Intuitive Eating at YUM
One thing I don’t discuss over here at YUM eating (a whole lot anyway) are my personal food and weight matters. I try to save that for Self Employed Writer, but as I grow here at YUM and find my voice a little more I see that often my struggles have a lot to do with the food I create and the recipes I share. Wait, that came out wrong. My struggles have nothing to do with the food I am creating and sharing. My struggles are my struggles. However I am creating food and recipes because I am trying to battle the PCOS / osteoarthritis / degenerative disc disease / binge / overeating /mental health / migraines and that is why I am making all of these YUMmy recipes. I also believe that I have wonderful recipes and stories to share.
Does that sound better?
YUM eating is not a diet or weight loss website. I am over diets. Diets fail. It is a food site. Food is front and center. Food is good. We need food to live. If I lose weight in the process that is a bonus, right? 😉
But food IS a huge part in my recovery from the things that bother me right now. I am a big believer in food being the best medication for what ails me and have always known holistic nutrition was my #1 friend. I’m trying to get back to that. I remember what I felt like, I remember I beat all of my problems.
I’m not sure how I did it, but somehow I found Heather at Kiss My Broccoli. I’m pretty sure I was searching for clean recipes and wham, bam, there she was! I’ve been following her for a few weeks now and her posts make me laugh, they make me smile and they even made me cry. Not a lot. But I did shed a tear. Heather mentioned this book, Intuitive Eating, in her post “Thoughts on Repeat.” It was that photo of all that produce that first caught my attention and as I grabbed my 2nd cup of coffee and settled in for the read I started poking around through some of her older posts. I realized we had a lot of similar taste buds and I knew she was well worth subscribing to. I’ve saved more of her recipes than I should probably admit to, she might think I’m a bit stalkerish 😉
I just uploaded it to my iPad and plan to start reading through it tonight. It’s going to be a slow process because I really plan to take my time with it.
Are any of you facing health issues that could be resolved with proper nutrition? Or have you cured a health problem through nutrition?
Oh honey! Okay, I’ll try to make this short as this is your blog and not mine. I had a CVA (massive stroke) at age 26 and another a year later. I had so many TIAs (mini-strokes) we quit bothering to keep track. I have been so sick since 2006 that I tried to kill myself once. Doctors told me I was crazy and I believed them. Then two years ago I found Dr. Maruffo, a neurologist who listened beyond what I could have imagined. He did so many blood tests that at one point the phlebotomist asked me if she was supposed to take all the blood at one sitting and I told her I assumed so (I passed out in the floor later when I stood up). He worked his way down to doing a gene study on me and it turns out I have a gene mutation. The abbreviation is MTHFR (yes, I know what that looks like, and that’s how I feel about it). This mutation scars the insides of my blood vessels forever so the stuff that makes clots doesn’t have a smooth tunnel to run down, they have all kinds of things to stick to and form huge clots that come loose and hit my brain. Also my liver and kidneys cannot get rid of the pesticides, chemicals, hormones, preservatives, and all the other crap I’ve ever put in my body. It just sits there and has since I was born. It cannot break down meat protein. It simply produces quadruple the amounts of ammonia that every one else’s body does, which makes you very sick. I quit eating meat, sugar, fake sugar, grease (for the most part unless it looks really good) and started drinking tons of water and taking a B-Complex and 50 thousand IUs of Vitamin D a week and I’m doing much better. Migraines are down to a couple a week! No strokes in a long time! Haven’t randomly passed out in public in a couple years! I lost 60 pounds and can walk for about an hour a day! Diet did so much! I can’t fix what I’ve already stuck in my body, but I can sure stop putting horrid stuff in it. I feel so much better! *This invasion of your blog was brought to you by…
Oh, a numbers note: Triglycerides are not supposed to go over 150. When I had my first stroke they were 1400. At my second stroke they were 1680. A later test, they couldn’t tell me what they were because the chart doesn’t go that high. At my last test, after ridding myself of meat, they were down to 400 something. For me that is huge! It is still to high for a normal person, but mine kept going up even on Trilipix medication. Triglycerides will kill you apparently. I am forever grateful to have gotten mine down to a less scary level!
You need to speak to my husband. His triglycerides were in the 1600. He is only 34 and on medication now. They tend to still be pretty high. I constantly tell myself, like preparing myself, that I am going to outlive my husband because he refuses to clean up his diet. He’ll do ok when I cook, but when he goes to school / work / clinical’s and is left on his own to decide he doesn’t always pick the best choices. It breaks my heart to think at any given moment, even at his age, he could have a heart attack. He is also on medication for high blood pressure. 🙁 If I could get us to be a vegetarian family I would. I enjoyed it a great deal and never felt better. I wouldn’t even mind merging to vegan. My only concern is the added soy because of the PCOS.
Well that explains it all! Wow, I have never heard of that. I know when I was vegetarian (not vegan, but super close) I felt so much better, the weight came off quicker and the PCOS was unnoticeable. Which is why they think they didn’t figure it out until the last couple of years. It’s been hard to get back to that because my life is completely different (different husband and the kiddo) and I’m not sure I can switch them over. Although, they do love their vegetables. Since going low-carb my migraines are much more manageable.
Thank you so much for sharing your story with me.
Sometimes I just wish the whole world would understand that the food they eat is most likely the problem and not their actual problem.