My Journey to Holistic Health & Mental Wellness!
Has the traditional western medical approach left you feeling like something is missing? I hear you and I've felt the same way. After years of trying to understand my own health challenges, it wasn't until I had a family that I started to investigate a more holistic approach. This is a long one so strap in!!
I never understood why I was always hungry and couldn’t control my weight. I wasn’t really ever obese, but I was always the “big” one. So since the age of 12 I started dieting. I saw my mother trying all the fad diets and I tried a few too, but then in the mid 80’s we joined Weight Watchers together and I got more serious. That first attempt did help me lose weight, but I remember being absolutely starving the entire time, and as you can guess, once I stopped the diet and started eating again I regained all my weight. In the years following I tried other diets, but they all ended the same way, and unfortunately set me up for a lifetime of self loathing for not being able to control my voracious appetite.
Then in the late 90’s I became pregnant with my son, and was quickly diagnosed with gestational diabetes during both of my pregnancies. At 33 I was considered a “geriatric” pregnancy, and was high risk because I was obese. So they put me on a special carb restrictive diet and gave me insulin. Once my son was born I was thankfully no longer diabetic, and to my absolute delight I had actually lost 10 pounds. Most of my friends gained at least 30 pounds during their pregnancies, so I felt that I was onto something. I immediately jumped on the low carb diet train and successfully went on to lose another 30 pounds.
Then I got pregnant with my daughter. Again, I had the same issues except this time I did not stick to my low carb diet and DID gain the 30 pregnancy pounds. After my daughter was born, my diabetic educator told me at that I needed to be careful or I would be a full blown diabetic within 15 years. Well, that scared me so it started me on a journey of learning how food affects my health. My diet changed radically after having my kids and I went back to trying to eat a lower carb diet, with moderate success.
Today, over 25 years later I’ve kept my diabetes in control strictly through food choices, however I haven’t had much success keeping my weight under control. Now that I am in full blown menopause it’s become even more challenging. To be honest this has been the most difficult journey of my life and I continue to learn. Thankfully this past few months some new tools, and new knowledge have become available to me and I am excited to see how it will affect my diabetes and weight.
In 2005 my son was diagnosed with ADD and several years later my daughter and husband as well. My son not only is ADHD, but he’s also gifted, and even though that sounds like it would be a great thing, it comes with it’s own set of behavioral issues. My husband and I chose to homeschool our kids so that we could customize their schooling based on their individual learning styles and our personal family faith. It also gave me a chance to build strong relationships with both of them and to really get to know and understand them.
My son struggles with hyperactivity (even now as a 26 year old) and all three of them struggle with lack of focus, anxiety and depression. Did you know that anxiety and depression often go hand in hand with ADD? I didn’t and it was years before I finally figured it out. I saw how this affected them physically, mentally, emotionally and even socially. To help support them I started learning more about food choices, exercise, stress reduction techniques, and natural remedies. Again, this has been an ongoing trial and error journey for us.
Now that my kids are adults they’ve both really taken the same holistic approach to manage their ADD and are continuing to learn, as I still am.
Then in 2016, totally out of the blue, our doctor discovered (quite by accident) that my daughter had developed a very rare pancreatic tumor. We had no idea why she got it and the only cure was to remove it. So we had to wait several agonizing months for her surgery. She had three surgeons work on her and it took over 12 hours to remove it. The team did amazing and were able to successfully remove it all, and Hannah breezed through her recovery with no problems. This was a VERY stressful time for our family and our faith in Jesus was what got us through it.
Thankfully she is healthy today, but this sent me headlong into the world of low-tox living. I learned that many of the everyday products we use had chemicals in them that caused endocrine system disruption. The pancreas is part of the endocrine system, so this really hit home for me. I started investigating all the product in our home, and researching what ingredients were toxic and affected the endocrine system. I got into essential oils and clean beauty at this time, and made big changes to the products we were using in our home, changed my buying habits, and even made my own products. This is an ongoing journey for all of us and will be for the rest of our lives. No one wants to go through that kind of a doctors diagnosis, for themselves or someone they love.
And to add insult to injury I went through menopause at the same time!! The weight loss resistance only got worse and then I started struggling with anxiety and depression as well which totally surprised me. When you think of menopause most people think that hot flashes are the most common symptom, but did you know that 50-75% of women going through menopause struggle with mood swings, anxiety and depression? I sure didn’t! So this is when I started learning about the gut brain axis and it’s affect on mental health. Taking mental health supplement protocols, and making more lifestyle choices has been a game changer for us.
So all this to say I’m at the place where I realize physical and mental health is all interconnected, and requires a multi-pronged, holistic approach. I’m not anti-western medicine. It definitely has it’s place, but health and wellness is so much more than that. I’m all about getting to the root causes and making lifestyle changes and trying natural remedies first.
I’m no expert. Just a mom on a journey, continuing to learn and share. So thank you for sticking with me!
If you want to learn more about the lifestyle choices we’ve made, I’d like to invite you to take my HAPPY QUIZ and you’ll also get my “5 Steps To Optimal Mental Wellness” email series and you can get started taking a holistic approach to your health and mental wellness. I’ll be back to share more soon! xoxo
