Put your Health 1st in 2017!

My life was changed in May 2016 when I was encouraged to start eating Paleo by my doctor. I was having so many health issues. I honestly thought within a couple years I would need a cane or wheel chair. I felt horrible! I could barely go for a walk without needing to rest for a couple days. I was barely able to get the normal daily tasks done. Chasing a toddler was extremely exhausting. 

The thought of never eating bread or dairy again was very overwhelming. I am German and Italian....seriously no pasta or bread? Do you know how I was raised? I was raised on flour based foods. Then I remembered when I did the HCG diet. I lost 80 pounds not eating foods with flour. I felt really great when I was doing certain stages of that diet which didn't have gluten or dairy. If I was able to do it before, so I could do it again. 

I had my entire grocery list made out on a Thursday when I was encouraged to change my diet. I told my doctor ok well I guess I will go home and make a whole new grocery list. And I did! I totally changed what I fed myself and my family. I am not going to make different meals for George or Art. If it wasn't healthy for me to be eating all these things then my toddler maybe shouldn't be eating those things either. 

During this time I came across Dr. Wahls. Another life changing event. I started following the Wahls Protocol. As I would read her book I just couldn't imagine how my body would even start to heal with just foods. I was willing to take the chance. If it worked for her then it might help me. She was a lot worse off then I was, but I felt my health was headed to a bad place like Dr. Wahls experienced. 

Fast forward to the present. Eating the Paleo diet has not changed my cancer at all. I have actually had additional growth on some of the cancer spots. My MS has changed drastically. If you have read previous posts and new posts that will be coming out you will see my fitness level has greatly improved. Right now I can see my life not needing a cane or wheel chair. 

Over Christmas I ate some non-Paleo food items. Oh boy! Usually I am SUPER careful about what I eat. I decided to allow myself to eat somethings I liked in the past. Lesson learned it isn't worth it. My body was achy, stomach hurt, bloating, and just feeling like garbage. I can't do dairy period! 

If you have any health issues I HIGHLY recommend you try eating the Paleo diet! It really has been life changing for me. I will say the first 4-6 weeks were super hard. It got boring trying to figure out what I could eat and getting sick of the same things. I felt I wouldn't be able to ever eat out at a restaurant. Over the past few months I have been able to change recipes to make them Paleo friendly. When a recipe calls for milk I use coconut milk. When it calls for butter I use ghee. Flour - I use tapioca starch or almond flour. You slowly start to learn what substitutes for things. You also learn to look ahead at menus and pick items you can eat when you eat out. You can ask them to hold certain ingredients and let them know your food allergies. 

Some people are able to add cheese and rice back into their diets without experiencing any problems. I think it all depends on your health and body. I can't add those things back in. I tried and it didn't work for me. I don't think you can expect to see a huge difference in how you feel within a couple days. When I look back to how I felt in April of 2016 to how I feel in December 2016 it is night and day. 

Getting to a healthy place isn't a sprint. You have to take it like a marathon. Slow and steady. 

1. Start to get some sleep! Your body needs sleep badly! So many people don't sleep properly. You need 7-9 hours of sleep each night. If you aren't able to sleep at night try to get a little nap. A 20 minute nap for me really helped heal my body. I use to nap 4-6 days a week for about 20-30 minutes. Now I rarely nap. I still love my Sunday afternoon nap while listening to a football game. Something so calming about those naps. 

2. Change the foods you eat! If you are eating processed food and feel terrible...shocker it's probably because it is processed. How can you expect your body to process these foods? If it has a package of dry ingredients did that come from a field? That is going to sit in your body for who knows how long trying to figure out how to process it. I could go on and on about this. 

3. Exercise! Even if it's for 20 minutes a few times a week. Find something you like. Take your kids for a walk to feed the ducks that crappy bread you shouldn't be eating. lol YouTube has a lot of free workouts. I love Chris Freytag workouts. You can find a lot of them on YouTube. 

4. Start reading the labels of the products you use. Look up ingredients on products to figure out exactly what is in the product. If your lotion has some strange things listed on it google those words. You will probably find out you are putting harmful chemicals on your body. 

You can't jump into this all head first. I did things slowly. I did the food, sleep, exercise and then products. I still struggle with sleep. It is midnight and here I am writing a blog post. Tomorrow I will probably need a nap. MS is a killer for messing with your sleep. Sometimes sleep aids work and something they don't.