October 11, 2016

Why it is never ok to settle for your health

A lot of times, I ask myself, "Why am I becoming a nutritionist"? Aside from the obvious fact that I really dig the holistic side of life, it comes down to so much more. In fact, being in school has rather been difficult for me, more than rewarding because it has forced me to take a hard look at reality in the form of my health.

Something people are not aware of, is that a lot of those delicious foods that taste wonderful, but have absolutely no form of health for us whatsoever, have purposefully added chemicals to addict us to them. You may chuckle, but sugar (and I'm talking high fructose corn syrup) is a chemical not derived all from natural resources, but rather made in lab...to make you crave it. There are legit assholes out there doing that. True story

So you find yourself, constantly wondering, WHY can't I stop eating this stuff? What is wrong with me? It really is not you, but rather a chemical you have been ingesting that has given you an addiction. This stuff is in everything. Even things we wouldn't consider sweet. We find ourselves often day dreaming about it, and yet we can't understand the correlation between not being able to let it go. We blame our health (mental and physical) on everything else in the world, but we don't dare sit down and accept that it could be our lovely sweet and caring food. What do you do when you are sad? You eat. What do you do when you are happy? You eat. We have trained our brains and body that food is our comfort mechanism, and therefore without this we could not possibly be happy? Wrong.

Growing up in a loving and health conscious family, I can say I was lucky enough to be aware of a lot of this as a child. Though, when I got out on my own I still became attracted to bad foods. Just to clarify, I am STILL struggling, so please don't assume this comes from a place of perfectionism. Around 20 I started to notice a dramatic decline in my health. First it was constant anemia. Than it was raging periods with headaches and cramps to where I couldn't leave my house on the first day. Than it was weight gain, followed by not being able to crap for a week at a time, to going ALLL the time. To blood tests saying my thyroid was prepping to fail, and that what I was feeling all these years was finally showing up as proof on my blood tests. I thought I wanted this proof, like maybe it could be used as an excuse, so I could hide behind the truth I already knew. Of course I have low energy, Im an anemic! Of course I gain weight... I have Hashimoto's disease! Of course I have crappy periods, I have had 3 kids and my hormones are messed up. Yet, when it came down to it, I had to take a GOOD hard look around and see that the only disease here was myself. Me. I have done this to myself.

When you have a doctor look you in the face and say, "yes someday we will likely have to take your thyroid out or put you on permanent medication", you start to see the truth more clearly. Yet, how sad is it that we can't stop and see what we are doing to ourselves until we are SO far gone? Yet, you know what? It is NEVER too late. I just wont take no as answer when it comes to my health. I won't continue to ruin my body, and use my diagnosis as an excuse.

So back to my point, it is just never okay to ruin your body, and than when you finally get that proof that you don't feel good...give up. You keep trying. Every damn day if you have to! Somedays, you will MOST definitely fuck up. You will eat that cheeseburger, and you will choose to have that popcorn at the movies with your family. It is ok. We are not meant to be all or nothing people. If we do that, we have a very high chance that we will fail, and the guilt will push us back into that mode of giving up and having bad days every day. In fact when you start, you may only have 3 good days, but you know what? That is 3 days you didn't have bad days. That is 3 days, that you cared about your health.

So why do I want to be a nutritionist? Is it to tell you that for the rest of your life, you can only eat cabbage leaves and drink bone broth? Or that if you sniff a cookie you will get diabetes? Nope. Not even close. What I would love, is to be able to show people that it is really ok to start at whatever age, progression of disease, etc. We are not forever doomed. We DO have another option instead of voluntarily taking our thyroid out. We can start by acknowledging our part in our body's history. We can start by loving ourselves so much, that we want to not feel like crap anymore.

This is not where I end by saying, "Trust me it is SO easy". It is not easy. It is fucking hard. Even still, with all of my knowledge of health, I will occasionally and guilt free have something that I shouldn't eat. I will choose that cookie over the salad sometimes. I like to do the 80/20 method each week. 80% of the time I aim for healthy, and 20% of the time I give myself some lenience. Again, if you expect to come out of the gate swinging perfectionism after a lifetime of eating crappy foods, you will fail. Small steps. Cut out soda first? Than work on upping your water intake. Slow small steps to see the change in how you feel. Slow small steps towards not feeling like a shell of who you could be.