Tag: menopause

Heal Yourself: An Intermittent Fasting Life

Posted on by Cruisin Michelle

The final post of this intermittent fasting (IF) series is here. It has been a great way to kick off 2021. I have reflected on how far I have come since I started practicing IF two years ago, stayed focused on my 2021 goals, and thanks to your feedback, I know I have inspired a few people. A win all around! If you decide to practice IF, I can guarantee is your journey will not look like mine or anyone else’s journey. Our bodies are precious, unique, and have individual healing needs. Please talk to your doctor, I am a blogger and not a medical professional. Let’s dive into what our IF practice has looked like over the last two years and talk about the changes we made to our practice at the start of 2021. If this is the first post you are reading, I recommend you go back to the beginning of the series so everything makes sense. Click here to go back to post #1.

I love to know the ending of a story first, how about you? If you don’t, skip this paragraph. 😂 If you do, let me tell you the best news of all. Since the start of 2021, which was only eight weeks ago, I am down 17 pounds and four inches in my waist. 17 pounds!! What the what!?!? I was looking at my Facebook memories this morning and saw a picture from five years ago when I was wearing a pair of pants that I can fit into again. What an accomplishment. Next goal: Be able to wear pants I was wearing seven years ago when I was at my thinnest! Ok, that’s a big lofty but I have to have a goal, right? ❤️ Brian is down 20 pounds and three and a half inches in his waist. Just look at these pictures! If this doesn’t motivate all of us, I don’t know what will! We have lost about two to two and a half pounds a week, which is normal for the start of most weight loss regimens. The loss will slow down, I am sure of that and am already seeing signs that the slow down is upon us. The punch line is this is not the start or the end of our story.

From January 1st to March 1st, this is the progress we’ve made by being intentional with our IF practice

Life is a journey and this is simply one chapter, so let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves! It has been a long two years of practicing IF before we got to consistent weight loss. When I started practicing IF, I thought it was my miracle weight loss plan. I thought I would lose all my extra pounds in months while enjoying wine, pizza, and burgers. I lost weight in the beginning and I was hooked. At first, I was trying to eat one meal a day but my overconfidence got in the way when I started to randomly, without a lot of preparation or knowledge, trying to go two, three, and even four days without eating. This is typical for me, I get overexcited and overzealous when I start something new. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I burned out fast.

Life is a journey and this is a simply one chapter.

Why did I try going days without eating? Because I was desperately trying to heal my stomach and lose weight. For years, I had been to the ER or at the doctor’s office for excruciating stomach/intestinal pain. I was desperate to heal myself. Fasting helped a lot with my stomach pain but the inconsistency of my IF practice didn’t produce any long-term weight loss.

The theme of our IF practice for 2019 and 2020 was to try it all out, though not intentional. I was going from one meal a day (OMAD) to two meals a day and fasting either 16 or 18 hours while feasting eight or six hours a day (16/8 or 18/6). My body was definitely healing but the inconsistency didn’t help my weight loss. To lose weight, we need to practice IF intentionally which is what we are doing now. The one thing that has been consistent since the start of our practice is that we gave up eating breakfast and we don’t open our “eating window” until after 12 noon most days. This is a huge change for both of us. I have been a breakfast eater forever. I LOVE breakfast! I love all meals, all snacks, and definitely love dessert but that’s another conversation. Haha! Here’s what we’ve learned – breakfast at its root is when one breaks their fast. The first time I heard that my mind was blown! It was around that time when I learned the history of our food guide pyramid and the Kellogg brothers’ contributions to what foods the FDA recommends. Hint: You can blame the Kellogg brothers for grains being at the bottom of the pyramid. You would think science would drive those decisions but instead, money drove them. I would encourage you to do your own research. It will change what you believe about our FDA and their food guidance. You will be completely disappointed in our government. All of the books I have read and referenced in this blog series are listed at the bottom.

The beauty of fasting is its flexibility to the individual and adaptivity to your individual lifestyle. If you go on vacation, have a bad day, work first or third shift, or just need a break, fasting is flexible to when you can eat and adaptive to what comes up in your life. You can’t be in a hurry to lose weight. You may lose fast, or lose a lot at first, or your body may need more time to heal the inside. Many people when they start fasting build up their practice and even though our consistency hasn’t been intentional, we have been building up to where we are today. If you are just starting, fast for an amount of time you are comfortable. Maybe just fast for 14 hours, then move up to 16 hours, and so on.

My biggest suggestions when you are starting out practicing IF would be to (1) eat two meals and don’t snack, (2) fast clean which means only unsweetened tea, coffee, or water (lemon or lime added is ok) when you’re fasting, (3) try to keep your carbs and sugar lower, and (4) take a break or cut back on alcohol because it works against weight loss goals. I am not suggesting going keto, rather I am suggesting you find a regimen that works for you. The bottom line is it easier to fast when your body is not craving foods like carbs, sugar, or even alcohol. If you are fasting for 14 or 16 hours, at least half of that time you are sleeping! If you can work up to fasting 18 hours a day, that would be a huge process but don’t be in a hurry. The goal is to practice fasting forever. This is not a quick weight loss scheme, I can promise you that! Your body may be like ours and have a lot of healing to do before it’s ready to trust you. My body needed to trust I wouldn’t go back to the ridiculous 1,200 calorie diet. Heck, I needed to let go of all “diet” mentalities. Once my mind and body trusted me again, I needed to learn to be consistent and intentional with my IF practice without all of the extremes. Then my body began to heal my menopause symptoms, thyroid, blood pressure, PSOC, etc.

The next thing you should know about fasting is this – mixing up your practice is good for your body as long as you are consistent and intentional. Maybe most of the time you eat lunch and dinner, but sometimes you eat breakfast and lunch. Maybe one month you fast 16 hours a day but the next month you fast 20 hours in a day, again mixing it up. Trust the process which leads me to where we are today.

After two years of unintentionally trying every fasting combination, we have finally found a combination that works for us to start making real weight loss progress. Two years ago we watched a BBC documentary entitled, Eat, Fast, and Live Longer, on YouTube. But it wasn’t until we watched it again this year, ready for a change, that things we learned connected for us. The documentary is about Michael Mosley, a journalist and former doctor, who after receiving some bad health news, tried several fasting regimens to see what worked for him. He is not “fat” but wanted to work on getting healthier (to heal on the inside) and felt that fasting may be his ticket to a longer life. In the end, he determined eating five days a week while fasting (eating 500 calories or less) two days a week was a good regimen for him. If you read Dr. Jason Fung’s books, he talks about alternate day fasting (ADF) where you fast three days a week and four days a week you eat two meals a day. Fung (books are listed at the bottom) talks about ADF being the best for those who are struggling with obesity, diabetes, menopause, blood pressure, cancer, and so much more. To clarify, Mosley and Fung differ on what you eat on your fasting days and I encourage you to read/watch everything that’s out there on the subject.

Brian and I decided to not eat on our fasting days. Honestly, counting calories and only having 500 brought up too many “dieting” issues for me. We do use what Fung calls, “training wheels” on our fasting days. I enjoy dill pickle juice (click for a link to the brand I buy) and we both enjoy bone broth for “dinner” on our fasting days. We also enjoy peppermint tea on fasting days because it’s an appetite suppressant. If you follow Fung’s recommendation for fasting days, keep your salt and electrolytes up to avoid headaches. You can take a pinch of salt under your tongue anytime you need to do so. Here is a link to our electrolytes. We have been adding these drops to our water for years because you lose a lot of salt and electrolytes when hiking, especially in the heat. I would encourage you to work up to ADF so you don’t burn out on fasting. We could not have practiced ADF two years ago. It’s not easy in the beginning and we both still have hard days. We have different theories on why we have hard days, it’s too early for conclusive reasons. It could be because it’s still a new practice, because of a higher carb meal, or maybe we didn’t eat enough the day before a fasting day. However, it’s worth it. My energy level has greatly improved. I only need six-seven hours of sleep now, when I used to need eight-nine hours of sleep to feel good. Don’t misread – I still love to sleep in but I don’t need to in order to feel good! I didn’t know we could feel better than we have for the last two years but we do. Tip: My favorite fasting day ritual is to take a bath with epsom salts, baking soda, lavender oil, and of course bubbles!

Here we are in 2021, Brian and I turn 50 this year. We have seen fasting heal so many ailments that come with aging and being overweight. It was time to try ADF. It was time to be intentional with our practice and we needed to do it together. However, there was no way either of us was ready to start 2021 with fasting 3 days a week. We were coming off the holidays and 2 weeks in the RV with all the food, sweets, and alcohol we needed. 🤦🏻‍♀️ By the way, that is not 3 days in a row of fasting but rather it’s spread out over a week.

In January we started with fasting only on Saturdays while eating one meal a day every day but Sunday. On Sunday we ate two meals a day after a 42 hour fast. By January 22, we were ready to move to fasting two days a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Saturdays were chosen so we can fast together. On February 22, we moved to fasting three days a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and either Saturdays or Sundays. The days will adjust as needed if something comes up. The nice part is when we start camping in mid-March, we are not fasting on our camping days, just our travel day back home. We are just finishing our first week of fasting three days a week, send us good thoughts going forward. We plan to continue this practice until we leave for the summer, then pull back to fasting two days a week while we are on our summer trip.

The next big “test” will be our camping trip in late March. We plan to fast two days that week, maybe just on our travel days. We will enjoy some alcohol that week. We enjoyed a small amount twice in February and will a couple of times in March. The point of not drinking for three months was to assist us in resetting, breaking bad habits, and focusing on our 2021 goals. It’s time to loosen the reins a bit to see the role alcohol will/will not play in our lives in order to meet our weight loss goals.

What’s next for us? To continue to be intentional and consistent with our IF practice. As of writing this, we are less than three months away from leaving on our 70 day East Coast vacation. Summer fun will be here before we know it. My hope is the same as it is every year: Don’t gain weight and have a ton of fun! Since we started IF, we typically only gain a few pounds over the summer and I hope that doesn’t change. I want to be more comfortable in my skin before we leave, take smaller size clothes, be able to wear them comfortably all summer, and feel good in my bathing suit because I plan to wear it most of the summer! ☀️

I will probably write a recap blog in a month or two to update how we are doing. I will certainly come back to this topic from time to time. If there is something specific you want me to talk about, leave a comment. We are planning to start doing some live streams this summer on our YouTube channel where Brian will cook up a delicious meal. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and click the bell (🔔) to get notified when we post new videos or go live! We will answer your fasting questions, camping/travel questions, or anything else during our live streams. If you want to start practicing intermittent fasting, below are all of the resources I recommend and have cited throughout this blog series. I hope this series has helped open your eyes to what intermittent fasting is and what it is not. The goal is to take care of ourselves because we only get one chance with the body we are given. Live long and live well.

To go back and re-read post #6 in this series, the lessons we have learned from intermittent fasting, click here. To start the series over again, click here.

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IF Series, Part 6: Lessons Learned from Intermittent Fasting

Posted on by Cruisin Michelle

Before I can start this post, you have to know I have been dreading this topic. In short: I am conflicted. I am questioning my decision to even talk about our lessons learned. I wonder who am I to talk about intermittent fasting (IF) when I haven’t lost weight? UGH. Who am I to talk about IF when most days I am just praying I am doing it “right.” UGH. Who cares what I have learned when I haven’t lost any weight. It’s taken me three weeks to write this post. It led to some bad eating days over the topic. Yet here I am persisting and that reflects the essence of who I am. I persist at everything. It doesn’t matter what the topic or activity, I persist. Ultimately through IF, I have learned a lot about myself, what makes me happy, and I have done significant healing. It may not have been what I wanted to learn two years ago when I started IF but I believe the lessons I’ve learned will stay with me forever. With that, let’s persist.

I’ve met a lot of diets I loathed within weeks of starting them, sometimes less. The thought of the cabbage soup diet still gives me nightmares. Counting points, counting calories, never eating carbs again, putting food in pre-portioned boxes, 3-day detox diets, and meal prepping, honestly, all give me a massive headache. I am not judging anyone else’s journey, this is about my journey and mine alone. Simply stated, I want to not eat and then eat without gaining weight. Guess what? That can happen with intermittent fasting (IF). There is magic in allowing your body time to rest between meals. If there was a magic pill for healthy living, one thing I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, intermittent fasting is that magic pill. Our bodies used to get a lot of rest when we only ate 2 or 3 meals a day, before the creation of the “snack” lifestyle. Thank you, Nabisco, and all the rest of you delicious snack companies (insert sarcasm). To give your body time to process, digest, and let go of food before you eat again, is one of the best gifts you can give your body. Most of the major religions practice fasting and it has been around since the beginning of time (for reasons we don’t need to worry about today). Brian and I have been practicing IF for two years and it has created the most freeing, most rewarding relationship we have ever had with food. We have learned a lot about IF and that’s what I am going to talk about today.

During our two years practicing IF, we did not start losing weight until we made more changes to our practice. I am confident that is in part because our bodies were healing from the inside out. It’s exciting to see how the outside is now changing. I will talk about what we are currently doing in my next and last blog post for this series. However, this series hasn’t been about weight loss but rather freedom from food and improving our overall health. We have learned a lot about our bodies over the last two years. Most importantly I needed to know if I could practice intermittent fasting forever before I depended on it for weight loss. But let’s get into what I have learned so far.

Lesson 1: Hormone Balance and Healing can Happen with IF I had a hysterectomy at 40 and though they didn’t take my ovaries, I was kicked into peri-menopause within the first year. First I developed hot flashes. I remember giving an important presentation while practically undressing because of my hot flashes. Teaching was another challenge, I was always either undressing or adding extra layers, quite inappropriate and ridiculous either way. 😂 I developed night sweats that would leave sweat stains on my sheets, horrible brain fog that made me think I was losing my mind, and then there were my mood swings. Holy cow was I moody, just ask Brian! I was taking progesterone and all that did was help me gain weight. Before I started IF, I was a hormonal mess. It took about 6 months on IF before I realized that my hot flashes were gone and my night sweats were over, never to be seen again! 🙌🏼 I didn’t stop taking my progesterone until late last year and I should have stopped earlier because my mood is a million times better without taking anything. I turn 50 this year and my hormones are more under control than they ever have been in my entire life. I don’t know if menopause will get worse before I am through it but I am symptom-free and feel amazing. I know it is because of practicing IF because that is the only change I made two years ago.

Not only have my hormones become better balanced, but my inflammation and arthritis pain are gone. My inflammation flairs up when I am consuming too much wine, but overall, since I started IF, I have seen a lot less inflammation. I had terrible arthritis in my hands from too much computer work but the pain has been gone for about a year. Brian’s back and joint pain have also been greatly reduced and we have both lowered our prescription medication doses with our doctors’ guidance. If you decide to start practicing IF, see your doctor. My doctor has been along with me throughout this entire journey and she can tell you just how much healing my body has since over the last two years.

Since the start of 2021, as I said, we have made more changes and improved the consistency in our IF practice. We also took a break from alcohol. We are currently on week 7 of 12 weeks without alcohol (though we did indulge on Valentine’s Day with a nice bottle of red wine). With the addition of our changes the one health issue that persisted has healed – my blood pressure. I have struggled with high blood pressure for about four years and as of this week, I have stopped taking my blood pressure medication. It will continue to be monitored for a long while but I am thrilled to see my blood pressure self-regulate. That single “fix” is all the motivation I needed to write this blog post.

Lesson 2: Release from Food Addiction & Improved Food Digestion This is an interesting lesson because I think I will always be a food addict but I definitely have a better handle on what I eat, when I eat, and determining what foods are “window worthy,” which means determining if a food is worth eating in the smaller window I have open for feasting. I decide what I want to eat and I don’t feel guilty because my food choice isn’t on “the diet” because there is no “diet.” When guilt is gone, food tastes better and decisions about what to eat become easier. This is still not a perfect practice but I am not striving for a perfect “diet” but rather a healthy relationship with food. I’m getting there.

The changes I needed to make were bigger than just what I ate, I needed to stop eating so often because my digestive system was a wreck. I stopped eating gluten in January 2013 and that helped my digestion quite a bit but I still had struggles. I was in the emergency room three times between 2015-2018 because of digestive problems. The only thing that worked to eliminate the problems was to have a clear liquid diet for 24-48 hours. When I did that, my digestive system settled down. When I found IF, I knew the thought of not eating for a small time period would be perfect for me. And it was! I haven’t been to the ER for digestive issues since I started IF in late January 2019. My digestive system is still sensitive but I don’t have near the problems I used to have with it and it only gets better with time. ❤️

Lesson 3: Control over Weight Fluctuations & Hunger Signals I am thrilled that yo-yo dieting is gone forever. I still can’t believe we haven’t had any significant weight fluctuations since we started IF. We have gained some weight during a vacation or a week of too much wine, too long of an eating window, etc. but it comes off so easy once we pull back on the food/wine and tighten up our eating window. If you’re a skinny person or don’t have a food addiction, you understand the ebb and flow of small weight changes. I never understood this phenomenon. I have always been either losing a significant amount of weight because of a diet I was on or gaining weight because of hormones and overeating. I have never experienced the middle without huge ups and downs until I started practicing IF. A lot of people lose significant weight practicing IF. I have not lost a lot of weight yet but I know that my body needed to heal on the inside first and I needed to be ok with living at my current weight. Honestly, I needed to trust IF wouldn’t fail me if I ate burgers, pizza, and drank wine which are the normal “forbidden foods” on a diet that cause people to gain weight when they go off the diet.

After I read Bert Herring’s, The Power of Appetite Correction, I realized how wrong the myths we believed about being hangry were and how hunger comes in waves. Did you know that you don’t have to eat when your stomach rumbles? Before IF, I thought I always had to eat when my stomach rumbled or I’d get hangry. Hunger isn’t constant but rather a wave that will dissipate if you ignore it. My stomach rumbles and now I understand I don’t need to react to it. Sometimes our bodies make noises but it doesn’t mean they need immediate attention. I highly recommend reading Herring’s book to gain control over hunger signals.

Lesson 4: Learning to Love Exercise Again You don’t lose weight in the gym but you can love taking care of your body – this took me several years to understand. I want my body to move and move well for a long time to come. I want to hike the Camino and climb big mountains for the rest of my life and that means I have to keep my body moving throughout the entire year. I don’t consider exercise to be riding my bike around a town, walking the Camino, or hiking outdoors, those are just part of what I enjoy doing for fun. I spent a long time loathing the gym and going anyway to finally creating an exercise/meditation space at home that makes me smile and welcomes me in without judgment. This space has helped me learn to love exercising and taking care of myself again. My home gym is my private space. I can go when I want, for how long I want, or I don’t have to go. Now, I love hopping on my treadmill to break up my day, getting in a workout to clear my mind, and I even occasionally enjoy lifting weights. Nobody cares how loud and off-key I sing or what show I am watching on TV, and that helped me learn to love exercising again. When I can’t climb a mountain or bike under the warm sun, I can still keep moving because I want to do it.

Lesson 5: Trusting the Process This is a tough one and a lesson I am still learning. I am still trying to stop punishing myself for weight problems. I know that food is no longer the enemy and neither is wine. I don’t know why my weight loss is so much harder than what it is for others except I am a life-long diet and metabolism abuser. From everything I read, those are the people that have it the worst when it comes to losing weight. Also, I am going through menopause and my body needs my patience. For those reasons, I have faith in the process. If I am at this weight for the rest of my life, I will be ok. As long as I can remain active, I am ok. If I lose weight, I am ok with that too! Gin Stephens, the author of several books including her most recent, Fast, Feast, Repeat, always says that people come to IF for the weight loss but stay for the health benefits. I came for the weight loss, didn’t lose much but regained my health and now I am staying for the weight loss. I always have to do things the more complicated way. 😂

Lesson 6: Change is Good What is the definition of crazy? Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. I have been dieting my entire life. It has never worked for a lifetime. It was time for a big change. It wasn’t time to lose weight but rather to stop making the same decisions over and over again expecting different results. It was time to heal. IF has allowed for change, healing, and self-discovery but only because two years ago I was all in for the unknown process, the unknown journey of intermittent fasting. I was more than ready for change and I was over dieting forever. In 2021, I am still ready for change but to say I am still practicing the same “diet” for more than two years is a miracle. I have never stuck around for the same diet for this long. I know why too – because it’s not about what I eat but rather when I eat. Hallelujah!

In the final blog post of this series, I am going to talk about what our eating/fasting regimen has looked like for the last two years and the changes we have made for 2021. I am not going to say that those changes are the reason we are losing weight but they sure have motivated us! Here are a few pictures that keep us going! The photo on the far left is January 6, 2021, the next is February 6, 2021. For Brian, the left photo is February 21, 2021, and the right is July 30, 2020. It’s time this weight loss train moved into high gear and we are loving it! Come back for the next blog and I will tell you all about it!

Just look at the changes in our face since we made changes to our IF practice in 2021!

To go back and re-read post #5 in this series, click here. To go back and re-read this series from the start, click here. To read the final post in this series, come back! Subscribe to our blog to get an email when the blog is posted.

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Intermittent Fasting Series, Part 2: The Yo-Yo Diet Run for My Life

Posted on by Cruisin Michelle

Thank you for your kind words after our first post in this series. It is tough to open up about a weight loss journey that isn’t what most people would call a success. But never the less, it has been our success, and that is why I am here to tell you about it in this blog series. I appreciate you coming along on this journey of self-reflection.

We have not been featured in any magazines since we were in Woman’s Day magazine in 2014 and I am completely OK with the lack of public attention to our journey. I am sure people whisper and wonder about us. Heck, that may be why you are still reading part 2 in this series because you want to know what happened. I’m OK with that, it’s an interesting story. You may look at what we eat, drink, and think, “How could they?!” I get it.

I have no idea how people live a happy, food-fulfilled life on only 1,200 calories, eating salads and diet coke, endlessly exercising, and counting calories every single day to make sure they don’t go over. I don’t get it. I tried to live that life and I certainly cannot live that way for a lifetime. I love food and wine, oh how I love deep, luscious, red wine. I love cake, delicious and rich chocolate cake. For those couple of years from 2011-2015, I was miserable as a “skinny girl.” Sure, I loved looking in the mirror! But living was a problem. It was things like only being able to eat one unsatisfying slice of pizza, one mini cupcake when I wanted to eat the big one, and one guilty glass of wine that led to finishing the entire bottle because I just wanted to say, “screw the limitations, I need to live!” I was working out to burn more calories to eat even more food. That is what the “experts” say, right? Eat less and move more! Rubbish! I wanted to go on vacation without spending a year losing those pounds I picked up as souvenirs. I wanted to eat without getting fat – period. It’s every person’s dream. But alas there I was, a skinny girl who struggled to live while my hormones continued to rage out of control because the weight started to fluctuate…a lot. Alas, the yo-yo diet run for my life begins again.

Indulging in the mini-cupcake when I really wanted the big one!

I had just turned 40 when this weight loss journey was at its peak. My son was in the United States Marine Corps and I was mad about it. I wasn’t mad at him, he was made for the Corps. He is a warrior in every sense of the word. I hated him being so far away especially when he was deployed overseas. I took out all of my anger at the gym, a temporary motivator. I cannot live well in that constant state of anger. Fortunately, my son came back home safe and life is a bit quieter.

If you don’t already know, you can’t outrun a bad diet. You can move as much as you want but if your diet is a horrible mess, you will be too. I know this all too well. I tried my best to outrun the yo-yo phenomenon. I ran half marathons. I completed several triathlons. I hiked 500 miles across Spain. I worked out 2, even 3 times a day. I wasn’t living. I was trying to outrun the food demon inside of me and I was ticked off it didn’t work. I knew it wouldn’t work but it wasn’t until intermittent fasting (IF) that I learned why it wouldn’t work. We’ll talk about that in another blog post. I promise it’s coming. I have a lot to say about what we have learned on IF.

Here’s what I learned from our “weight loss success” – (1) I hate counting calories. (2) I hate thinking about food unless I am eating or menu planning. (3) I hate thinking about all the foods that are “restricted” because the experts at some diet company deemed them forbidden. (4) I hate tracking my food and therefore having to think about food more often. (5) I unequivocally cannot stand food prep. I hate it more than I hate dieting. (6) In the future, I only want to outrun a bear.

In the future, I only want to outrun a bear.

Also at the age of 40, I had a hysterectomy though I should have had it long before. Unfortunately, the insurance company had too many opinions on what I should do to my body and when I should do it. A rant for another day. My hormones have been a struggle since I was 15 years old, probably even younger. I remember vividly when the OB/GYN told me I had PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) followed by, “you will never get pregnant.” Yep, you heard that one right. This teenager was just given the license to have sex while dealing with the emotion and devastation at the thought of not becoming a mom. Obviously, that doctor was wrong because I have a handsome adult son. It wasn’t that I couldn’t get pregnant but rather it would be difficult to get pregnant. My son was unexpected at age 20 but he remains to be my greatest blessing in life. In 2020 he and his wife made us grandparents. 🙌🏼

Hormones are the greatest blessing and challenge of being a woman. I am not a nutrition expert, as if you didn’t know that already. I am certainly not a medical professional, again no big surprise. Therefore, I don’t know if I had PCOS because I was fat, I was fat because I had PCOS or something else entirely nor do I care at this point. I have read a lot about PCOS but that is not the point of this blog. What I know is my hormonal challenges only seemed to get more complicated as the years went on and I became more overweight and unhealthy. The yo-yo run continues.

PCOS is just another symptom of a bigger problem. I have struggled with being pre-diabetic, excess hair growth, terrible acne, overall saggy skin, high blood pressure, anxiety, and I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s in 2016. Hashimoto’s is an umbrella diagnosis for an autoimmune condition related to the thyroid. I knew my thyroid was a problem because I got that diagnosis in 2006 but it took me a while to find a doctor who could help me put all of these hormone pieces together. Oh, and did I mention I am also going through menopause? Yep, that too!

Are you thinking yet, she is a mess and I am glad I am not her! I wouldn’t blame you. Finding a doctor who could understand my diagnosis and help me take action was amazing. It also meant trying a new medication, finding the right dosage, which meant more weight gain. I remember our anniversary weekend getaway in 2017 when I was trying yet another new medication. I gained 12 pounds in one weekend! Yep, thank you underactive thyroid. We even hiked about 15 miles that weekend. You can’t outrun a bad thyroid either.

Grasping what was happening on the inside behind what everyone could see on the outside is important to appreciate the journey. I think we all have “stuff” to deal with in our progression towards good health. Whether it’s food addiction, hormones, some other health challenge, or emotional baggage. Life is a roller coaster, a yo-yo, or maybe it’s like dodgeball and we are all just trying to not get hit too hard by what’s thrown at us next. If we can just control how we react to it, we’re winning. Right? Sounds so easy (sarcasm). Intermittent fasting is kind of like that, controlling when we eat so we can enjoy more of what we eat. I wish we would have found it much sooner. Sadly, between 2015-2019, Brian and I gained back about 100 pounds of the 254 pounds we lost while rebelling against the restrictive diet we had known all too well. 😔

But I haven’t even begun to tell you what we gained when we found IF on that day in mid-January 2019. We gained enough to make an entire blog series about our journey. We cut the string on the yo-yo all together. Let me make sure you don’t miss this point – Because of intermittent fasting, we threw the yo-yo away forever. In the first blog post, I had a picture of all of our favorite foods. Can we eat all of those foods? Yes and no. We spent two years trying to see how much food we could eat when we were feasting between our fasts. Guess what? In two years we loved life, we lived well, we ate well, we drank well, we fasted, and we didn’t gain any more weight. Do we want to lose weight? Of course, we do! But for two years, this hormonally-challenged woman and her easy-going husband didn’t gain any weight. I could never have said that when we were “skinny.” The story isn’t over yet. Come back next week when we talk about learning to eat again. Subscribe to our blog to get notifications when the next blog post is up.

To go back and re-read post #1 in this series, click here. To read post #3 in this series, click here.

★ 25 years guiding ★ 48 U.S. states ★ 10 countries ★ 3,000+ Camino miles