My Story Part 2: How I Got To Where I Am Today
My cooking journey and my health journey have long gone hand in hand for some time now. Although it’s second nature for me today, that’s not how it initially started. My husband and I got married in 1998, which is when things really started to change. Oh my goodness! That seems like such a long time ago lol! Would you believe me if I told you that I made my husband the same meal seven days straight after we were first married? He finally said “hey, could we eat something else?” And I knew it was time to start branching out!
So I did my best to learn as many things as I could because I was determined to learn how to cook, and cook well! I called my mom for recipes, I tried recreating favorite meals from restaurants, and I even started buying cookbooks. Then we started having kids but we were still so young and with one income it was tough to make ends meet. I remember shopping at the discount grocery stores and trying to cut corners anywhere I could just to get by. My focus wasn’t “what’s the healthiest thing to get?”… but rather “what’s the cheapest thing I can buy to help feed my family for the week?!”. Some of the staple items we lived off of were the giant one-gallon milk carton jugs that were full of fruit juice, Top Ramen (of course!), many Dinos frozen chicken nugget, pizza rolls, and hot pockets for the kids (to name a few). When it came to snacks, those consisted mostly of cheese puffs, pop tarts, cookies, cereal, and good ole Capri Sun drinks. I never cared about how much I had or how much the kids had when it came to fruit drinks. Thinking back now, the sugar content in drinks alone was a staggering amount to consume, not to mention all the other processed foods we had on a daily basis that were filled with even more.
By the time I had my third child, I started having severe stomach pains. The kind of pain that I couldn’t ignore and would leave me exhausted upon waking, barely able to function throughout the day. For a while, I didn’t know what was going on. They told me that I had gallbladder disease and there was really nothing I could do while pregnant. I wasn’t given any guidance or direction whatsoever. At one point I remember praying and specifically hearing from the Lord to stop drinking milk. When I eagerly made that change I immediately switched to soy milk. Although my stomach pains stopped, without even realizing it I had opted for soy milk that was full of chemicals and additives (I didn’t read ingredient labels). This created even more inflammation in my body and even more problems down the road.
When my youngest was about two years old, my stomach pains were so severe I kept ending up in the emergency room. The doctors could never figure out what was causing the pain, though, and would tell me “you’re fine” over and over again. I knew I couldn’t live this way. I kept trying doctor after doctor though, resolute to find a solution of some kind. With every failed visit the words “I know, I know, I know, I’m NOT fine” kept running through my mind.
I clearly remember the day I came across some guy (I don’t even remember his name!) talking about health on TV and then stumbling across his book at the grocery store, buying it then and there. At that point, I knew I just wanted to feel better. I was ready to try different foods in my diet, to try living an overall healthier lifestyle. But I still didn’t feel like I could put the pieces together and the road to finding answers continued to feel very lonely.
Finally, I worked with one doctor who ran some tests that gave me what I thought was an answer. I received a letter in the mail stating I had pancreatitis and that I needed to remove fat from my diet. Granted, the type of fat that I was eating was not healthy at all. I cooked with canola, vegetable, and corn oil. I had tacos almost every day. I made a funfetti cake for the kid’s birthday one time and became so obsessed that I decided to make cupcakes every day after so that I could have them with my morning coffee! So I removed all the fat that I used (even butter) and I switched it to, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, Earth Balance – all types of margarine, and made sure that I had zero fat in my diet.
One of the things that started happening to me (due to pancreatitis) is that I started losing a lot of weight and was very nauseous all the time. I continued to lose weight at an alarming rate and felt absolutely horrible. I also started dealing with severe anxiety, and even some depression. I did not look healthy one bit. My friends and family would ask me “are you okay?”… And I know they probably thought I had an eating disorder. But I just couldn’t eat fatty foods or greasy foods, and if I did it would immediately lead to severe stomach pain. I didn’t know the importance of eating real whole nutrient-dense food, healthy forms of fat, and what to cook my food in. I was clueless.
I started researching all kinds of diets and constantly jumping from one to the next. The raw foods diet, vegan, vegetarian, low fat, candida diet…you name it, I tried it. At one point, thinking I was making a “healthy” choice I switched all bread and products to wheat (which was a huge cause of inflammation as well)! And yet I still felt like I was a mess. My laundry list of symptoms (ranging from acne, anxiety, losing weight rapidly, etc.) kept growing and despite my best efforts, I did not feel even one bit healthy.
Even scarier, my youngest was beginning to develop health issues, too. But it wasn’t until the age of 7 that we got our first wake-up call and realized that something was really wrong. From that moment on I was determined to find out what was causing my son to suffer. I was a momma on a mission! The journey led me to some discoveries that I can’t wait to share with you. Check back next week for part 3 to read the next part of my story!
