Hello Friends!
It has been a long while since I have come on here to blog about my health update. Honestly, for awhile, I was burning out on trying to "fix" me. I jumped into changing my lifestyle so drastically that instead of having the motto "I don't want this disease to become me" - I let it do just that. Every facet of my life was focused around what to eat, what not to eat, what to use to help my hair grow back, etc. I literally obsessed over everything, even when I didn't mean to, that in the end I was stressing myself out even more.
Let me start off by saying I am very much still into learning about how to live a healthy lifestyle with Hashimoto's. I want to be as healthy as I can possibly be. I want to be active more than one day without feeling exhausted for three. I still want my hair to stop falling out. And I still want to feel normal without having all of the brain fog, the fatigue, & the many extras that come with this. With that said, I am learning to find a balance with learning all of these things. I have to say that is so crucial.
On the one end, it is unhealthy to be so focused on every little teeny tiny thing involved with Hashimotos. From personal experience, I can tell you it isn't a great way to live. I hated obsessing over "I can't eat this or that because this is what this book or study says." On the other end, it is extremely unhealthy to completely ignore Hashimoto's and do nothing about it. I have seriously swung to both sides of the spectrum. From June to about November, I swear I had developed an obsessive compulsive disorder regarding my lifestyle. I nitpicked everything from food to hair products. Then the holidays came around. If any of you suffer from any type of disease, or are just really good about discipline when it comes to food, you know how hard it is to resist temptation during the holidays. ALL of my favorite foods from the "no-go" lists were at these parties. I honestly felt like I was starving myself because I was so afraid to eat anything and throw my thyroid into a tailspin. That's when I threw my hands in the air and said screw it! This isn't a way to live life. I AM a foodie! I love food! I kicked guilt and regret out the door...I ate to my hearts content. Surprisingly, I felt fine! At first!
While I still chose to eat a healthier diet when I wasn't going to any Thanksgiving or Christmas parties, I was still eating a lot of the processed foods I had cut out of my diet. After December, going into January, it really all started going down hill. I completely went off of my "new" eating lifestyle. I was eating whatever I wanted, drinking whatever I wanted - it was like I was rebelling against a part of myself that forced me to eat clean. Maybe it's the Gemini in me? lol. Before I knew it, all of my hard work and progress snowballed. I gained back much of the weight I had lost. I was having a harder time falling asleep again, I was getting headaches all of the time, & I was always super fatigued. The real eye opener was when I started getting chest contractions like I was having a heart attack. This dull pain would come on in my chest then radiate through my arms and in my back. It would then intensify and then subside. The first day this happened, it lasted 6 hours. Finally it stopped and I was able to get some rest. The next morning I was awoken by a sharp pain shooting through my chest again. This time it only lasted about 2 hours. I really should have gone to the hospital but this had happened before - just not quite as severe. It comes and goes, so I didn't want to get to the hospital and have it stop, then have them tell me I am having a panic attack when this clearly wasn't the case.
I sat down and really evaluated myself. I evaluated what I was eating, what was triggering me eating all of this junk again, & how to get back into that healthy lifestyle without going completely overboard. I wanted to find balance. That was the key word: Balance! I didn't want to have to obsess over everything I ate - that is just not me. I also didn't want to keep triggering these symptoms. I knew I had to do something because doing nothing wasn't going to be an option. I decided to ease back into a healthy life slowly. Not too slow! I mean, some things needed a drastic change immediately. But slow enough where I wasn't swinging to both sides of the spectrum.
As of today, I am still learning on how to find that balance but I feel like I am getting better at it everyday. I am choosing to make healthier options but I am not completely denying myself some of my favorite foods. It is all about moderation, something I always tell myself. If I am craving something sweet like soda, I will drink apple juice instead. I had been doing an extensive amount of research on vitamins and minerals because I believe many things we suffer from stems from a deficiency somewhere. Our bodies need nutrients for a reason. If we are lacking in any key nutrients our bodies will not function properly. So I am taking Vitamin's D3 & B-Complex. I am taking the minerals Chelated Magnesium and Selenium. And I am being very careful about when I take them, how I take them & what I take them with for reasons I will discuss on another blog post. Trust me, it would take an entire post to talk about everything I have learned. For the first time in a few months, I am beginning to feel better again though not 100%. I know why and I am working on it but I am being careful about keeping it balanced. I am changing a lifestyle which means changing long held habits. Nothing is going to change overnight. I could never expect that. However, working towards fixing these bad habits and changing my lifestyle everyday will ensure I make these changes last a lifetime.
I feel like I always have to say a disclaimer after every one of these kinds of posts. I am not being this open and transparent to receive sympathy from anyone. Honestly, that is the furthest thing from what I want to accomplish with these posts. I share my journey and my successes/struggles because I want to help others who may be suffering from the same thing know they are not alone. It is so easy to push these symptoms and this disease to the back burner because I have done that. This is a serious disease if not kept in check. The leading cause of death in those with Hashimoto's is heart attacks. It is also hard to change a lifestyle 100% to suit Hashimoto without driving yourself crazy. So my personal advice is to take it slow - find the balance in your life.
On here, I will always be open, honest, authentic and transparent because I believe this is the only way to help others. We can compare our struggles, compare our symptoms, and learn from each other. I hope in my posts you find value and comfort.
See ya next time!
Sincerely,
Brittany Bowman
