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Follow Me on PinterestLately, I have made some big changes in my life, especially in my diet. Because of these changes, I stopped writing for a while. One of the reasons for this was the fact that I was pretty flaky for about a month or two. Then I just had a hard time getting back in the grove. I knew that I needed to get my head clearer, especially after it took several explanations to my family every time I tried to explain something. I was having trouble putting words into coherent sentences. 
Now, I’d have thought I ate fairly healthy compared to many people. I eat only whole grains like brown rice. we use 12 grain hearth breads unless I make my own whole grain breads. We eat a salad nearly every day, using Romaine lettuce. I rarely eat at fast food places. The only thing I deep fry is Falafel. 
We eat many dishes with dried beans in them.
Pretty healthy, right?
I knew I had high cholesterol so I was constantly doing battle with that issue. I avoided the low carb craze mostly because my cholesterol was always over 200 normally but it would shoot up to over 25o when I majored on protein. That, and I think (and still do think) that people who are afraid of 12 grain bread but eat hot dogs have issues. Because my blood sugar was always very normal and healthy, I felt vindicated in this decision to base my meals around healthier whole grain carbs, and use what I felt was a moderate amount of sugar.
The Diagnosis
Well, a couple of months ago now, I went to the ER with chest pains (and pains elsewhere too. I thought it was my appendix). I felt the way I did when they took my gall bladder. They immediately went to work on treating me for a heart attack (they do this when you come in with those symptoms to save time in case you really are), but all was normal. Even the stress test, and that’s saying something. Making me run on a treadmill first thing in the morning without giving me coffee first, and not allowing me to drink water while doing so is certainly my definition of stress.
Even more stress came later, from the $15,000 I now owe as my share of this bill. Frugal me feels that to really make health care affordable, maybe we should mandate they use coupons to buy things like Tylenol ($4 a pill? REALLY? Where are you people shopping?), and I’d still love to know how it costs more than a credit hour in college to spend a half hour in a bed of the hospital, excluding tests. Wastefulnes drives me nuts. I’ve spent a lot of time barfing over the thought that I flushed $15,000 down the toilet for one pointless night in the hospital.
The one doctor, still fishing for an explanation after test after test showed nothing abnormal but my liver labs, suggested testing me for fatty liver disease.
“Oh, I have that!” I said. I explained that they diagnosed me with it when I had my gall bladder out. But at the time, everyone acted like, “No big deal. You have some fat on your liver.” When asked what to do about it, I was advised to avoid fast food and cut out the soda pop. That was easy. I don’t eat fast food, and i only drink a little pop. Done.
I lost 20 pounds last year from quitting what little pop I did drink. I was more careful about what I was eating in other ways too. It apparently wasn’t enough though.
The Change
Over the next week or so, I met five different people who either had fatty liver that progressed to being Cirrhosis, or who had a family member die of it. Scary thought. The doctors really only told me, again, to cut back on fats and fast food, and pop. Nothing i wasn’t already doing, and that was clearly not working.
To make a longer story much shorter, a friend of a friend introduced me to a doctor friend who is a doctor specializing in natural health (quite providential). I was placed on a strict diet unlike anything I’d done before. I was already low fat (mostly). Now I was going to be low fat and low carb. My diet is free of High Fructose Corn Syrup, sugar (and sweeteners), refined carbs (pasta, tortillas, etc.), gluten, excessive fruits, excessive fats, margarine, etc….
For four months now, I’ve been sugar free completely. And no refined carbs of any sort, including any whole grain bread for the moment (while my liver heals). I’ve also been advised to take some supplements that help promote liver health. I have eaten very little meat.
Me, the woman who can’t lose weight no matter what diet I’ve tried, had been losing two pounds per day for the first couple of weeks. I had no delusions that this rapid loss would continue. I enjoyed it anyway. More importantly, I felt better. Massive energy. At one point, in church, I stood up and felt my skirt slide. I grabbed it just before it went past my hips. When I got home, I showed hubby. Letting go of the skirt, the one that was so tight the month before I would undo the top button to sit, it fell effortlessly to the ground.
I’ve now lost 37 pounds and 4 dress sizes. Everyone says my skin looks better too. I look healthier. I don’t see the difference much when I look in the mirror (I still look fat to me, frankly) but I know I’m 4 sizes less.
The downside has been of a more social nature. I feel stress over hanging out with friends now that I have to think harder about what i put into my body. Funny how much of our social lives involve food and drink, huh? This time, it’s easier to avoid the “foods I cannot have” simply because of how much pain I was in but no longer am in. My family doctors said he doesn’t know that NASH causes that much pain, but maybe there was something else going on that does, which is also being corrected. Who knows.
I had gotten used to a constant level of pain, almost like white noise in the background of my life. That pain is mostly gone. It only returns when I accidentally use anything with HFCS (read: all salad dressings, condiments, yogurt, etc.) or gluten.
Financially, this has been very difficult. We put our budget on an even stricter diet to cut back enough to afford the large amount of fresh veg. In fact, I have a lot of upcoming posts, Lord willing, on this very topic. I’m excited about it. I’ve also learned a few new things on eating healthier on a restricted diet, that I look forward to sharing.
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Wow! Glad to hear you are doing better. I REALLY look forward to you sharing more of your journey.
We also eat pretty well, not as good as we could be but no where near the SAD. We are completely gluten free as myself and 3 of my children have celiac disease. We juice every morning as it helps my fibromyalgia, no hydroginated fats, etc, etc.
While juicing carrots and eating mostly raw foods helps my fibro, I still can’t loose any weight and I still have fibro and other health issues.
It is a struggle to not spend more than $800 a month on food for our family of 8. My kids are older, youngest 2 are 10 and 12, the rest teens and young adults. I make most of everything from scratch, buy in bulk, co-op, menu plan, husband gardens, and so forth. We use part of our income tax return to buy good meat, local, hormone free, grass fed. We live in Sonoma County in Calif. and it is an expensive part of Calif.
anyways, I am excited to hear how you did this.
Thanks,
Lori g.
Thanks, Lori. Keeping in mind I’m not a doctor, I wonder if the carrot juice might not be part of the weight loss issue…a fructose overload in your liver? I have had fibromyalgia for a long time too, but the symptoms disappeared completely with this diet. One of the things that were strictly forbidden was juicing because it’s too concentrated. I was also supposed to be careful about too many high-gylcemic type veggies, especially juicing them. I had always juiced carrots too. There’s an article/video on Mercola about fructose and it’s dangers (not just in the form of HFCS, but in any kind of overdose levels). I found this shocking frankly. But clearly he’s right because my life feels completely different now that I’ve worked to heal my liver. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/02/HighFructose-Corn-Syrup-Alters-Human-Metabolism.aspx
I know you’re not a doctor
A fellow mom that is trying to do the best that she can for her family with what she has and share it with others. I read Dr. Mercola’s stuff, thanks for the link, I will check it out.
Over 6 yrs ago when I was first diag with fibro, I tried all sorts of stuff and researched like crazy… I still research everything. After being bed-ridden for 6 months cause of the fibro, I went on the hallelujah diet. You eat about 85% raw vegan and juice several times a day. On this diet I was able to loose about 20 lbs and go from bed-ridden to 1/2 way normal. I don’t follow this to a T anymore, but still have raw veggies and juice daily. I am limited, have to think ahead, choose activities and pace myself or I will end up back in bed for several days. What you have been doing sounds more do-able and realistic than the other diet I was on. I would love to try it and glean from you what you have to share. I am happy you have had such great success with it and such improved heath.
I was introduced to your books about 7 yrs ago and probably have most of them, including your art dvd…. have been a faithful follower since!
Thanks,
Lori
That’s great to hear. I know that when I tried the HA diet, I had some improvement over what I had experienced before (mostly bedridden too), but I had a hard time focusing my mind. With what I’ve learned since about fructose overload, and it now makes more sense to me why I felt that way…I always favored fruits or veggies higher in sugar, which seems to hurt my fibromyaglia too, and my liver, and my brain cells. UCLA just did a study on this in fact (diets high in fructose lead to scatter brain and muscle soreness).
I would love to hear more on this, too! We don’t have any health problems in our family (4 kids 7 and under…none has ever taken an antibiotic), but I am feeling the need to eat better. We eat very little meat to begin with, and all my kids love their veggies, but I think we rely too much on dairy and carbs. So glad to hear that something has worked for you!
Thank you, Jennifer. I’m working on it.
I hope future posts, recipes, and maybe an ebook will be a help.
Oh, Kimberly, I am so so glad that you are feeling better! I was just reading one of your ebooks on my Kindle the other day and wondering how you were doing with your condition. I don’t know you personally, but have truly benefited from your ebooks and feel like your thoughts have been so helpful in my life.
I feel like this post is providential, as I am sitting down to figure out what I will feed my family for a week+ as we go on an elimination diet. The reason we are trying it is that our oldest son (almost 5) has been diagnosed with mild hearing loss due to fluid in his ears. The ENT we have seen wants to do surgery, and while I am not against it, the more I research the topic, the more I wonder if my son has a food allergy (he has other symptoms as well that would line up with a food sensitivity). His pediatrician mentioned that it looked like he might have allergies, but shrugged his shoulders and prescribed an antihistamine to go on for “as long as he needs it.”
My husband is in law school right now, and we are on a tight budget as well, so I will be facing challenges on how to feed my family a primarily meat and fresh produce-based diet, but I know that it’s important to figure out what is going on. I look forward to seeing what you have come up with for recipes, etc. and what your thoughts are on balancing frugal living with dietary needs.
Blessings to you and your family –
Jenni
p.s. – maybe you will write an ebook with new recipes based on your experience and use the $ to pay that outrageous hospital bill
Hi Jenni, I’m sorry to hear about your son. I know that I always got a lot of ear infections too, but since starting this diet — nothing. All my weird little health problems are mostly gone or really reduced. The natural doctor I saw had told me that all of that fluid is usually from dairy, and sometimes other allergies. I was surprised to find I’m allergic to corn. How much popcorn do I eat?!??! LOL No wonder why I was always having sinus problems.
I am working on that ebook. It’s actually going quite well. I’m needing to go back now and test the recipes. Most of the time I’ve just done my whole “A little of this, a little of that” method of cooking
.
Kimberly recently posted..Going Sugar Free
I just now read your reply, but I think I am allergic to corn too. I had started to suspect something a couple of years ago when I would just get really tired after eating corn, and then one day I was shucking a fresh ear, and I broke out in hives. The smell of corn chips always made my throat itch as well as a kids. And last week, before we started the elimination diet, I was drinking lots of tea with Splenda, and felt dizzy/couldn’t think straight, and was really losing it with my kids. I finally looked at the box, and low and behold, the first two ingredients were dextrose and maltodextrose.
The elimination diet hasn’t been fun so far, but the change already in how I’m relating to the kids and they’re relating to me is worth it. Almost no temper tantrums (on either side
) and my son seems to be hearing better already.
Jenni/Life from the Roof recently posted..Allergies and our elimination diet
That’s awesome to hear, Jenni! It’s so hard to do but once we do it, it’s eye opening. I was so surprised that one of my favorite things (popcorn) was causing so much trouble in my life. ha ha. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if not for the elimination diet.
I want to add…when thinking about what to make, think a little out of the box. I had never in my life eaten a parsnip, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that in a diet book, but my goodness are they yummy (just raw or roasted). Sweet potatoes are awesome (just roast) AND cheap. SAMs club sells both in bags for very little. I have decided to try a new vegetable every week. I have the eating habits of a 2 year old so this has been kinda stressful.
. I think I was the only one in the family who decided to love Artichokes but that’s okay as those are a little expensive. They’re pretty though. Also, where the bagged salad is, I have been buying bags of the Broccoli Slaw, which has all sorts of good stuff in it, and is often on sale for $1 a bag. I mix that into regular salad for more flavor/health. It doesn’t taste like Broccoli too much, which is good.
Kimberly recently posted..Going Sugar Free
We’ve been doing the roasted sweet potatoes a lot. I agree – they taste the best that way and are so easy. Thankfully, my four year-old (the one with the allergies) devours them. He also likes to snack on steamed broccoli. You’ve probably already tried this, but roasting some vegetables makes them taste so much better. I was never a fan of cauliflower, but then when I drizzled it with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted it at 400 – I ate half a head in one sitting. Same goes for broccoli, asparagus, carrots, root vegetables in general. Oh, and eggplant too.
Jenni/Life from the Roof recently posted..Allergies and our elimination diet
I’ll have to try that with roasted cauliflower and broccoli. I have never really like either of those, but I know most everything else tastes better roasted. Eggplant especially!