Gut Health and why it's so important!

I learned about gut health around 4 years ago. My natural doctor and Dr. Wahl's talk about a leaky gut and gut health a lot. I was rather confused what in the world a leaky gut was until it was explained to me. What is a leaky gut? Leaky gut, also known as increased intestinal permeability, is a digestive condition in which bacteria and toxins are able to "leak" through the intestinal wall. The sad thing is mainstream medical doctors do not recognize leaky gut as a real condition. 

Symptoms of a leaky gut are:

• chronic diarrhea, constipation or bloating
• nutritional deficiencies
• fatigue
• headaches
• confusion
• difficulty concentrating
• skin problems, such as acne, rashes, or eczema
• joint pain
• widespread inflammation

I wrote a blog post on sugar HERE a couple weeks ago. Sugar is one way to cause a leaky gut and destroy good gut health. Avoid eating refined sugars, processed foods, refined oils and minimize your alcohol intake to help your gut health. 

Breakfast I try to have a smoothie with spinach, berries, coconut or almond milk, collagen peptides and chia seeds. We do eat a lot of eggs. I will either fry an egg in coconut oil until they are crispy which is my favorite way to eat them or I like to scramble them with some onions, jalapenos, and spinach. My boys love to eat scrambled eggs with salt. They need salt on their eggs or they won't eat them. I use pink Himalayan salt. 

Lunch I make a large salad. I use all different kinds of lettuce - romaine, arugula, spring mix. Whatever type of lettuce I feel like that week. I try to mix it up, so I don't get sick of the same thing. Then I add in the toppings - shredded carrots, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, grilled chicken, sauerkraut, some nuts if I have them, and Whole 30 ranch. I think it was the Doctors on tv who were talking about how a really good salad has to be mixed really well. It's so true! Once you get everything into your salad it needs to be mixed well! It just makes the salad that much better! 

I started added sauerkraut or kimchi to my salads in the past year. Fermented foods are really great for gut health. Please read the ingredients on the fermented foods you are eating. Make sure there aren't colors, sugars etc added to it. If you are eating fermented foods with additives it pretty much defeats the whole purpose of adding them to your diet. 

A typical lunch for me. 

By having a smoothie and eating a large salad for lunch this pretty much will get 6-9 cups of veggies into my diet for the day. At dinner I might have some paleo tortillas for tacos, baked potato, paleo chicken pot pie or some other type of paleo starch to my dinner. 

Bone broth, sauerkraut, kombucha, are my go to items for helping my gut health besides eating a paleo diet and lots of veggies! I can't say enough of how great bone broth is for you! Not just for your gut health, but also your joints. Getting the collagen for your joints is so important! If you struggle with an autoimmune disease or inflammation add some bone broth into your diet. If you are buying bone broth please pay attention to the ingredients. 

Chris Freytag one of my favorite trainers always says fruit will not make you fat. This is such a good reminder for me. There are times when I want something sweet. Grabbing watermelon, berries, a banana with almond butter is so much better for you than grabbing a Reese's peanut butter cup. Here is what is in a Reese's peanut butter cup - milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat, lactose, soy lecithin, pgpr, emulsifier), peanuts, sugar, dextrose, salt, tbhq (preservative), citric acid (to maintain freshness). 

When you are grabbing a banana with simple almond butter you are eating 2 natural items. You are not worrying about dextrose, citric acid and who knows what else being added to it. I feel fruit has been given a bad rap over the years. It has too much sugar, too many carbs, it's not good to eat it all the time - all lies! It's a natural thing that your body can easily process! If you have a leaky gut you may need to consider limiting the amount of fruit you eat until you get your gut health in a good place. 

Have you ever heard of gut health or a leaky gut? What are things you do to keep a healthy gut?

Refined sugars and your body!

When I started my weight loss journey almost 10 years ago sugar was one thing that really was eye opening. When I was doing the HCG diet I really had to pay attention to ingredients in things. Then when I started eating paleo again back to the sugar watching. 

Have you ever looked at the grams of sugar in that Starbucks drink? What about in the ketchup, crackers, lunch meat, or the processed foods you are eating? Start looking at ingredients on the things you are eating and see how many of them have sugar added to them. 

Here is a list of refined sugar. 

• white flour.
• evaporated cane juice.
• instant starches.
• corn syrup.
• high fructose corn syrup.
• brown sugar (made by adding molasses back into refined white sugar)
• fructose.
• processed artificial sweeteners

Here is what the Cancer Center had to stay in 2016:

"The body breaks down refined sugar rapidly, causing insulin and blood sugar levels to skyrocket. Because refined sugar is digested quickly, you don't feel full after you're done eating, no matter how many calories you consumed. The fiber in fruit slows down metabolism, as fruit in the gut expands to make you feel full".

Refined sugars may increase your risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. They're also linked to a higher likelihood of depression, dementia, liver disease, and certain types of cancer.

In the brain, excess sugar impairs both our cognitive skills and our self-control. For many people, having a little sugar stimulates a craving for more. Sugar has drug-like effects in the reward center of the brain. Scientists have proposed that sweet foods—along with salty and fatty foods—can produce addiction-like effects in the human brain, driving the loss of self-control, overeating, and subsequent weight gain.

The NIH did a study in mice modeling autoimmune issues gave them sugary water and saw the diseases worsen by activating inflammatory immune cells. The findings suggest that a low-sugar diet may help prevent or treat autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's disease and multiple sclerosis.

Sugar stimulates the production of free fatty acids in the liver. When the body digests these free fatty acids, the resulting compounds can trigger inflammatory processes. Different kinds of sugar may contribute more or less to inflammation.

If you have any type of autoimmune diseases sugar is not your friend whatsoever! I can really tell a difference when I eliminate sugar from my diet. My inflammation really seems to decrease and my I don't crave sugar either. When I am eating sugar on a daily basis my craving for sugar is insane! I also feel my entire body become inflamed in a short amount of time. 

It blows my mind how people do not pay attention to the amount of sugar they are putting in their bodies every single day. I keep seeing all these people making coffees on social media adding tablespoons upon tablespoons of sugar to their coffee. People do you know what this is doing to your body? You are poisoning your body on a daily basis adding all that sugar. 

If I am going to use sugar or give my kids sugar I like to use maple syrup or honey. They are a natural sugar that your body can process. I would like to challenge you to pay attention to the amount of refined sugars you are consuming on a daily basis. Try cutting them out and see how you feel. Also think about what your kids are eating and how much refined sugars they are eating. Mamas we need to consider what our kids tiny bodies are consuming and setting them up for a healthy adults. Our world is consumed with autoimmune diseases, cancers, heart disease, high cholesterol and so much more. Refined sugars are related to so many of these diseases!

I really feel I need to share more about living healthy, multiple sclerosis and easy ways to help people live a healthier lifestyle. I feel this is part of my calling as a person and mother. I can only control what my children eat, but I can help other mothers make better choices for their kids if they want the help. 

My tip to adding Liver to your Diet!

I started adding organ meat to our diet about 4 years ago. Growing up my mom use to make liver and onions. I loved it as a kid with some ketchup.

Liver is high in vitamin A, folic acid, iron and zinc. Liver is one of the most nutrient dense organ meat with a powerful source of vitamin A. Vitamin A is extremely beneficial for reducing diseases that cause inflammation like multiple sclerosis, arthritis and Alzheimer's along with great benefits for eye health. I am always looking for ways to reduce inflammation, since I struggle with it so bad from my multiple sclerosis. 

I have fried it with bacon grease and onions, but I struggle with the texture of it. I got an idea one day to buy some liver from a local organic natural market Victoria's Natural Market in Tomball, TX. I love going to Victoria's to get my chicken bones to make bone broth, liver, local honey and various other organic local items. 

I bought some liver and took it home to grind it up. I decided to add it to meatballs the first time. No one even knew it was in there and you couldn't taste it at all! I took the remaining ground up liver and put it in little baggies to freeze. When I make anything with ground meat I will add beef or chicken liver to it. I have found beef liver really gives ground turkey a lot of flavor! 

Ground up liver in my freezer

My family has no clue they are eating liver, but they are getting all the amazing benefits from the liver! I most likely wouldn't sit down to eat a plate of fried liver these days, so I can't expect my kids to eat it. I normally do not hide foods to get my family to eat them. I serve them the item and they decide if they want to eat it or not. To me adding the liver to ground meat is like adding in some extra vitamins. We all need to take vitamins, so let's add a little to what we are going to be eating.
Do you like liver? Have you ever ground it up to eat it? 

Selfish

I have been thinking about writing this blog post for awhile, but just haven't taken the time to put the words down. I feel selfish at times because I am glad I am the one with all the health issues. I don't really worry about my health that much. There are times I get concerned. I do worry after blood tests or scans as I wait for the results.  I do cry or get upset. I allow myself to have those moments then I move on. I have learned to let myself cry or feel hopeless. Usually it lasts no more than an hour and it is gone. Other than tests time I don't really worry about it. I just know I will be fine.

One day I was thinking I am so glad I have these ailments and not my husband, parents or sister. I would be worried sick if it was them. I feel bad at times because I know they worry. There are times I make a groan or say ouch. Art will usually turn to me immediately asking what is wrong. He wants details about what is wrong. Sometimes it is just simple things like I laid in the same spot to long and my body is sore. Everyone has those issues. 

My main problem is fatigue. I don't feel I have ever bounced back after surgery. I have been soooo tired for a year. I have had numerous issues which would cause fatigue. I am just not use to this. Prior to surgery I was working out 5 days a week, running around the office working like a crazy person, I would come home and do stuff. Well I feel all I can do is just a couple things a day. If it is a work day I go to work, make dinner, make lunches for the next day and lay on the couch. Forget anything else being done. Days off I will do laundry, clean a little and rest. It is frustrating to be this tired. I am 33 not 83. I am slowly learning to listen to my body. I have actually gone home from work early often. I have been working from  home as much as I can. 

Possibly the reason I don't worry so much about my health is because I just know God will take care of things. I told one of my doctors I don't plan to go anywhere and he will be dealing with me for another 50 years. He will retire long before I plan to die. I also think medicine is going to find some type of cure for my ailments. 

Happy 33 Years to Me!!!!

Today I celebrate turning another year older. This birthday is completely different than the past 33. When I got to be about 28 I started to dread birthdays. I love my birthday, but it was the fact I was getting another year older. When I turned 30 I cried for weeks. The thought of being sooooo old was horrific to me. Then to top it off my grandma sent my aunt & cousin to decorate my yard.  One of the hardest thing to deal with is as I got older was another year older without a baby. Every year I wish the next birthday brings a baby. Each year comes without a baby. 

I still don't know how in the world I can be so old. I ask my dad occasionally if it bothers him I am so old. How in the world can my parents have such an old kid? They aren't much older than I am. I feel like I am a young kid until I hear rap music and wonder what is wrong with the kids these days & their music choices. Or I hear kids talking about the latest show on MTV. Oh boy I don't even know what MTV has on these days. Then there are the times I feel very young when I wear my grandma tshirts.  I love the reactions of other people. The double takes when I say this is my grandson. =)

This year is completely different. I am happy to be 33. In January I heard some of the hardest words....life expectancy is about 60%. WHAT!!!! My life expectancy is 100% not 60%. How could someone say such ridiculous things to me. My world was turned upside down during the age of 32. Cancer changed my life. It took a toll on me for months. Chasing doctors around, feeling like garbage, a big red scar that wasn't healing right, my hormones were a ruckus, weight fluctuation, new spots on my lungs & liver, blood test after blood test, CT scans. I mean really how is this happening to me?  

Then I heard the words "your cancer is stable". While those words were very encouraging to my family & friends they were horrible for me to hear. I spent 2 days crying. I didn't want to hear "stable". I wanted to hear it is gone, you have no sign of cancer left in your body....however, I won't ever hear those words. I didn't have time to be in a pity party for very long because my feet started going numb. Then I was diagnosed with TM and possibly MS. This is going to sound insane, but I think this could have been one of the best blessings. It snapped me out of my pity party and I honestly was SO happy to think my cancer is "stable". 

Health wise age 32 was a ruckus. I learned so much during this year. The Bible became real to me, felt God grace, prayer really works and I have learned I am even tougher than I thought. I haven't ever been a patient person. As a cancer patient you have to learn patience rather quickly as you wait for CT scan results, blood tests, and on doctors who are on their own time schedule. I also learned God has other plans when you plan out of all 2013. A year older and gray hair aren't really that scary to me anymore...wait a minute who am I kidding gray hair is still terrifying to me! Stay away grays! lol

Today I celebrate 33 years of life and I plan to celebrate at least another 56 years! 

One out of 1,400 people!

Here are some random statistics I found on the world wide web recently. Each year there are around 1 billion cases of the common cold and 19-21 million cases of the stomach flu. An estimated 230,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in 2013 alone. One of out every 10,000 people will be diagnosed with Medullary Thyroid Cancer and 1,400 people per year are diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis. 

::::knockonwood:::: I rarely ever get a cold or the stomach flu. I run from a cold like it is the black plague. If people at work come to work sick I send them home. I really try to eat healthy, get plenty of rest, take my vitamins and keep myself exposed to enough germs to keep those nasty bugs away. I ride on Bart on a daily basis, so I am exposed to TONS of germs. 

I seem to be attracting the "rare" things. January I was diagnosed with Medullary Thyroid Cancer. I thought there was just one type of thyroid cancer and it was the cancer to get. If you follow my blog I have wrote a lot on MTC and there is NO type of cancer to get period. I haven't been feeling right for a little while. I have been feeling off. Very tired, sluggish, no energy and the list continues on. I haven't felt right since surgery. I chalk it up to my thyroid being gone and I am just a hot mess. It has been very frustrating me because I am 32 not 92. I shouldn't be so run down all the time. 

I had taken Monday, October 21 off work. I had done a lot of cooking in the afternoon, so I was on my feet for hours. When I went to bed Monday night my feet really hurt. I just figured it was from being on the tile floor for hours. Tuesday I woke up to my feet still hurting and a little tingly. As the day went on my feet were freezing, tingly, getting a little numb. By Wednesday my feet were completely numb, legs were tingly and I was loosing feeling around my waist. It was the strangest feeling. I had worn some slipper socks on Monday with little rubber grippers. I figured those gripper things pushed into my feet, cut some nerve off or my back had a pinched nerve. 

Thursday I called the chiropractor for an appointment, but I couldn't make it before they closed. By the time I got home Thursday night I told Art I couldn't feel my legs. I planned to work from home on Friday to see a doctor. Art was cooking in the kitchen and he smacked me with a spatula. He asked can you feel that? I couldn't feel it at all, but I had a big red welt on my leg. My legs almost felt like they had fallen asleep or they were frost bit. A little later that evening I started to wonder if my calcium was low which was causing the problems in my feet. I called Kaiser to set up an appointment for Friday. The person answering the phone put me right through to a nurse when she heard I was feeling numb, the nurse talked to the doctor and told me to come to the ER right away. I told them it was necessary that I just needed to see a doctor the next day. Oh boy was I wrong.

Off we went to the ER where I was admitted. The doctor was very concerned I had Transverse Myelitis. I had a lot of the symptoms and they would be doing an MRI the next day. They started me on steroids immediately and monitored me very closely. They were concerned it could spread to my lungs which would cause me to stop breathing. I barely got any sleep Thursday night. I had told Art to go home around midnight because someone should sleep, so one of us had a clear head the next day. I was so tired I remember barely waking up in the middle of the night to a nurse taking my blood pressure, asking me to open my mouth to take my temperature and rolling back over to sleep. The next morning the neurologist came in to meet with me just as I was waking up. He was pretty convinced that I had TM. He had ordered a MRI of my spine and brain. 

Steroids are NOT my friend. Those things got me sooooo hyped up I became a lunatic. I was so hyper, anxious, mean that I barely made it through the MRI. I actually pressed the button to see when they would be done because I thought I was going to hyperventilate. Luckily there was only 5 minutes left, so I sucked it up. The MRI showed I have TM. I have had 3 steroid treatments. The neurologist will be monitoring my progresses closely to make sure the feeling comes back into my body. Currently I am still numb. I still can't feel anything from the waist down. I am thinking I might stop trying to avoid the common cold. I know my family could handle it a whole lot better if I started to get colds instead of these random other issues. 

Thankfully my mom was able to come take care of me for the next few weeks. I am so grateful she is here. I don't think there will ever be a time when I will be too old for my mom not to take care of me when I am sick. No one can replace a mom! 

I have declared myself a rare gem! In 20 years I am going to look back on this time remembering how much stronger it has made me. I also want to remember all the funny stories. While I was in the ER I kept asking for coffee. They refused to give me coffee. I asked Art to smuggle some in to me and he refused. He insisted on following the rules. That just made me even madder! Roid Rage! Finally I convinced one nurse to give me one small cup of coffee. I told him he was my very favorite. I will not disclose his name because I don't want him to get in trouble. lol Later Friday afternoon a new nurse came on and asked where did you get coffee? I said listen I finally talked someone down after 12 hours of begging for coffee. He just cracked up laughing. He said I can see why they gave you coffee finally. 

I am off to continue recovering. I am happy to be home with a FULL pot of coffee. =)