Food Freedom Journey

Disempowerment

I’ve wanted to start a health and wellness blog for a couple years and actually started one with my sister, but ended it when she had to move for her new job and we just stopped. But back then, I always imagined that I’d share all of the practical health things. Which I am… but something in me has changed and I think this is the most necessary component of living as the healthiest and best versions of ourselves. This concept is so difficult to grasp and consistently live by because our world and every aspect of society is telling us it’s not true.

That concept is that the answers about what you need, what action you should take, what help you should seek out, what education you should get into, etc… it's all inside of you. We are taught to seek the external for the answers- doctor, opinions of others, boss, nutritionist, wellness blogger you follow, etc. We live in a world where so many people are disempowered because they’ve been repeatedly taking in messages that say to seek others for answers about our own lives. But in reality, deep down, it's in you.

I’m going to tell you how I figured this out myself. So I realized that I had food sensitivities and I was very practical and logical about how to handle them. I used a food diary, did an elimination diet, did a gut healing diet, did gut healing fasts, and took many more steps to heal myself. I ate primarily vegetables, good quality meat, and healthy fats and oils- very strict paleo stuff. There’s no doubt that this tangible action helped me to heal. But I wasn’t fully healed. There was more to it and that was clear because I was still experiencing issues, even though they were gradually improving. But I didn’t know this because I was so focused on the practical. I was doing everything right and because of that I just felt it was a matter of time. (And I thought like this in many areas of life- when I do that hard work, the results come. That’s not true when the action is not inspired by your heart.)

Finally, I started to look inward due to a few influences. I started my education at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which basically had me use myself as my own first client and I was asking myself these questions and realizing that deep down, I knew that there was more to my health issues than what I was acting like there was. I also read the book Untamed by Glennon Doyle, which is amazing and empowering and explained how much we’re taught to seek what we need from the external rather than the internal. So I started myself to just get quiet enough so I didn’t hear anyone else’s voice, and I could only hear my own voice. When you do this, you create space for messages from God and from your heart and your own spirit to turn into real thoughts that you can then take action from.

I turned in and realized that there was something beyond what my willpower and strict diet could do for me. I was treating my issues as if they were strictly gut-related but there just had to be other factors. And when I asked myself what I really needed? It was help. I was doing this all on my own. I was being hard on myself and my life became hard and the way I was handling diet was translating into the rest of my life. I needed help from a holistic doctor. And even though I thought for years about how nice it’d be to go to a holistic doctor, I also thought I couldn’t afford one. So at this moment, I decided to look around and I found one literally 10 minutes from me that accepts my insurance. And I went to him and he has helped me so much by helping me beyond diet and lifestyle because that was just what I needed. And it’s not what everyone needs, I’ve pointed out before that most people will seriously heal their lives with just diet and lifestyle changes.

I went to him and told him I had a few things I wanted to work on 1) clear the acne on my face 2) clear the cystic breakouts on my body, which appeared in a different pattern than the acne 3) get clear about what foods are harmful to me so I can have food freedom. Okay, so acne, cystic body breakouts, food freedom. Today, I’m going to tell you about the life changing food freedom part of that.

The Standard American Diet Unhealthy Phase

So I had a few phases of eating. And the first was what I’ll call the Standard American Diet Unhealthy Phase, which lasted from childhood to college years for me- it included the regular American processed foods that are most readily available in our country. Some of my favorites were Kraft Mac & Cheese, Sphaghettios, Ellio’s Pizza, Lipton Soup, Chips Ahoy, Oreos, Cheez Its, Doritos, Herr’s Potato Chips, Twix, Kit Kats, Tasty Cakes, Breyers Ice Cream, McDonalds, etc. I also ate freely at any hour, often midnight snacks, and I didn’t know anything about nutrition, like most of us. The reason this is problematic is because these foods are made to be addicting so intuitive eating can’t work here because that’s like intuitively using cocaine. These aren’t real foods, they don’t affect your body like real foods do and they can really mess with your appetite mechanisms and cause us to overeat. But without any education about this, why would ever second guess it. I never did.

The Difficult Disciplined Learning Phase

But then I got to my next phase because everything caught up to me. I had health issues- acne, cystic skin breakouts that appeared to be related to food sensitivities, bloating, stomach aches, fatigue or low energy, PMS, unbearable cramps, brain fog, mild depression, and more. SO I learned from another person on the internet that diet and lifestyle do indeed influence our symptoms. And because no doctor or dermatologist gave me any solutions that even kind of worked, I went all in. So this phase is what I’ll call the Difficult Disciplined Learning Phase. I went all in all research and trial and error. I basically learned to cook from the internet and first cut out nightshades because they were causing some brutal cystic reactions. When I cut the nightshades, these reactions stopped, which was awesome. And it kind of gave me the idea that cutting out foods will cure me. So I went strict Paleo AIP, which would lead me to binge eat non-paleo food whenever my willpower was off, which was often when I was stressed or tired. And basically my whole life became about willpower and being mean to myself because these food bloggers could do it, so I should be able to do it.

Orthorexia At It’s Finest Phase

For a couple of years, I did that and it really didn’t work out too well for me with my lifestyle. But then, I decided to take a step back from full time work as a special education teacher because I lost my brother and my mental health was absolutely awful and my physical health seemed to be too. I couldn’t work full time anymore. When I took a step back in responsibility- I was substitute teaching, and then I decided to be an aide because that’s so much less responsibility and stress and time. And at the same time, I decided to get really serious about Paleo AIP. I remember sitting on my floor after meditating and being like I have the answers- they’re there on the internet and in my books and I know what to do. If I just stick to it- I can heal everything. (The difference between me and others is that most people do these kinds of healing diets for 2-12 months to heal… most don’t do this as a forever thing as I was trying to attempt.) So this is the stage where the Paleo AIP finally stuck long-term. We’ll call this phase Orthorexia At Its Finest. For those of you that don’t know, Orthorexia is an eating disorder that involves an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. At this time, I cooked EVERYTHING I ate. I didn’t eat from restaurants, friends’ cooking, or anything like that. I was obsessed with the quality of food- so it wasn’t about the amount, the calories, or anything like that. It wasn’t about losing weight. It was about not letting one toxic touch the temple that was body and being as healthy as possible so these symptoms would heal. Again, this was very practical and logical. I obviously wasn’t trying to be obsessive or punish myself, but my life really felt like it was all about willpower, discipline, and difficulty at this point.

The Experimental Phase

The wheels began to spin surprisingly while I was in my education at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition and I started to learn about the benefits of a lot of the foods that I had cut out. I also learned about bio individuality and how we all need different things. Simultaneously, the program was forcing me to look within. This is what led me to the day that I decided to look for my holistic doctor! This started the Experimental Phase. With my doctor, I took many steps to work on the foundation of my health- talked about my health history, physical exam, comprehensive blood work, supplementation, etc. I tried a rotation diet to identify triggers for my skin with results of consistent acne. We became pretty sure that it wasn’t about food. I still wanted solid answers, so I begged him to let me take an IgG food sensitivity test. He told me these aren’t always accurate and they are not the only way to measure food sensitivity, but I figured it’d be helpful. But to take these tests and get results about a certain food, you have to eat that food. At this point, I had removed SO much from my diet. So I had to re-introduce them back in. I was so scared that I was going to have these awful reactions. So one by one, I re-introduced the foods. The only thing I noticed was a cyst near my chest after having soy and a cyst near my leg after having a lot of raw tomatoes. I’m brushing over this but this month or so of reintroducing these foods was a big deal for me. And with the very slight issues that happened, it was freeing as hell. The test came back and showed that I didn’t have any major sensitivities, but has a couple very slight sensitivities. I was thrilled. I started to realize… maybe all of those things I did for my gut really helped me with this. But regardless, the acne on my face was still very consistent. It turned out there was an entirely different root cause to the acne issue, which I’ll go deeper into later.

Food Freedom!!!

I had finally realized that the foods I had been avoiding so diligently no longer needed to be avoided. Which leads me to the next phase- FOOD FREEDOM BABY! This is the phase I’ve been living in for the past few months and I’ve never felt so healthy. That’s because although I have the freedom to eat pretty much anything again, I choose to eat healthy the majority of the time. I teach people all about nutrition and toxins and leaky gut and things like that, but I make sure people know that it's not about being perfect. Learn from my story- healthy eating to an extreme extent is not necessarily healthy. Do I think Paleo is bad? No- it's very helpful for certain health conditions and for certain people. But the world we live in is full of things that aren’t Paleo and constantly fighting your desires and living by strict rules isn’t healthy. So if you can eat Paleo and allow for treats without guilt, I feel that’s the best way to go. I still eat Paleo-like but I do eat legumes and sometimes I have grains. But the difference now is that when I go somewhere that has other kinds of foods, I can have some. And even just the lack of rules around it and that freedom has created this dynamic with “treat” foods where I often just want one bite or a small piece or a smaller portion. I KNOW that overeating some crappy food is going to make me feel like crap. I’ve been on this other side where my body feels amazing from healthy food, so there’s no going back to phase 1. But to have a tiny bit every once in a while or on special occasions is everything! I used to feel anxious before going to a party, potluck, restaurant, etc. Now, I feel so much more calm and in control. It’s translated in my life. Things get to be as easy as I want them to be. I get to have as much freedom as I want. I get to eat what I want. And YOU DO TOO!

Since entering the food freedom stage, I’ve been so much better with intuitive eating. The balance created by allowing for “treat foods” has allowed me to trust myself and what I am desiring. I don’t live by rules around food at all. Even meals come when I am hungry for them (which many health leaders don’t recommend.) But I eat when I’m hungry and I pay attention to what kind of food I want. Everything I’ve learned about nutrition is so helpful here because I know how to deconstruct cravings and I know if I’m dying for junk food, I probably need to go to sleep and if I’m dying for chocolate, I may just need some magnesium. Sometimes I want something light and raw like a smoothie or salad. Sometimes I want something warming and cooked like a soup or buddha bowl. It’s been so much easier for me to honor these desires since I began to have this food freedom. The cherry on top is all of the flavorings and variety that I was missing out on before. Healthy food is so good when we get to use all of the healthy things! I love sharing my favorite brands and recipes and things like that because it's just amazing that we can do it this way!

Turn Inward

So the moral of the story here is to always turn into your own body about what you need - what kind of diet you need, what kind of food you want to eat right now, what next step should you take for your health, what next step should you take for your life? The answers are not anywhere- they are already inside of you!!! This is how I’ve figured out many things with my own health. I can’t wait to share more details and I hope this story has helped people understand that obsessive healthy eating isn’t the best solution as much as the standard American diet isn’t the solution! I hope that everyone in the world can experience food freedom in a healthy way! :)