A good place to start is by eliminating foods that commonly cause digestive issues (which leads to a myriad of other common ailments). The major culprits are GRAINS, LEGUMES, ALCOHOL, SUGAR and DAIRY. Yikes, what's left?
When I first heard about this from my well informed friend Kirsty in the form of the Whole30 (I just did my first links, feeling like a pro!) I absolutely scoffed at the idea, how absurd, no way, pft what next kind of reaction. I now wonder if it was the colonies of bad bacteria in my gut that were causing my food choices.
I've always considered myself healthy and have always done what I can to be as healthy as I can, with the information I had available to me at that time. Unfortunately I now realise that the information to eat LOW FAT and do lots of CHRONIC CARDIO at the gym was probably a recipe for disaster for my gut and adrenals.
I would have never ever ever in a million years cut out the offending food groups mentioned above if I had not felt so utterly shite. I was nauseous, it was like a hangover or morning sickness. For six months very intensively but looking back it was a slow two year build up. I was exhausted, stressed, constipated, sleep was shocking I was feeling how a lot of people say they felt and I became to think it was probably just normal for a mum of two kids who was approaching forty herself to feel. I even goggled exhaustion two years ago and smugly posted on Facebook that the search had suggested that giving up caffeine, alcohol and sugar could help alleviate exhaustion and that perhaps being tired wasn't so bad after all. So I had my coffee on a morning and my wine on a night and that's how I coped on my sugar and carbohydrate roller coaster day of ups and downs, feeling hungry every 2-3 hours, and feeling overwhelmed, stressed and losing it around the 'witching hours' 4-7pm.
I used to get HANGRY (hungry and angry, love that word thanks Slips) I used to feel dizzy sometimes my vision would go temporarily for example at the gym when we went from something lying down to something standing up quickly. But mainly I felt sick, sometimes it was so bad I would get the shakes. Then my thoughts went weird. (This is the bit that upsets me now the most). I started having irrational thoughts, mainly about the kids getting gastro. I was struggling through the day and I couldn't cope with anymore, plus being 100% nauseous all the time, the last thing I wanted was vomiting kids in the house. It was mental torture. My thoughts just went down the negative track all the time and I felt I had no control over them.
I went to see my Dr, she ran loads and loads of blood tests, I had a full body ultrasound, stool samples, you name it...the results came back, there is nothing wrong with you everything looks fine, your iron is a bit low, take some supplements, maybe you have got some IBS but there is no drug for that.
In a moment of crisis and desperation I decided to try gluten free, that again is another post worthy story, this caused a massive gluten hangover for about three days followed by massive change and relief most markedly in my thoughts, no more weird obsessive thoughts, that part happened quickly!
Then I went to see my saviour, my Naturopath Rae she quickly diagnosed me as having Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth , a leaky gut and some irritable bowel syndrome. More on all of these to come. So Rae set about soothing my massively inflamed gut and healing and sealing as well as some delicious (not) tonics for adrenal nourishment amongst other things. I also started on some excellent probiotics.
So my Whole30 ended up looking more like a Wholeish60ish with some liver detoxing in there.
I ditched gluten in April, started my Wholeish60ish in May and now its beginning of September. The nausea is all but gone, sometimes if I've overdone it or its cycle related I get a mild nausea. That's all I wanted, the nausea gone. But soon I started to feel better, then good, then kin awesome! I was getting stressed less, I was having more fun with the kids and making up daft songs just cause I felt like it. My energy started to become constant and steady all day and that aching exhausted feeling was gone. I started to feel sleepy as soon as the sun went down and sleep changed from a fits and starts light sleep to passing out at 9;15pm and knowing nothing until 6:00am the next day. (I thought only husbands could sleep like that!)
OK, so I promised myself I'd stop after an hour of chatting with you, thanks for listening. Next time I want to talk to you about the food I am eating now and what the hell JERF means.
Below is a selfie of Milly and I down at the beach in May this year. I had started my healing process but I still felt very fragile, but I was out there getting on with it, cos you have to when you're a Mum don't you? But I can see in my eyes here that I was suffering.
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