Here is just a random, non-professional picture of me now finally healthy after all the health problems I have faced over the years.....join me as I take you through my health journey.
I have had this blog since 2008 and in the beginning a just posted pictures of the recipes I had been creating. Sure they looked delicious but who wants to just LOOK at delicious food, I sure don't! As time went on I decided to share my recipes with my blog readers and so I started posting the recipes and at times I would tell little stories about my kids or my family but I really kept to just posting recipes thinking that is what my readers would want most.
The other day I had an epiphany, a moment of inspiration, and I realized there was a VERY important part that my blog was missing......my story!
I want to make it clear that telling my story is hard for me, this has been an emotional roller coaster since I was 10 years old and I've wanted to just forget, but I realize that my story may help others and so I share this deeply personal story with you.
I've always wanted to connect with my readers and I thought the best way to do so was through posting delicious, yummy, healthy recipes! The way to a mans heart is through his stomach and the way to a woman's heart is through chocolate......right? I realize I was wrong.
I believe I have figured out what has been missing from my blog.......ME!
Sure I post delicious recipes but I'm sure many people passing through my blog think, so what? It's not harsh, it's the truth. Who cares, there are a MILLION and one recipe blogs out there, what makes mine any different than any other blog out there....right now, nothing.
Guess what, there is a wonderful story behind this blog and in fact, a continuing story behind this blog that I have never shared with my readers and it is a shame because my story could help so many people. Part of the reason I haven't shared my story is that I was embarrassed to admit that before changing my diet I had let my health and weight get SO out of control. Well, I believe my story could help many people striving to improve their own health and so I want to share it with you.
Go get a nice cup of iced lemon balm tea, sit back and enjoy because my story is long......but well worth reading!
I want to start at the beginning, I will make it as short as possible but I also want to be thorough. Rewind to the summer of 1987, I was 10 years old....probably shouldn't admit that as it ages me but that's the truth.
I was the milk guzzling queen of the world...trust me I should have won a world record for milk guzzling!
You may wonder why that is important, but it is. I did not drink water, juice, soda pop or anything else, I drank milk. When I came in from a hot day outside I didn't even bother getting a cup I just guzzled right from the carton. I honestly drank a lot of milk, thank goodness mom didn't catch me drinking from the carton very often :-P
What I didn't realize at the tender age of 10 was that dairy products are the NUMBER ONE source of bioactive estrogens in the Western diet! GASP!
I'm sure you are shaking your head, no, soy is. NOPE, not so. Does soy have the same reproductive system as you do? No it does not, phytoestrogens are not what your body produces, there are three types of estrogens in the human body: estrone, estradiol, and estriol. The predominant estrogen in the human body is estradiol, this is the one with the most biologic activity before menopause and after menopause it becomes estrone. Estradiol is 80 times more powerful than estriol. Guess what cows milk contains:
estrone and estradiol! Studies have shown that both raw organic and conventional milk have the same levels of estrone and estradiol in them. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20494161
Please understand that the source cited above is from the American Dairy Science Association so of course they are going to downplay the significance of this saying the levels of estrogens in milk are much less than the body produces, well of course they are, but they absolutely have a powerful effect on our own hormonal balance. We are NOT meant to consume any animal hormones and this occurs even in raw, organic milk.
Does this help you understand why the hormones naturally ocurring in milk are much MORE damaging that a phytoestrogen? Estrogens in milk are the exact same as those produced in your body!!! Phytoestrogens are NOT!!!
Okay, so back to my milk guzzling story....... Here I am 10 years old and quenching my thirst with milk. Little did I know that in September of 1987 as I barely entered 5th grade I would experience menarche or better known as having my first period.
I cannot describe to you how absolutely traumatic it is to be 10 years old, in 5th grade and be going through puberty. I was traumatized by this and it took me decades to come to terms with womanhood because of this along with a few other traumatic experiences in my life. I knew what it was, I just was not mature enough to emotionally handle it. So of course they have the ridiculous maturation program in public school, don't even get me started on that! It was early in the year and my mom came in to have 'the talk' before the program and I was so upset I yelled at her to GET OUT OF MY ROOM!
She was shocked and I said I already had my period I don't need some stupid program to tell me about it, get out! My mom was shocked. I ended up calming down but I was so uncomfortable, if there had been a cliff I would have jumped off of it right then and there.
Suffering through that maturation program was humiliating beyond belief. The boys were making raunchy jokes, teasing us and it was literally like I had been forced into an emotional torture chamber as I sat there listening to this absolutely horrific explanation of menstruation and an onslaught of inexcusable behavior by 10 year old boys while I was sitting there on the third day of my first period.
I won't get into how much I HATE the maturation program, but I will say menarche should be celebrated as the beginning of fertility and a woman's miraculous power of creation, she literally shares with God in the power of creation and bringing children into this world. Instead it is belittled in some ridiculous medical movie about physiology and the inconvenience of it all and then they hand you a sanitary napkin and send you on your way.
Well, lucky for me.....or so I thought. I didn't have another period for 9 months. My mom talked to a pediatrician who said this was normal for girls who started menstruation so young. Yeah, like a man would have any clue about what is normal in a female body.
The problem was I was experiencing things that were not normal, through my 5th grade year I started to have the beginning symptoms of PCOS, irregular periods, thicker than normal hair growth on legs, arms and finer but still unusual growth elsewhere, slow metabolism, and other symptoms. No one had even heard of PCOS at this time in 1987 and so I was just left with feeling like something was wrong with me.
I struggled with this whole being a woman thing. Boys in school who are so improperly socialized and are never taught respect or to be polite, courteous and kind acted like savages toward me. Flipping my bra, trying to look under my dress and all the while I cried, struggled, and suffered every day.
As the years went by I found that my periods came every 6 months to 3 years and they were often painless and scanty. My friends always said I was lucky, but for some reason I didn't feel so lucky. My friends always commented on my beautiful porcelain skin and how pretty I was. I didn't feel pretty but it did make me feel better sometimes. Well at 13 that procelain skin started to turn into a cystic acne/scaring nightmare!
Within months my beautiful skin had turned into what I described as something akin to freddy kruger or the phantom from the phantom of the opera. Older women would always say, you are so pretty why do you wear so much make up! I wanted to SCREAM at them!!! Sometimes I would say, without makeup I could scare small children. I realize now it probably wasn't that bad, but when you are a teenager, everything is a HUGE deal.
People would laugh and brush it off but inside I really honestly felt that way, I felt like my bare, scarred, and acne covered face would scare anyone if they saw it.
I struggled with severe back pain sometimes and at first we thought it was due to a low grade kidney infection the Dr. found but now I realize at times the cysts on my ovaries would burst and it HURT! Luckily I have a pretty high pain tolerance but honestly it was aweful!
I also noticed that even though I was a healthy thin weight all through my life I seemed to have higher body fat than all the other girls. I never looked lean and fit no matter how skinny I got, there was always this layer of fat over my abdomen and my hips and I wished I could look like the models on magazines more than anything but even when I wore a size 2 jean I still had a higher body fat percentage and you still couldn't even see an inkling of my abs even at a size 1 pant size! I know you probably won't believe me but that is part of the PCOS beast!
The older I got, the more hair showed up in odd places, it was fine but it was there, I cried, I waxed, I bleached, I shaved and cried some more.
If you are a PCOS sufferer you will know what I mean.
By the time I was 18 I was devastated by the horrid symptoms caused by PCOS and low thyroid! The acne, the scarring, the excess fat around the middle, the scanty periods, the fatigue, lethargy, depression, anxiety! It is enough to drive an 18 year old girl crazy and I will tell you I struggled.
I didn't realize that most of my life I had a low functioning thyroid as well, just to add insult to injury in all my suffering.
My parents thought I was lazy, I wasn't lazy I was TIRED and lethargic from all the imbalances and health problems raging inside of me that no one knew about!
I was married one month before I turned 20.
I know, young! I didn't think I was so young then but now I look at 20 year olds and think how did I even know what marriage was back then. But, I married my high school sweetheart and I wouldn't change a thing about it!
I remember women at work asking me about a premarital exam. A premarital WHAT??? They are going to put what, where..............why? No way! Not happening. But you HAVE to get on birth control. No I don't! Even though at the time I never could have dreamed the nightmare that birth control pills are, or how many lies surround them I knew I didn't need it.
I got married without any doctor visit.... crazy how you don't need to see a doctor to be married isn't it. It works out JUST FINE!
I hadn't had a period in 2 years at this point so I knew getting pregnant was not even a question and it wasn't. My in laws were upset with me but the reality is DON"T JUDGE WHAT YO DON"T KNOW~!
I knew my body and as many warnings as they gave me I did not get pregnant. After about a year of marriage with still no period I started to get concerned, I wasn't ready for a baby yet but I knew that this had been an issue since I was 10 years old and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to just get pregnant easily.....so I went to my first OB visit. I absolutely insisted on a woman so I drove over an hour to the appt.
This office was SO busy I waited over an hour just to get in to a room! A nurse handed me a prescription for progesterone for 5 days or so to bring on a period then clomid and some temperature charts and sent me on my way. I had no idea what I was doing but I took what I was given the progesterone caused a period, took the clomid then 30 days later.....nothing happened and no period came....
I called the office again and again and again......no appointments, no answers. So I gave up.
I waited 6 months for a new female doctor that was coming to a different office. In the mean time I did temperature charts. When I FINALLY got in to see her she was very nice but took one look at my three charts and said you have not ovulated.
I was given the same thing as the last Drs. office with better instructions, but this time she said we'll test your progesterone to see if you ovulated to no more charting!
I did as instructed, took 50mg. clomid on days 5-9 and then waited
on CD 21 or so when I should be 7dpo progesterone was tested......
If you ovulated it should be above 15ng/ml
Mine was aweful at .4ng/ml
yes that is POINT 4.
Well, not only did I not ovulate my progesterone level was BARELY even detectable! The doctor acted surprised but at the same time acted like she didn't know how to handle this. Well, I didnt' ovulate so I was given progesterone to take for 10 days and then clomid again.....only this time it was 100mg
It was the same thing over again.....take pills and wait! I am not a patient person so this was NOT easy for me.
CD21 progesterone test again........same results~ no ovulation
The doctor then explained that as an OB she could not prescribe me any more than 150mg of clomid, if that doesn't work I needed to go see a reproductive specialist and look at injections and other methods. I went home and cried!
WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME????
We couldn't afford infertility treatments, we had only been married 2 years by this time and hubby was in school full time. At this point the Dr. notified me that I had cysts on my ovaries but we had no idea if it was from the clomid or something else. Obviously we can see where this is going.....PCOS diagnosis down the line.
Well, I was blessed because this last shot I had at infertility treatment worked 150mg one time and I was pregnant!
This was a great blessing for me at the time. 9 months later I had a baby girl 4 lbs. 13 oz.!! Yes, it was 9 months later at 36 weeks. Remember pregnancy is technically 10 months not 9. But that is another story for another day.
During my pregnancy our main form of entertainment was going out to eat. I knew you gained weight when you were pregnant so no amount of weight gain at this time even phased me. I ate and ate and ate some more. Once when my Dr. was unavailable I saw one of the midwives and she really let me have it because I had gained 7 pound in one week!
Silly me, I thought ALL that weight would just fall off as soon as the baby was born!!!!
Boy was I surprised to find out that the 42 pounds I gained, on top of the 20 before pregnancy = OBESE!!!!
Yep, my BMI about 6 weeks postpartum was 31!
I was shocked, I wore about a size 16, I had never worn any larger than a 4 in my life! I cannot tell you how much I cried. When my daughter was 3 months old we decided to get life insurance and that required blood tests. I was 22 years old at the time and my cholesterol was considerably above 200!
I had to pay a higher life insurance premium because I was considered a risk! At 22 years old! Well, we later discovered on yet another emergency room visit for severe pain that I had gallstones, not only that but they were stuck in the bile duct causing severely elevated liver and pancreatic enzymes so I was hospitalized until surgery could be performed. It was hard on me, I was also only allowed to eat clear liquids and broths until surgery to prevent any further contractions of the gallbladder. Boy I wish I had known what I was doing to my health through my terrible diet back then and prevented this horrible, life changing surgery.
After surgery I continued on a strict exercise routine and a diet, my main diet was NO sugar and very little red meat. I thought that was healthy.........yes I'm blushing
This caused a cascade of events, I lost most of the weight and retuned to a size 4 pant size by April, Surgery had been in February I believe. Unfortunately I struggled severely with fatigue, lethargy and slurred speech but was okay otherwise....if you can call that okay.
One day something just SNAPPED, I had horrible joint pain, terrible diarrhea, stomach pain that caused me to double over and I thought I would literally die, my speech was very slurred, I could not think clearly, I could hardly lift my arms as they felt like 20 pound weights and I lost so much weight over the course of the next month or so I ended up at 89 pounds!!!!
I was so very, very ill. We went from Doctor to doctor and they all just acted like I was some crazy lady, one even accused me of anorexia. An internal medicine doctor did find one piece of the puzzle, I had a positive ANA test, or anti-nuclear antibodies. This indicated some auto-immune disease but they could not put a finger on exactly what it might be.
My thyroid was tested and found to be low/normal but because of my symptoms, including tons of hair loss I was given one month of synthroid which did help with the fatigue and joint pain and hair loss but after the first month the prescription was not renewed and I sank back into pain, fatigue and suffering again.
I researched online and thought I may have celiac. The GI doc begrudgingly agreed to do a biopsy, took one sample, said it was fine, no celiac! I didn't believe him and I was sick of paying out money to these lunatics who seemed to have very little knowledge and even less caring for me.
I went gluten free anyway and within about 6 weeks I gained 7 pounds! I kept with the diet because it seemed to be helping me. I later found that I do have the two celiac genes HLA-DQ2 and HLADQ8. I also found that I had other markers of celiac so I continued on my gluten free diet. My health improved to back where it was when I was a teenager but I can't say it was great. I never realized how much fatigue I suffered all my life until I REALLY Changed my diet.
In the Fall of 2004 I started my education in Natural Health Science with Clayton College of Natural Health. This school is not real popular in the mainstream because it is 100% focused on natural health. I learned SO much. I started noticing in my 1000 page Nutrition textbook that fruits and vegetables had all kinds of phytochemicals and nutrients that were associated with lower risk of just about EVERYTHING!!!
Yet, meat had protein, but as also associated with many diseases and didn't really have a very good nutritional profile. No study ever said eat meat and prevent X chronic disease!!!
This was the beginning of my understanding of nutrition! But even as I started switching to organic foods and eating eggs, dairy and chicken more and less red meat I still would have periods of days where I couldn't get out of bed, my legs would buckle out from under me when I walked, my eyes would twitch back and forth, my limbs felt like dead weight, I still struggled with my health and my fertility was still non-existent. I didn't have a period for three years as I studied health with Clayton College.
I decided to get off of dairy products after learning about the NATURALLY occuring hormones in milk and I also decided to 'try' making vegetarian meals and the next thing I knew I had a period within about 30 days of these small changes! This inspired me so I ordered a 'Vegetarian kit' off some website that offered it for free. When it came in the mail I was so excited! I had never dreamed of being a vegetarian before, the thought made me cringe, it is only for people who like to walk half naked in the streets protesting right???? Not really but that is the image for a lot of people.
Well, I popped in the accompanying DVD with excitement as I thought I was going to get a lesson in vegetarian cooking, nutrition information and the like. Boy was I in for a surprise, it was footage of slaughterhouses, interviews with farmers as they arrogantly abused animals in front of a camera and laughed, chickens crammed in cages, calves crying for their mothers or lying dead in the middle of a barn........I had to turn it off as I as crying and could not handle all the violence and bloodshed.
Regardless of whether that animal lived in a pasture or a feedlot doesn't matter violence and bloodshed and consumption of their flesh is the end result every time! I could not in good conscience participate in this violence, I had been disconnected from the reality of the pick, packaged 'food' called chicken and the beautiful images of chickens roaming around a barn. Now I could no longer disassociate from the reality.
We had owned our own chickens, and raised them 'organically' and my dad and husband slaughtered them while I sat in the house disconnected from the violence and bloodshed that ocurred outside my home. I could no longer participate in this awful violence.
I found a community education class on raw foods and decided to take it to learn more about nutrition. This was an amazing class and confirmed all of my basic understanding about nutrition. It was 4 weeks long and I learned so much. I came home, threw out all the animal based foods and we were in business. I have NEVER had a return of my debilitating fatigue, heavy limbs, legs giving out underneath me, eyes twitching or any other symptom I once had!
My cycles started to regulate at about 35-45 days, not perfect but a far cry from the 9 months to 3 years they had been my whole life before!
I remained on the Raw Food Journey for 2 years
I do have a belief in raw foods, but I also have to point out the fallacies and lies touted by raw foodists as these lies caused more minor health challenges for me, but none the less, made my journey more difficult. These lies also cause MANY people to leave plant based eating and that to me is a tragedy on many levels.
Raw Food Myths
- It doesn't matter how much fat you eat as long as it is raw you won't gain weight
- As long as what you eat is raw it is healthy
- Nuts and seeds are protein dominant foods
- As long as the sweetener is raw it is healthy
There are so many other lies but lets just start with these:
It is absolutely NOT true that RAW oils, nuts, and seeds won't cause you to gain weight! Unless your body defies the law of thermodynamics you WILL gain weight if you eat them in excess raw or not! Your body burns X amount of calories per day, you exceed that, you gain weight....period.
Fat at 9 calories per gram vs. carbohydrate or protein at 4 calories per gram is MUCH more likely to lead to excess calorie consumption. This is common sense people.
I know people think that through the 80's and 90's the low fat fad caused a decrease in fat consumption....this is NOT true!
As you can see fat consumption has NOT decreased, it has steadily increased and YES this has led to weight gain.
I agree that high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners play a role but as you can see fat has been increasing and so have our waistlines and fat consumption is absolutely part of the problem! If you notice caloric sweeteners did not increase a whole lot, not in comparison to added fats and oils.
When was the last time you complained about the CARBOHYDRATES on your hips!!!
Let me just step out on a limb here and guess that you have probably never complained about carbohydrates on your hips. De novo lipogenesis is the process by which carbohydrates are converted into fat for storage and it burns 30% of the calories in carbohydrates just to convert them. Take home message Carbohydrates are not the problem.
Okay so back to my raw foods story! Overall I felt great, had a complete reversal of just about every health problem I had, except I still had cysts on my ovaries at this point, the reason, excess consumption of fats and oils in combination is loads of RAW agave and other so called healthy sweeteners!
I started out BEFORE being raw at a size 2 around 96 pounds which is a normal weight for my 4' 11" frame.
In the beginning I lived on mostly fruit and vegetables and a little nuts for variety but I did fine until I learned how to cook gourmet raw food and POURED on the raw dressings is 1 1/2 c. of refined, pure fat olive oil in the dressings. No I didn't use the whole 1 1/4 c. on a salad but I like my salads drenched.
I gained 12 pounds in total and could not figure out what in the world was going on, I wasn't technically overweight at this point but if you are a woman you can imagine how upset I was.
This whole idea that you can consume ALL the fat you want and lose weight was NOT working for me.
I found Dr. McDougall's books as I tried to find a solution to my weight problem and this is where I found my answers. I quit the raw lifestyle cold turkey and started on a starch based diet, very little nuts no oils and that excess weight fell off in no time!
I had no decrease in energy, no problems going into eating grains, but the weight loss was phenomenal and I felt more balanced.
I have nothing against a raw food diet, I think they can be very healthful but the reliance on nuts, seeds and oils for calories is NOT healthy!
People who say oils and fats are healthy for you don't know a whole lot!
Lets look at the nutrition breakdown for 2 Tb. coconut oil
Calories.....................234
Protein..........................0
Fat..............................27.2g
Vitamins.....................0
Minerals....................0
Omega 3's.................0
Omega 6's..................4%
Okay so here we have 234 calories with HOW MANY ESSENTIAL NUTRIENTS.....practically NONE! we get a measily 4% daily value of essential omega 6's and the rest of the fats in coconut oil are completely non-essential! Sure they may have anti-bacterial, anti-fungal properties but the point is THEY ARE NOT ESSENTIAL!
That is what I call empty calorie, refined junk food at its finest!
Sorry but I have not fallen for the coconut oil miracle hype, this stuff is non-nutritive and not healthy regardless of what you think about its role in heart disease or any other health issue nutritionally it is ridiculous!
Nuts and Seeds are Protein Dominant Foods
In short, NO THEY ARE NOT!!!
Lets look at some popular nuts used in raw foods:
1 oz. Cashews
Calories................156
Protein...............5.2g
Fat.......................12.4g
That would be a fat dominant food: Cashews get 83% of calories from FAT!!!!
It varies from nut to nut but generally they are about 75-90% fat depending on the type of nut! They are high in calories but should not be used as a staple in any diet.
Nuts and seeds can compliment a healthy diet but absolutely SHOULD not be a staple.
What I mean by staple is where you get a good percentage of your calories.
I have remained on a whole foods plant based diet and most of my health issues of disappeared and have NOT returned.........
However, I did get a little lazy and added gluten back into my diet for several years and the low thyroid issues showed up slowly again, hair falling out, some fatigue, SLOW Metabolism.
I removed the gluten and voila those symptoms have started to decrease although this time it has taken some added things to help such as maca.
The last health issue I continue to battle......................PCOS
Despite the fact that I DO NOT have: High blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, or insulin resistance I still have annovulatory cycles and cysts on my ovaries as well as some lingering symptoms of PCOS.
My health stats as of my last check:
Blood pressure......................100/68
Total cholesterol....................155
Triglycerides......................65
Fasting Blood glucose..............62
My numbers are all fine, and yet, I still have this lasting health issue and I cannot figure out why!
This is the last health issue I have yet to resolve, although I am committed to CURING myself. Not managing it, not AVOIDING Carbs to avoid the problem, but CURING IT!
I am developing a program for myself to see if I can beat PCOS, not manage it, CURE IT!!!!!
I hope you will join me and support me in this journey toward health and I hope that hearing my story of healing will help inspire others.
In Health,
Tandi Hartle
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