If you compare how I fall in love to how you prepare meat, I am a crockpot roast that you prepare early in the morning and wait all day for. I do not pop. It is not love at first sight. I simmer…for a long time.
So, it was only natural for me to take my sweet time educating myself, rethinking meal prep, and finally becoming the real food fanatic that I am today. In the beginning (it was February of 2014), I ate whatever I wanted. I had tried many diets, shakes, changes in breakfast, exercise programs, gym memberships, and eventually decided to eat what I wanted to eat.
I was 32. I had my fourth and final baby at the end of 2011. My weight fluctuated but was staying around 160. That number did not make me happy, but I could deal with it. Then, it started. Anxiety. Depression. Two months of menstrual bleeding with a day or two of “spotting”. Something was not okay, but I had no idea where to look first.
The day after the birth of our last baby girl, I had a tubal ligation. Now, before I share this and get nasty comments about what an uneducated fool I am for thinking that the tubal had anything to do with my list of symptoms. I ask you to please do some research. Google “post tubal ligation syndrome” and read the information. Moving on. From November 2nd, 2011 until February of 2014, I experienced huge changes in hormones, weight gain, etc.
For the first time in my life, I did not feel healthy. After bleeding for two months, I sat in our minivan in the Sam’s Club parking lot and asked God to give me an answer. I had been taking a Medical Terminology class as part of a Court Reporting Certificate. A whole new world of medical science was suddenly and unexpectedly beginning to make sense. There was a catch. I didn’t agree with half the garbage (opinions) my teacher or the Ted Talks she assigned us were feeding me. One of them, however, was valuable. It was a young doctor who appeared to be very healthy but who was diagnosed with diabetes. His discussion and many other factors led me down a path to eating real food.
Back to the Sam’s Club parking lot. I Googled “how to avoid a hysterectomy”. In the course of studying the human body, it became clear to me this was the prognosis. I just refused! No, I would not be 32 and going through a hysterectomy! The next steps were: Cod Liver Oil (but it MUST be the Norwegian liquid kind), Vitex (chasteberry), and a diet of real food.