My Clean Eating Transformation
I didn’t always drink green smoothies and shop at the farmers’ market like I do now. In fact, it took a cancer diagnosis and other serious health issues before I finally made the connection between food and health. The conditions I’ve have dealt with include:
· Chronic migraines
· Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune thyroid condition
· Thyroid cancer
· Generalized anxiety and panic attacks
· Eating disorders
· Multiple food sensitivities
· Irritable bowel disease
· Hypothalamic amenorrhea, loss of menstrual cycle
· Polycystic ovarian syndrome
· Osteopenia
Growing up in the 1980s, my ideal meal was 100% processed food. Food companies marketed heavily to children, and I begged my mom for sugary cereals, candy, and anything packaged or sugar-filled. I also learned many years later when I was studying nutrition that I’m a “super-taster,” so certain vegetables like broccoli taste very bitter to me. I avoided anything green just for that reason. However, my health suffered from my poor eating habits and I remember getting sick quite often.
When I was about 10 years old, my dad experienced financial bankruptcy and my home environment became incredibly unstable and filled with stress. We ended up having to sell our home and most of our belongings. It was around this time that I turned to food for comfort. I curled up on my bed with a blanket, a book, and a bag of candy hidden under the pillows. I retreated into that veil of safety even just for an hour.
My sister and I lived temporarily with an aunt and uncle before moving from Oklahoma to California to reunite with our parents. As we started a new life from scratch, my addiction to using sugar for comfort took hold. The candy binges turned into a daily ritual and were the only thing that made me happy when I came home from school.
I was deeply ashamed of my habit and the cycle of guilt, shame, and lack of self-control around food began. At the same time, my weight increased, my skin broke out, and my self-esteem plummeted. The self-loathing was so intense that I often wished myself dead. This unhealthy behavior and self-loathing went on for a decade. I felt so alone and I had no motivation, education, or role models to make healthy changes.
By the time I reached college, my hormones were so unbalanced that I had never had a normal menstrual cycle. The only option I was given by the doctor I saw was to start hormonal birth control. Going on the pill regulated my cycle, but then led to anxiety and migraines. I was still so disconnected to my body that I didn’t realize the significance and continued to take the pill for 15 more years.
After getting my bachelor’s degree, I started my professional career as a fundraising executive for non-profit hospitals. The long hours took a further toll on my health. Although my candy binges were less frequent, new addictions and other unhealthy coping strategies developed, such as over-exercising. At this point, the low-fat craze was also in full swing, so I thought it was healthy to run on the treadmill for an hour, and then go home and eat fat-free cookies and ice cream.
The bright spot during my 20s was meeting a sincere, funny, sweet man who became my boyfriend and, later, my husband. While falling in love helped me immensely from a mental standpoint (and probably saved my life), we were both busy professionals and didn’t eat very well. We ate at restaurants a lot and both gained weight during the first few years of our relationship. I also further increased my stress level by enrolling in an incredibly demanding full-time graduate school program.
Around that time, I developed extreme fatigue that led to being diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune thyroid condition, along with multiple thyroid nodules. My endocrinologist said there were no dietary or lifestyle changes I could make that would help, only revealing that eventually my thyroid would be completely devastated by the disease.
My migraines were also occurring almost daily by this time, as well as debilitating panic attacks that left me unable to maintain many of my relationships. When I asked a different doctor for help, his only suggestion was to consider taking an experimental daily drug that was being used for seizures. I was horrified by the idea of having to take such a strong medication and refused the prescription. The red flag that I felt at that time was my very first inkling that I needed to take some control over my health.
Throughout it all, I hid my fears from everyone around me, including my husband. I devoted a lot of energy to keeping up a fake appearance, always smiling and pretending that I was doing okay. Looking back on it, I can see that I was slowly dying, and suffering in complete silence.
Finally, in 2004, I saw the movie Super Size Me about the guy who eats fast food for 30 days. I wasn’t that surprised that he got sick after eating this way, but I was inspired by the fresh fruits and vegetables that his natural chef-girlfriend prepared for him after the experiment was done. The food that helped him recover looked so vibrant and nourishing, and nothing like I had ever thought about buying. I went straight from the movie theater to the grocery store and filled my cart with as many fresh foods as I could find. This was the first step I took in the long journey to recover my health.
There were further challenges ahead. Around 2010, I discovered veganism and thought that a 100% plant-based diet was the answer to all my problems. This strict approach that excluded all animal products seemed to work well at first. I lost weight and was feeling energetic with no migraines. I built a business creating recipes for the healthy, vegan community.
Sadly, though, my thyroid disease also took a serious turn in 2012 when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. I had surgery to remove the tumor, but had a very hard time adjusting to life without a thyroid gland. I started experiencing symptoms including chronic skin hives, fatigue, depression, and increased food sensitivities. I also became overly vigilant about my food choices and developed a type of eating disorder known as orthorexia. At this point, I realized the vegan diet was no longer serving my needs.
Finally, in 2015, I began working with functional medicine physicians and practitioners who helped me develop a plan to address the root causes of my health problems and figure out the foods that would nourish and sustain me. I also consulted an eating disorders specialist to address some of the unhealthy beliefs I had around food.
Now, a few years later and at the time of writing my first cookbook, I feel like a “clean eating” approach is the best description of a flexible, real food way I choose to eat. As a result, my overall inflammation has decreased tremendously and my health issues are much more manageable. Best of all, I enjoy an abundance of colorful, nutrient-rich foods that are satisfying, healthy, and delicious.
I learned my lesson that my ideal diet is much less about perfection or following a strict plan, but doing my best each day to eat foods that nourish and satisfy me.
Please join my private Clean Eating Diet Support Facebook group to learn more about healthy eating and balanced living.
