Finding Myself Again

So, part of the reason I wanted to put my story out there is because John and I have been getting a lot of questions about what I'm doing and why. But I didn't really feel I could give that a good answer without sharing where I started, how bad it got, and just how much it means to me to be able to say things like, "I feel good", or "I am sleeping better". I was told I would never get better. I was just too stubborn to give up.

The last year however was a battle, every single moment of every single day (and night). By the time I was done with finals, I was completely exhausted. It took everything I had just to get through the year and I spent a good chunk of May just being lazy and recuperating. But I also started looking for a better way to get better. I had made a lot of progress and learned a lot over the past year, but I did not want to repeat it. I wanted to heal and I knew I had to change my focus. I no longer wanted to fight RLS, I wanted to create a healthy body.

My hope that was that if helped my body get healthy, it would do what it is made to do, and heal the problem  and the RLS would go away. Now, I'm not a medical doctor, I'm a veterinary student, and I don't make any claim that anyone else would benefit from this plan, but it is working for me. And I always have and still do believe that for the most part, given the right tools, our bodies know how to be healthy and fix themselves when there was a problem. For me, RLS involves several components. Mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual. I meditate, I pray, I write in my journal, I do yoga, lift weights, and I just started walking our dogs again. But I believe that the biggest catalyst in this whole process has been a complete change in the food I give my body. It turns out you really are what you eat.

Of course, I didn't really want food to be a component at all. I wanted to be able to eat whatever I wanted. But I already knew that loosing weight over the past year had helped. And since I wasn't completely better yet, I decided to do some sort of food trial to see if changing my diet would help. I ended up combining two ideas into a plan that is working for me. I have more energy, I feel better, my muscles don't cramp up anymore, i sleep better (I could repeat that one a thousand times), I'm happy (I randomly break out in song now), my asthma/allergies have improved greatly, I'm more relaxed and focused, and I no longer have PMS.

I found two programs that really spoke to what I wanted to achieve and John and I combined them into the program that works for us. The first was from a book titled Clean, which advocates a hypoallergenic, predominantly liquid, detox diet for 21 days. We also watched the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, which is about a guy (two guys actually) who resolve a chronic health problem by doing a juice fast.

 John and I in San Antonio, just before starting our new get Steph healthy plan.

To start with we did an elimination diet from Clean for 4 days before starting the detox diet. We didn't get a Clean kit (available on the website), we just used the book and website, and reviews on amazon and got our own supplements, protein powder, etc. We did buy a good juicer so we could make our own juice because store bought just really doesn't compare in regard to health and nutrients, or taste for that matter. So here is a typical day for us:

8:00 am - big class of juice (there are lot's of recipes on the reboot site and we stick to ingredients allowed in clean)
10:30 am - protein shake (try as we might, we have not been able to make vegetarian protein powder taste good, so you're on your own there, we just down it and look forward to going to whey protein later, we often include juice in this)
12:00 pm lunch (includes a lean meat, like chicken, lamb, buffalo, or fish, vegetables, and we may have brown rice)
4:00 pm - another protein shake (my least favorite part)
7:45 pm - juice
And if we get hungry in the mean time we snack on unsalted raw nuts, or raw fruits and veggies

The biggest expense was the juicer, we bought a good one that would last a long time. But it was definitely worth the investment. Clean gave us the tools to detox safely. The documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, inspired me, kept me going when I wasn't getting the changes I wanted and it inspired us to get a juicer and start juicing - we do however get more in our diets than just juice.

Now, I will say that I didn't want to do this, but I did want to get better. I just believed that my body was capable of feeling better. I've struggled with food most of my adult life, and I honestly really don't like vegetables. I am the pickiest eater, and I always have been (just ask my parents). Over the past few years I got better, but really if I could live on cheese, pasta, and dessert I would.

Now, I am developing a new found respect for nutrition. I really do understand that you are what you eat. My blood pressure has gone done (it had been border line high), I've lost weight. I'm really do feel like I'm developing a whole new relationship with my body. I'm not sleeping with a tens machine attached to my legs. I don't have RLS when I'm falling asleep, although I do still wake up with it just once during the night. Now I don't even have to get out of bed to get it to stop. I take deep breaths, and do a meditation that helps me fall asleep. Last night when I did that, the very mild RLS I was having stopped pretty much instantly and I went back to sleep. I used to be terrified to go to sleep at night, I would start feeling anxiety when I noticed it was a few hours away from when I would need to sleep. I am beginning to feel confident when I get into bed that I will sleep.

The best thing is that I am loving my body and who I am for what feels like the first time. And John loves his happy wife. He said last night that he feels like he's getting to know me all over again and he loves it. He hasn't seen me this happy since we first started dating, which is when this nightmare was just beginning. John is sleeping better and has more energy as well, and I definitely couldn't do this without him doing it with me. 

I look forward at all the things that John and I want to create with our lives: career, kids, traveling, spending time with our families, and friends. And I actually have the energy to do them. Before, I wanted to do these things but actually doing them was exhausting. Now the world feels full of joy and possibilities. If I didn't get any better than I feel right now, I could live with that. But I believe that my body will continue to heal. I will always be susceptible to RLS, but I believe I can live my life in a way that creates health, and that the RLS will go away as my health continues to increase. It's been a long road, and I wish I hadn't gotten sick, but I am very thankful to have found myself through the process of healing.