As of today I have been on a strict Paleo diet for 1 week! Thought I would write down some of my feelings and takes on the week.
#1 It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be in regards to enjoying what I get to eat. I have actually really liked everything I ate minus one salad dressing I made that was not good.
#2 Being prepared is key! I learned that I have to keep stocked up on my groceries otherwise I will starve!
#3 I would be lost without social media! Between Facebook, Pintrest, and Google, I have been able to learn so much and find some pretty awesome recipes!
#4 Cutting out sugar and gluten took a tole on my body, mostly my head. I had a nonstop headache for 5 straight days! No fun and kind of scary to think of how addicted my body was to it!
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#5 I had 0 cravings for anything sweet! I am the person that right after dinner I was want dessert. Scratch that, I could eat dinner anytime! I didn't have that desire once! My mind still thinks it but my body feels the opposite. So now I have to retrain my mind to think differently about food!
#5 Avocados are my new best friend! I can add them to almost every meal and it instantly makes it better!
#6 I had to eat a hearty breakfast with a good amount of protein in the morning otherwise I feel like I was hungry all day long. My favorite breakfast right now is scrambled eggs with avocado, handful of berries and peppermint tea with honey. So yummy! So filling!
#7 I had to be prepared when I went out places! I went to the salon to get my hair done, I was gone for about 5 hours and brought a snack which held me for a little bit. I ended up getting stuck in traffic and was starving. I should have been more prepared!
#8 Tagging off of #7 it is almost impossible to eat out. While stuck in traffic I was thinking of any and every drive through place I could stop at quickly and there was nothing! I might have been able to swing by In & Out and get an protein style burger with no sauce, but other than that, nothing!
#9 I felt like the annoying person who has the special dietary restrictions when going to a friends house this week. Our husbands went on a camping trip together so I went to her house for dinner. I had to bring my own food people!!! Ugh! I made hamburgers for us and she so sweetly cooked a dish that she thought was Paleo but wasn't and I felt terrible telling her I couldn't eat it! How have I become one of those people?!?
#10 I slept better than I have in a long time! With Hashimoto's I wake up a lot during the night, since going Paleo, I slept like a baby! I was still in a deep sleep when my alarm clock goes off! That never happens! It's such a wonderful feeling to wake up knowing you got a good nights rest!
#11 I thought about food constantly! Wondering what to make next, if I was getting enough protein, reading recipes, food, food, food!!!
#12 Speaking of food, I miss bread and cheese and bread and pasta and bread and pizza and bread and sushi and bread! Did I mention I miss bread!
#12 I had 0 gas! I know it's TMI but not even a fart! How is that possible!
#13 My stomach felt the best it had in a long time. I wasn't bloated, I didn't have any gurgling or rumbling (except when I got hungry)
#14 I have so much more to learn about Hashimoto's and how diet effects the body!
#14 I made it a whole week!!!
Monday, July 27, 2015
Monday, July 20, 2015
Paleoooooooo
Although it hasn't been scientifically proven yet that diet plays a key role in treating most auto-immune diseases, I would say 99.9% of any site I visited or group I joined of people (mostly women) suffering from Hashimoto's Disease said that diet it the key to feeling symptom free. And it was specifically the Paleo Diet they said worked the best.
Last year, one of my best friends asked me to do the Paleo diet with her for 30 days. I looked into it said "No way, Jose!" To me it sounded terrible! No bread, no pasta, no rice, or any kind of sugar, NO THANK YOU!!! I would say that God has a sense of humor but thought would be an understatement in this situation. Today was day one on the Paleo diet for me! If left untreated, Hashimoto's can lead to heart disease, type 1 diabetes, memory damage, and many other awful things. Untreated in the traditional medicine world is not taking your thyroid medication, but that is not the end all cure! My immune system is backwards and attacks my body, mainly my thyroid, which I now no longer have so that means it will start to attack other good functioning parts of my body! I don't want that to happen and if means taking things into my own hands and radically changing my diet to do so, then so be it!
I have a lot of grocery shopping I still need to do, so I tried to use up what I already had in the house for today. It was nothing fancy but everything I ate was delicious! I did start to feel terrible around 1:00 in the afternoon. I had a horrible headache and zero energy. I ended up taking an hour nap and had some white tea when I woke up for some caffeine and that really helped. And now I sit here at 9:50 pm and I feel fantastic! I wish I felt this way earlier today but my body has to get used to this new fuel I am filling it with.
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with fresh strawberries and blueberries
Snack: Sliced Fuji apple with almond butter
Lunch: Mixed greens with chicken and dressing (olive oil, fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper)
Dinner: Chicken, carrots, and roasted cabbage which I got the recipe here and it was amazing!!!
Dessert: Paleo Banana Bread Smoothie (not pictured) another amazingly delicious recipe found here! I could drink this smoothie everyday! I'm a sweets lover so this hit the spot!
I'd say for this being my first day I didn't do too shabby of a job! Day one down, the rest of my life to go!
Last year, one of my best friends asked me to do the Paleo diet with her for 30 days. I looked into it said "No way, Jose!" To me it sounded terrible! No bread, no pasta, no rice, or any kind of sugar, NO THANK YOU!!! I would say that God has a sense of humor but thought would be an understatement in this situation. Today was day one on the Paleo diet for me! If left untreated, Hashimoto's can lead to heart disease, type 1 diabetes, memory damage, and many other awful things. Untreated in the traditional medicine world is not taking your thyroid medication, but that is not the end all cure! My immune system is backwards and attacks my body, mainly my thyroid, which I now no longer have so that means it will start to attack other good functioning parts of my body! I don't want that to happen and if means taking things into my own hands and radically changing my diet to do so, then so be it!
I have a lot of grocery shopping I still need to do, so I tried to use up what I already had in the house for today. It was nothing fancy but everything I ate was delicious! I did start to feel terrible around 1:00 in the afternoon. I had a horrible headache and zero energy. I ended up taking an hour nap and had some white tea when I woke up for some caffeine and that really helped. And now I sit here at 9:50 pm and I feel fantastic! I wish I felt this way earlier today but my body has to get used to this new fuel I am filling it with.
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with fresh strawberries and blueberries
Snack: Sliced Fuji apple with almond butter
Lunch: Mixed greens with chicken and dressing (olive oil, fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper)
Dinner: Chicken, carrots, and roasted cabbage which I got the recipe here and it was amazing!!!
Dessert: Paleo Banana Bread Smoothie (not pictured) another amazingly delicious recipe found here! I could drink this smoothie everyday! I'm a sweets lover so this hit the spot!
I'd say for this being my first day I didn't do too shabby of a job! Day one down, the rest of my life to go!
So You Have Hashimoto's....Now What?
I thought I would take a few moments to explain a little background history as to why I am even here starting this blog.
Almost 4 years ago, a month before my 30 birthday, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer along with Hashimoto's and Hypothyroidism. This had been a year and a half in the making because that I had been previously diagnosed with Fibromyalgia (which I do not have) and was so sick and constantly in pain all the time. It was an uphill battle and at one point I thought I was going crazy because I had all these weird symptoms but every test that was done on me from cat scans, blood work, to colonoscopy's, all came back negative. When I was finally diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, I felt relieved in knowing that at least it was something that had a name.
Of course medication was the only cure for fibromyalgia and that created even more of a mess and I found myself addicted to pain medication which caused a million and one problems in my marriage and almost cost me my marriage! I went back to my doctor for the 1000th time to tell her we needed to try something else, that the pain medicine wasn't working as usual, that I could not function like a normal human being, and I was so close to loosing my job because most days I could not get out of bed. She looked at my blood work and noticed my thyroid levels were right on the brink of being classed has having hypothyroidism. She wanted me to have that checked again because that could be contributing to my fatigue and pain. And sure enough, it came back high and alerted her to have me go for an ultra sound where they found a nodule, which lead to a biopsy, which showed cancer, which lead to my surgery. (Thank you Jesus, I am cancer free and have been ever since)
I remember it as if it were yesterday, sitting in my Endocrinologist's office as she told me "You have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis" and what you will need to do is be on a thyroid replacement pill everyday for the rest of your lift. Now, maybe it's the fact that I am not always the brightest bulb in the box, or maybe it was because all I could do was try to wrap my brain around the fact that I had cancer, but I thought Hashimoto's was the technical term for my over active thyroid. My doctor never explained that it is an auto-immune disease that CAUSED me to have an underactive thyroid! I never looked into it, never googled it, nothing! It wasn't until a week ago that I saw the word on someone Facebook page and remembered that's what I had, and thought I would google it. Well, my jaw could have touched the floor because I was in shock and so upset! Nearly every symptom of Hashimoto's was something that for years I thought was a weird quirk I had. How could she have not told me and let me go all these years without doing anything to help me. I even made several appointments with her in the past few years about specific issues that are because of Hashimoto's and she just referred me to other doctors and answered me saying that those problems were not related to my thyroid.
It has been a lot to take in and process and I feel like all I have done is read and read and read different websites and blogs and pages where people with this auto-immune disease share what helps them, what to avoid, what doctors typically say or do, and how to start healing your body. This blog is going to be my outlet as I journey through this and figure out one day at a time how to heal from this and try to get my health back to where it should be! I am still learning!
Join me in my journey, share what has worked for you or what hasn't, or be a silent ready and hopefully gain something from my story. I haven't blogged in such a long time and it feels good to be back. Wish it were under better circumstances but for right now this is my cross and I will bear it!
Almost 4 years ago, a month before my 30 birthday, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer along with Hashimoto's and Hypothyroidism. This had been a year and a half in the making because that I had been previously diagnosed with Fibromyalgia (which I do not have) and was so sick and constantly in pain all the time. It was an uphill battle and at one point I thought I was going crazy because I had all these weird symptoms but every test that was done on me from cat scans, blood work, to colonoscopy's, all came back negative. When I was finally diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, I felt relieved in knowing that at least it was something that had a name.
Of course medication was the only cure for fibromyalgia and that created even more of a mess and I found myself addicted to pain medication which caused a million and one problems in my marriage and almost cost me my marriage! I went back to my doctor for the 1000th time to tell her we needed to try something else, that the pain medicine wasn't working as usual, that I could not function like a normal human being, and I was so close to loosing my job because most days I could not get out of bed. She looked at my blood work and noticed my thyroid levels were right on the brink of being classed has having hypothyroidism. She wanted me to have that checked again because that could be contributing to my fatigue and pain. And sure enough, it came back high and alerted her to have me go for an ultra sound where they found a nodule, which lead to a biopsy, which showed cancer, which lead to my surgery. (Thank you Jesus, I am cancer free and have been ever since)
I remember it as if it were yesterday, sitting in my Endocrinologist's office as she told me "You have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis" and what you will need to do is be on a thyroid replacement pill everyday for the rest of your lift. Now, maybe it's the fact that I am not always the brightest bulb in the box, or maybe it was because all I could do was try to wrap my brain around the fact that I had cancer, but I thought Hashimoto's was the technical term for my over active thyroid. My doctor never explained that it is an auto-immune disease that CAUSED me to have an underactive thyroid! I never looked into it, never googled it, nothing! It wasn't until a week ago that I saw the word on someone Facebook page and remembered that's what I had, and thought I would google it. Well, my jaw could have touched the floor because I was in shock and so upset! Nearly every symptom of Hashimoto's was something that for years I thought was a weird quirk I had. How could she have not told me and let me go all these years without doing anything to help me. I even made several appointments with her in the past few years about specific issues that are because of Hashimoto's and she just referred me to other doctors and answered me saying that those problems were not related to my thyroid.
It has been a lot to take in and process and I feel like all I have done is read and read and read different websites and blogs and pages where people with this auto-immune disease share what helps them, what to avoid, what doctors typically say or do, and how to start healing your body. This blog is going to be my outlet as I journey through this and figure out one day at a time how to heal from this and try to get my health back to where it should be! I am still learning!
Join me in my journey, share what has worked for you or what hasn't, or be a silent ready and hopefully gain something from my story. I haven't blogged in such a long time and it feels good to be back. Wish it were under better circumstances but for right now this is my cross and I will bear it!
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