In this post, I get vulnerable. It may not seem vulnerable to you, but as a health practitioner, sharing about my own health struggles feels scary. There’s a couple of reasons. First, I don’t want my patients worrying about me, what I do is about them not me. Secondly, if I know so much, I should be able to heal myself right? Lastly, I’ve been denied both health and life insurance in the past and ‘they’ don’t need to know more about my health.  I’m sharing this anyway, YOU are too important to me.

Many years ago, I decided that I would not go on any sort of restrictive or depriving diet ever again. I’d done it many times before, and I knew I didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t super nourishing and life affirming. I didn’t need a bikini body, I just wanted to feel healthy and fit into my clothes.

Can you Relate?

I gained some weight after several stressful events while I was in acupuncture school (as if a 4 year full time year round program wasn’t enough stress on it’s own!), and healthy eating and exercise was not helping me lose it.

I did Acupressure (TAT) for my cravings, which was great! And because of the Acupressure, I wasn’t craving, overeating, or eating out of old habit patterns, that’s no small thing! But I still had the problem with my weight and with carbs–the slightest amount of carbs put me out of balance. I’m not talking about carbs like simple sugars, I stayed away from those, I’m talking about complex carbs like sweet potatoes.

So, I stayed away from most carbs and had a good balance of protein, and fat. I did Paleo, GAPS, and a whole lot of other things and the whole time, I ate organic, balanced, low carb meals. I should have been losing weight, but I wasn’t. I spent more money than I’d like to admit and saw more practitioners than anyone should ever see. I even joined boot camp, and did it religiously, 3 times per week for 3 months and little changed. I was not seeing the benefits of boot camp, I just got dizzy as my carbohydrate metabolism was so off.  If I had just simply felt better, I would have kept doing it. This was discouraging, but I was resigned to having an extra 10 pounds because I had bigger fish to fry in terms of my health, believe me. I actually gave away my skinny jeans late in 2012, as I realized, I was not going to fit in them again. I was okay with that. I have a complicated health history, that started with hormonal and metabolic imbalances before birth, and I’ll share more about that in another post another time.  Baby steps.

And then came metabolic balance®. As a lifelong hypoglycemic, I shrugged this off when it was suggested to me last year (August,  2012), as I knew I couldn’t go 5 hours without eating, I’d likely turn white, get dizzy and faint or nearly faint just like I always had.  It wasn’t even suggested for weight loss, but for my immune system. I was already eating healthy foods in the combinations I could tolerate, what could that plan possible do for me?  I didn’t start the program.

Over several months, I began to trust my new doctor, and later, I trusted the science when I looked into the program. I also found out later that Europeans have been having success with this program for years, and there were over 600k (as of October 2012) plans generated worldwide. So in late April 2013, I started, and remember, my motivation was not weight loss.

The End of a Lifelong Struggle

The first day, my lifelong chronic, unrelenting unresponsive-to-treatment, hypoglycemia went away. I couldn’t believe it, I’d tried everything (my complicated health history left me with far fewer choices than others might have to treat hypoglycemia). Also on the first day, I noticed a strange sensation in my stomach, it was growling, what was it?  It was hunger!  I hadn’t felt that in years, as I always had to eat some healthy protein rich snack to keep me from crashing my blood sugar.  I was laughing.  I was crying.  I didn’t know what to think, but was SO grateful. I could leave the house without hauling food with me, and without fear of debilitating drops in blood sugar. Woohoo!

It’s been many months and the hypoglycemia hasn’t returned, but I did lose 20 pounds without exercising–just by following my personalized eating plan. I only wanted to lose 10 pounds, but my body had a different weight it wanted. Yes, I lost weight, while sitting on my butt.  It’s sustainable, this way of living and eating. The funny thing is that I immediately started eating generous portions of fruit three times per day and had been unable to eat fruit before without having horrible insomnia. I can eat potatoes now, where I could get away with it once per week, I can now eat them daily if I choose. I wake up in the morning and I can’t wait to eat strawberries or mangoes and a whole bunch of other fruits, many fresh from my own garden.

I’m now able to eat way more carbohydrates and food in general than I could before, as my metabolism is finally working as it was designed. When I splurge, I don’t skip a beat. I was so excited, that I signed up to become a metabolic balance® coach myself as I wanted to offer this to my patients. My patients on the program are seeing exciting results as well. This program is amazing.

So, there’s a whole lot more to write about here, remember, I did this program for my immune system, but the side effects were lost weight, healed hypoglycemia, and a whole lot more. It’s quite a bargain if you ask me, and would gladly pay what I spent on other systems that didn’t work.  Even though I could help others to lose weight I had given up on losing my own excess weight. 

The important part is that I hadn’t given up on my health and I always knew that when my body was in balance, I would lose the weight, I just didn’t know how I was  ever going to find balance after trying so many things.  Thankfully that hunch was spot on.  Yes, I am embarrassed to say I spent a lot of money, but it brought me to where I am now. I’m so glad I didn’t give up. I hope you won’t give up either, you deserve to have what your heart desires! You deserve to have peace with food and your body.

Take Away for You

Don’t give up!

So, my questions for you are:

• What one thing have you overcome after years or decades of struggle that you’d like to celebrate?
• What would it feel like to make progress on one health goal that you’ve nearly given up on healing? 

Please leave a comment and let me know, I’d love to hear from you and support you in your journey!

If you’d like to sign up to get helpful health tips, to help you return to your ideal weight with ease and joy, please sign up in the box below this blog. I’ll send you tips to keep you healthy, happy and at peace with food twice a month and it’s free!

Yours in Health,