A Little History About Me

For a lot of people, going public with their weight is pretty much horrifying.  You feel ashamed that you ever reached the place that you are.  How could you let yourself go like this?  

For all of us, it happens so gradually.  A few pounds added and you tell yourself it is time to put the brakes on.  But life happens.  Something always seems to put you on hold.  You'll start next week once the holidays are over.  Or, you'll start after you spring clean.  Or when the kids go back to school.  Or after this or that crisis, chaos, circumstance, etc.  Does tomorrow ever really come though?  Usually not.  And so before you know it, 5 pounds have now grown to 30 pounds, or in my case I was 160 pounds overweight.

Most of my life I was average, at least always within 20 pounds of my ideal weight.  After my last baby, who will be 29 this coming January, I gradually became 50 pounds overweight.  I stayed bouncing between 30 to 50 pounds overweight for 18 years of his life. In 2007 I began my climb to my highest weight of 311 pounds.  I am 5'7" which I have always hated being "tall", except when I think about how I would have looked at 311 pounds if I was as short as my grandmother who was barely 5' tall.  Not a pretty thought.

During that weight climb, in 2010, I was diagnosed with NASH - non alcoholic steato hepatitis.  It is the second, and deadly stage, of fatty liver disease.  Fatty liver is not because you are fat.  Many skinny people and small children have it.  It is an epidemic.  It is caused by our lifestyle -- all the chemicals we have surrounded ourselves with.  This includes all the processed foods we eat, even the ones we are told are good for us by the people in the government who are supposedly "experts".  Also, any personal care items, household cleaners, etc -- anything in our daily living environment.  

When our liver try to process stuff it doesn't recognize, it turns it into fat.  Not only does everything we put in our mouths enter our liver, but whatever we put on our skin and head, or even breathe in - all of it finds it way into our liver.  Hence the epidemic of NASH facing our society.  

When I was diagnosed, it was still a relatively new and not understood disease.  A lot has been learned since then.  It is a scary diagnosis.  When you research it online, it doesn't sound good, your chances of surviving seem so slim.  In 2010 I was told I had 3 years to live.

At first I didn't understand the disease.  I began researching it online.  I can't tell you how bad I scared myself with the things I read.  If you have been diagnosed with any disease, you probably can relate to this.  My good friend, Cheryl, kept telling me to get off the computer.  Quit reading all the scary things.  On one hand, I now agree with her.  On the other hand, I needed to read it so that I would scare myself into action on changing the things I needed to change in my life.  

I slowly began removing all the chemicals out of my life.  But my eating was the hardest to change.  That and becoming active. When you have this disease, compounded by fibromyalgia, most of the time you are just plain sick, fatigued, exhausted mentally and physically.  

In 2012 I was diagnosed with cancer in my tear duct by the inner corner of my left eye.  I underwent radiation which intensified the just plain sick and exhausted feeling.

One of the first things I removed from my life was all medications.  I quit taking Tylenol, ibuprofen, cough drops, antibiotics - any and all types of medications, medicated lotions, etc.  I was on several prescription medications that I weaned myself off of, too.  Any time a medication was prescribed for me, I would research and then refuse to take it.   This was my decision, and I was very lucky to have a doctor who understood and allowed me to make my own decisions concerning what I would put in my body.  

I also cleaned out my housecleaning cupboard.  I threw away all cleaners, sprays, dryer sheets, etc.  At this time I began making my own laundry soap, and I used vinegar on rags along with putting aluminum foil in the dryer for homemade "dryer sheets".  I also repaired my clothesline in the backyard and 90% of my laundry was hung outside to dry.  I enjoyed hanging up the clothes outside.  I loved being outside.  I used vinegar, baking soda and water only to clean everything in my house.

I do not make my own laundry soap anymore, but I still only clean my house with water, vinegar and baking soda.  Where I live now, I do not have a clothesline, but would like to again someday.

In 2014 I entered a clinical drug trail for a NASH medication from France.  I was on the trail for a year, and my biopsy at the end of the trial showed improvement in my liver.  I still had the disease, however.  Of course the medication I had been using was still not available to the public, so the end of the trial was a scary letting go process for me.  I was afraid of the disease coming back.  So I prayed for God to lead me to natural ways to cure the disease.

It's funny how we pray for God's help, and when He gives it to us, we say "oh, no, not that.  I can't be hearing You right, Lord".  But God kept putting the same things in front of me.  Finally I listened and began to change my diet.

You see, I had grown up in an era of hamburger helper, instant mashed potatoes, pasteurized milk, frozen foods, and canned veggies.  I labeled anyone who ate natural, whole foods and shunned the boxed meals aisle in the grocery store as a hippie.  Funny, that, because my kids always call me a hippie because I am such an independent person, better known as a 'free spirit'.  Funny because I am so old-fashioned and conservative, and a strong believer in Christ, yet I am a free-spirit.  A free spirit in the sense I do not follow the crowd, I do things my way.

God kept putting the web site "Weston A. Price" in front of me.  And I kept rejecting it because I was not "one of those people".  Finally, I read the site.  I have not looked back at the boxed meal aisle since.  I am now a firm believer in whole foods, nutrition the way God made it, not man.  Eating clean is not a joke to me anymore... I have done it and it healed me.

In 2015, I began eating clean.  I made recipes from my stash of 250 cookbooks, mostly books from pre 1970s.  I used only God made ingredients.  I read labels.  I counted calories.  I began cooking everything from scratch.  I switched to raw milk.  I only bought fresh vegetables and fruit, and if I could afford it, I bought grass fed meats.  

I also began walking up and down my little street.  At the time we lived in San Diego, where I grew up.  One day I decided I was going to start walking.  So I walked down my block and back.  It took me three minutes and it left me very winded.  Gradually I added 3 minutes walks throughout my day, working my way up to a 3 minute walk once an hour for every hour of sunlight in the day (I walked in the rain even, not that it rains that much in Southern California!).  I put on my walking shoes in the morning and never took them off all day long.  I became addicted to my 3 minute walks on my block.  I never went any further.  Just up my block and back home.  I walked out my front door, walked up the street past three other houses, turned around and walked back in my front door.  If I missed an hour, I literally felt like I was going through withdrawals.  I loved being outside for those three minutes.  The withdrawals were not only from the physical activity, but from just plain being outside - listening to the sounds of the city around me, seeing flowers in the neighbors yards, stopping and chatting with the neighbors, hearing the airplanes fly over.  I loved every minute of it.  It was a few minutes every hour refreshing break from my chores in my house.

I lost 65 pounds in 6 months.  I had so much energy I never felt tired from the minute I got out of bed until I went to bed that night.  I never felt sick.  My mind was clear, not foggy.  My fibromyalgia pain was hardly there, at least I sure wasn't feeling it like I had before.  My stomach was not a hard ball anymore, it was mushy from all the fat disappearing.  I went down 5 clothes sizes.  I could play soccer with my grandson and he tired before I did.  And I was still 95 pounds overweight.  

I felt young, I felt alive. I felt lighter. 

Another thing I had started doing was putting a tablespoon of coconut oil in my coffee every morning.  I actually started this when I was on the clinical drug trail.  Every month I had to have lab work done to keep an eye on all the different blood levels.  When I began the clinical drug trail, my triglycerides and HDL and LDL levels were really bad.  But as I began using the coconut oil every morning, these levels became very, very good.  About 6 months into the program, and my coconut oil routine, for some reason I quit using the coconut oil.  In my next lab report my trigycerides, HDL and LDL levels showed a marked return to being bad.  I quickly started using the coconut oil again, and everything reversed and became good again. 

December of 2015 my liver biopsy showed all signs of the NASH were gone.  I was at stage 0.  My liver had gone from 80% fatty to 30%.

Hmmmmm....

And that was the very first thing God kept showing me.... to use the coconut oil.  He just kept putting so much information about the benefits of coconut oil in front of me.  At first I pooh-poohed it, but God did not give up on me.  I will never stop using the coconut oil again.

In 2016, my husband and I moved clear across the country to North Carolina.  Sadly, gradually I quit my 3 minute walks, and because of various reasons, I slipped back into fast food, boxed meals, instant potatoes.  I didn't give up all my good habits entirely, but I was not eating as clean as I had been.  By March of this year (2017) I was not walking anymore. 

In February of this year, someone I trusted betrayed me.  It hurt so bad that I just let go of everything good I had been doing.   It has taken me 9 months to go through the grieving process of what happened.  Nine long months to mentally and emotionally pick myself back up again.  And I could not have done it without Jesus carrying me this whole time.  I still have days that are hard.  But not like they were nine months ago.  In another post I will talk about this.  Not now.  Today I want to encourage anyone who has been diagnosed with NASH that you can turn it around.

Here it is November 2017.  I feel fat, like a beached whale.  I get winded walking up our hill.  I feel sick a lot.  I have absolutely no energy - mentally or physically.  And the worse thing of all... I weigh 20 pounds more than I did at my lowest in 2015.  I put twenty pounds back on.  My clothes are tight.  I hate going out in public because I feel so fat.  So old and fat. I have no one to blame but myself.  I allowed a circumstance to control my emotions, and therefore control me by me stopping all the good I had been doing.  Shame on me.

Recently I had blood work done.  I was so afraid that my labs would be horrible.  That it would show my disease was back.  Instead, all my lab work was excellent.  The doctor said that it has been many years since he had a patient with such excellent lab results.

Whew.  

I decided to stop the slide backwards immediately.  I am not undoing all the good I did.  I am tired of feeling as bad as I did before.  

Writing this post has really cemented the desire to get myself back up and on the road to health again.  I miss my walks.  I miss feeling young, alive, energetic.

Soon after my excellent lab results, I began cooking from scratch again.  Just a few days into eating clean, I started to feel better - more energy, not nauseated all the time, a clearer mind, I lost two pounds.  And then every appliance in my kitchen decided to give up working.  No kidding.  A week before Thanksgiving.  All of them.  My son, his wife and two small children live with us.  You should have seen all of us trying to cook from a small toaster oven.  This is another story for another post, also!  

After a trip to the appliance store, preparing for Thanksgiving, and now sitting here at the end of the holiday.... tomorrow starts my healthy habits again.  

My plan is to daily post my menu and recipes used, along with some chit chat about my daily life, my thoughts, etc. 

I hope you join me on this road to health!