came in to work only when I was feeling healthy; I would have missed months of work instead of a few days. I'm also thankful that there is someone at work who has similar eating requirements and we are both going through this at the same time. It helps make me feel less horrible that I am being a “picky eater” at things like work lunches when I have to request certain foods like brown rice instead of white. I just want to be normal but at least we can be abnormal (eating-wise) together.

Separate from my health issues, I had also been struggling with my weight on both an emotional and physical level (sometimes using food for comfort or stress-relief). I desired to be in shape and loose a few pounds, but I was never motivated to follow through with the hard work that entails. However, learning to feed my body properly was the start to being able to get healthy in more ways than one. In trying to look at the positive side of all of these health issues, I lost a bunch of weight easily, because I literally couldn't have any "crappy food" anymore. It wasn't a choice. Well it was, a choice to be in pain or free of pain and I was hoping that my choices would allow me to be free of pain.

On top of this I had previously injured my knee (sprained turned into tendinitis) and had been working on healing it for the past 6 months, which meant working out at the gym regularly to make sure I completed the daily strengthening exercises for my knee that my chiropractor had given me. I was motivated to go to the gym because I knew I wouldn't have the motivation to do my strengthening exercises at home and I needed to do those to dance (so my knee would be strong enough to swing dance again)! It was definitely hard that these things happened at the same time because I felt like I was stripped away of everything I held so dear: sugar, aka. comfort food and dancing. Honestly take away anything else, dairy, gluten, wheat, eggs, fine fine fine – but don't take away my sugar! And my whole being, heart and soul, misses dancing. However, there is something valuable in the fact that they happened together because it motivated me to go to the gym to get my knee better and along with the changes in my eating habits put me on track to living a healthier life altogether.

My sickness combined with not being able to eat very many types of food, (which aren't healthy for me anyways) working out and strengthening my injured knee... is taking me on the road to becoming healthy and healed (its a long road) the bonus is, I am loosing weight. I just want to be clear this was not the ultimate intent but rather just a product of trying to heal my intestines and feel healthy again and I knew being at a healthy weight would give my body a better chance to fully heal. So, when I discovered this bonus, I set goals for myself in my weight-loss journey. And my first goal was, lose 20 lbs, and when I did I would give myself a non-food reward of a photoshoot. So I reached my goal and by the time I was actually able to book my photoshoot on November 11th, 2013, I had lost a total of 27 lbs (since June!)

Weight is a hard issue to discuss and alot of times people unmeaningly impose their own weight insecurities on others. I'm proud of where I'm at in my journey but I know even in myself something so small can be hurtful even if  it is said unintentionally. Weight is such a sensitive subject and everyone is at a different stage of their weight journey whether they are consciously aware of it or not. I urge you to be cautious when you talk with anyone about weight in any capacity. Though this is something I still struggle with; I promise to try to be open rather than defensive when talking about this subject because I am by no means an expert in this, but rather a student learning and gaining insight in the process of the journey of my life.

Please don’t go to a foreign country in hopes of getting bitten by a mosquito carrying a parasite so you can take the same weight-loss journey I have. I promise you it's not a fun journey. Rather, go because God has called you to go and make an impact in that country or culture. Or go because you want to experience a different culture and the beautiful people that live in it.

Now that all of that's been said, when you ask me how I am and I respond with “good question” or "okay". Just know that being “okay” is actually a huge feat for me. In truth, it's such a day by day even moment by moment process that I am unable to accurately evaluate how I am feeling fast enough to come up with a genuine response right away. And if I respond with a “good” that's either a good sign or I just don't have time to go into details about how I actually am. Please don't ask me if I'm feeling better just yet (that's like the worst question right now) because I won't be feeling better for a while. I know this is a long journey and I'm prepared for that.

Truthfully, if you asked me a few weeks ago I would have said, I'm starting to begin to feel normal again and I almost had a grasp on what I can and can't eat. I wasn't there yet but I could feel my body getting better, my energy rising and I was feeling closer to normal than I have in awhile. Unfortunately, that changed again this past week and I'm not sure why. But I started getting dizzy spells from time to time especially when I stood up after sitting. A week ago Thursday, I also felt “unfunctionally exhausted” again (which I have pinned as my key way of describing how I feel) and I literally did not know how I was going to make it through Friday to rest on Saturday. So thankful for the prayer and support of my small group, I know that's the only reason I was functioning normally on Friday. Prayer is an amazing thing.

So as I continue this journey, know that, I don't know the answers or how long this will take. But please give me grace and support as I face this... I'm doing the best I can to appear normal and be there for people too. I have so many desires in my heart that I can't fully follow through with right now, like coffee dates with friends to catch up on life or full out fast song swing dancing (like to Footloose... I die everytime I'm sitting through that song! So if Footloose is playing and you see me sitting by myself, come over and rock out with me to that song; it would mean the world to me) and many more things that I wish I could do. But I do know I need to be responsible because I'm the only one who understands my body and when I need to rest, I know I need to listen to what my body is telling me, which sometimes I'm prone to ignore.

Today as you read this I have reached my second goal of 30 lbs lost. My mom and I will be going to Victoria to visit my adopted Oma as my non-food reward for reaching this goal, and I'm so looking forward to doing that in the New Year!