My Health and my children's health are much better off because of Dr. Mark Hyman and what he says in this book.
Ok here comes the long story.....
I have suffered from chronic migraines for as long as I can remember, back in the days when they said children don't get headaches, a migraine can't be started from allergies or something else. All my life all the doctors have done is prescribe me medicine with no real way to cure or to stop them just to treat. The only thing they ever did to try to stop them was tell me to try removing foods one at a time and see if that helped. I did that. I stopped drinking soda, I stopped eating red meat, I stopped eating sugar, You name it I stopped it. Some lessened the migraines but not stopped them. I also have suffered from insomnia & joint pain. About a year and a half ago my Dad called me about 2 weeks before Christmas. He said he started listening to this book on tape and he was feeling better, was having less headaches, and was losing weight. The fact that any book got my father to change his diet at all had me interested. I went to Borders that day and bought the only copy they had in stock. Wow this book had me from the start. He talks about the side affects of sugar, processed foods, and the number one thing he talks about is artificial preservatives. Dr. Hyman believes that if we do nothing else to our diet but remove the artificial preservatives we will all be better off. I truly believe this as well. None of this was really new to me but he put it in ways that made me believe and UNDERSTAND why these food habits were so bad. Within the first 2 days of reading I stopped Drinking Soda! This was huge for me, I was probably drinking the equivalent of a 6 pack a day. I had already decided to wait until after Christmas to implement any of his teaching so I wouldn't go through any detoxing during vacation but for the first time someone made me see soda a poison. I stopped pretty much cold turkey. I do not recommend that to any one and neither does Dr. Hyman I just could not drink it anymore. The real difference this book made in my life is this. Dr. Hyman suggests doing a detox, this is not a crazy drink nothing but water for 30 days type thing. It simply says eat whole fruits, vegetables, rice and beans etc for 3 weeks. (gives recipes and meal plans to make this as easy as possible) At the end of 3 weeks reintroduce one item at a time for 3-6 days and see how your body reacts to it. I really didn't think I would have to many side effects with food, BOY WAS I WRONG. After about 2 weeks I woke up one day and couldn't figure out what was different. After a few hours I realized that my head didn't hurt. Then the scary truth hit me, I had been living with a headache for years constantly and didn't realize it. This made me almost cry. What made me actually cry was my kids pointing out the day after that that I was happy and they said I was in a good mood, "does your head not hurt anymore Mommy?" This was very emotional for me. I felt terrible about what kind of mother I must have been. I didn't realize how much this effected my kids. At the end of the detox the first think I introduced was eggs. Day one nothing much happened. End of day 2, my stomach hurt, I had a killer migraine, and generally felt like I was going to die. Removed eggs for 3 more days and after feeling normal again introduced cheese, a little congestion but nothing major. Eventually I introduced Red meat or Specifically steak one of my favorite foods ever, Within 1 hour steak made eating eggs look like a walk in the park. I had a similar result with eating pork and any turkey or chicken that wasn't naturally raised or fed. Eventually I realized I was having side effects to Gluten as well. This is really not something I anticipated. After removing these things from my diet I felt so much better. I do still occasionally get headaches (usually with pms etc) but they are nothing in comparison to what I use to get. What Dr. Hyman did that was so different was have me remove everything and introduce them one at a time. This is why I never had results before. I had more than one trigger so removing one at a time did not remove the symptoms. After feeling so much better I had to tell people so I started talking about it. My sister who had been previously diagnosed with a sever case of fibromyalgia called one day with a terrible headache asking how I got mine to stop. As a result of Dr. Hymans detox she found out that she does not have fibromyalgia she has celiacs disease in every day speak means Gluten makes you sick. While doing research about celiacs disease I started finding out in conjunction with my sister that Asthma and stomach aches are two of the side affects of celiacs disease. My son Dylan has had severe Asthma for most of his life and was on 4 medications twice a day and had been since he was 2. He had a distended belly and problems with his bowels. He was being put on new medications to help with his acid reflux and other side effects his asthma medication was causing him. My youngest son Elliot would double over every night saying that his stomach hurt. I promptly cut Gluten out of their diets. They are not entirely Gluten free but 75% or more. Elliot's stomach aches became far and few in between and Dylan's distended belly went away withing 2 weeks. His asthma improved and because of removing Gluten from his diet and introducing essential oils (a blog post for another day) to use when symptoms do arise he is now medication free. To give you an idea of how much better he is on a peak flow meter (measures oxygen output) on a good day he could hit around 200 not good for a 10 year old. After changing his diet on a good day his is about 300 and when he does get sick he is still above 220. This is amazing. My goal in the long term was to wean him from his meds when I felt comfortable. He stopped taking them himself because he said he didn't need them anymore. One other thing this book did was make my oldest son Chandler aware that Milk gives him Migraines. I am so grateful he found that out at the age of 12 and not 34 like his mom. I completely realize that this is a terribly long post. I have come to love green smoothies. They are a great way for a Gluten, Egg Free Vegetarian to get the protein, Vitamins, etc that are needed. As of tomorrow I am going to do a 30 day Green Smoothie Girl Detox. Over the course of the last 18 months I have let a few things back into my diet and it is time to remove them again. I would also like to give my metabolism a jump start. There are some things in my life I would like to be able to do and because of my ankle and it's multiple injuries in conjunction with my size I cannot. I want to be very clear. None of this was done in a effort to loose weight it was only to improve my health. Most people however do loose significant weight when making the changes that I did. I did have some size changes but not significant weight loss. For the sake of my joints I would like to do that now in a whole foods healthy way. I am hoping the the 30 day Green Smoothie Girl Challenge will give my body what it needs to get started in a healthy way. If loosing weight does not happen I will at least know that I have rid my body of some of it's bad habits that I let sneak in.
P.S. If you are reading this and all you can think is that I am crazy and that food can't be that bad for you believe me when I say 5 years ago I would have called someone like me today crazy. I believe now that some things are given to you when you need them. If you don't need them right now maybe someday you will and you know you will be able to come to me for help. I believe that my dad told me about UltraMetabolism at a time I was ready to hear it. I hope that someone is changed and will improve their life as a result of this post but if not, know that mine was changed. Thank you Dr. Hyman, Green Smoothie Girl, All the Gluten Free Bloggers out there, Katheryn Beiber and to many friends who have helped me embrace my new food lifestyle!
Great post, Jo. And I agree, the book is very informative and helpful. Good luck on your new goals. You are awesome!
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing better than finding just the answer you've been looking for.
ReplyDeleteI always admired what a good sport you were about all the restrictions you had to take on - I would have been much more whiny about it. But I guess you can't put a price on your health, huh? So glad the headaches are gone!