My Journey to Wellness!
As most of you already know, I’m currently attending University. And, for anyone who has attended University and stayed on campus, you will know that the food there is questionable most of the time. That being said, I managed to gain a chunk of weight whilst being there. So, when I returned home for the summer my goal was to get my health in check, clean up my diet, lose a little weight and start exercising again.
CHANGING UP MY DIET
Since eating a ton of “junk food” whilst on campus, I decided the first food groups to go would be gluten and dairy. To be honest, whenever I ate any foods containing either gluten or dairy I would feel pretty awful within an hour or so. But, these were also found in many of the foods that were quick and easy to grab. So, I decided to follow the principals of the Paleo Diet. The Paleo diet eliminates gluten and dairy products, and promotes eating whole foods like lean meats, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds and healthy fats.
Sticking to a Paleo way of eating has helped me feel much better. I am less bloated, and my skin and nails have also thanked me! However, something still didn’t feel right. My stomach would bloat after eating certain foods, and there seemed to be no pattern to when and why it would happen. Could it be IBS? Could it be a food allergy? So, I decided to make an appointment to go and see a Naturopath, and try and figure out what was causing the bloating, and hopefully be able to sort it out before going back to Uni in September!
WHAT IS A NATUROPATH?
For those of you who don’t know what a Naturopath is, here is a brief description. A Naturopath uses natural remedies to help the body heal itself. They will use remedies such as herbs, massage, acupuncture, exercise and nutritional counselling. The goal of a Naturopath is to treat the whole person – mind, body and spirit. They aim to treat the root cause of an illness, not just the symptoms. They will take the time to discuss your family medical history, your diet and your lifestyle, as many illnesses can often be treated just be changing your diet and making lifestyle changes.
So, I made an appointment and went along with my food diary, which I had been keeping for just under a month. This detailed everything I had been eating for the last few weeks, and how I felt after each meal. I was told that from what I had described that I possibly had what was called SIBO. This stands for Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). SIBO occurs when there is an abnormal increase in the overall bacterial population in the small intestine – particularly types of bacteria not commonly found in that part of the digestive tract. She gave me a test to go home and do, and then once I returned the test to her she could see whether this was the problem. She also suggested I continue on the Paleo diet, as well as follow a Low FODMAP diet for a while just to see if, in fact, what I was suffering from was some kind of food intolerance. So, watch this space for updates!
HEALTH AND WELLNESS STORE VISIT
One of the first things that I did was to overhaul what I was eating. Now, I won’t go into too much detail about Low FODMAP, but suffice to say that I now needed to cut out more food! Ugh! Two of the main ones were Garlic and Onion. I knew this would be a challenge, since one or both of these are in practically any savory dish or meal that I consume. Anyway, I took a visit to my local Health Shop, Luminate, to stock on some Low FODMAP staples, such as ketchup, salsa and barbecue sauce. I also ordered some Low FODMAP goodies off of Fody Foods. Pictures of these will follow.
Last night I also cooked my first Low FODMAP meal, Taco Chicken. I have to say that it tasted amazing, and I didn’t miss the regular taco sauce that I normally use at all. Check out the video below!
I also tried the “Wellness Shot”. Let’s just say that I thought I’d like it and didn’t ha ha. BUT, I did try it, but never again!
So, I will keep you guys updated on my wellness journey. Hopefully it will help out others who may be going through similar experiences. I will be also be doing a “What I Eat In A Day” blog post too over the next few days so stay tuned for that!
