Healing My Body

This past fall is really when I started digging deeper into trying to heal my body. I hadn't really gotten great answers from my doctor, so I decided that I had to take my health into my own hands. Obviously, my health has always been in my own hands, but I was trying to understand a new disease. I was reading books and following knowledgeable people on Instagram.

Dr. Izabella Wentz has really been the most helpful through her books. She's a pharmacist who also has Hashimoto's, and she has her own Hashimoto's program where she helps others. Her books are a wealth of knowledge, and they're really what encouraged me to take my healing into my own hands. She has her own protocol called, "The Hashimoto's Protocol," and it made complete sense to me when I was reading through it. So shortly after the New Year, I started doing it. I bought the supplements that made sense for me, and I embarked on this journey.

[At this point in my health journey, I was very down. It had been an entire year that I had been working towards healthier living and weightloss. But in 2021, I only lost 10 pounds. I was very discouraged for a long time. When I got my Hashimoto's diagnosis, I was hopeful that when I went completely gluten free, I would be making strides with my weightloss. But I didn't. It was a very slow season. But it was a learning season. God truly had to change my heart and change my mind.

All of January I spent on my couch. My lower back had flared (I have a previous injury), and it was so bad that I couldn't function from day to day. I hadn't exercised like I wanted to. I didn't set intentions or goals for the year because I was in so much pain. So once my new chiropractor was helping me and I was feeling "back to normal," I used February 1st as my "New Year" beginning.]

@bethvsfood : It’s always awkward to take “before” photos…at least I think. But they’re necessary. It’s a way to actually see your physical progress.

I’ve always gotten so giddy when women that I’ve worked with send me progress pics, and I can so clearly tell they’ve been working hard. They’ve been an important part of my journey, too…it’s just been awhile since I’ve taken any.

I know that my worth doesn’t come from my physical appearance. In fact, I’m very confident in who I am because I know Who I belong to. But I’m ready for this next step in my journey to healing. I’m ready to see the physical transformation so that it matches up with what I know and feel inside.

It’s going to require a lot…and I know I’ve already had a lot of progress from this last year—I got a new diagnosis, learned that gluten was part of the issue that is making my body attack itself, and now I’m ready to see if other things are affecting it negatively, too. I’m taking February as the start of the new year very seriously. I’m ready to do this!

[This was my Instagram post on February 4th, as I started a 60-day fitness challenge, 4-week diet bet, and the Hashimoto's Protocol all at once. I knew that I needed accountability from the Diet Bet, a challenge for my fitness, as I had seriously been floundering and unmotivated, as well as the nutrition part as the most important part.]

So February 1st was my official start of the New Year, and it's also when I decided that my body probably needed to be dairy free as well. I needed to come to this conclusion on my own rather than feeling "forced" to be dairy free. I think that through my Whole30 journey, I felt "forced" to be free of all of those foods/items because those were the rules. And while I am such a rule-follower, I sometimes want to break the rules. So once again, I say that God has been so kind to me on this journey. He helped me see that I needed to be dairy free so that I could start the Hashimoto's Protocol.

The first thing I did was support my liver. The liver is a detox organ. It takes all the things that are unwanted in our bodies and detoxes them out. But living in today's world, toxins are everywhere: in beauty products, in body products, in food, in our cookware, in our clothes, in our cleaning supplies...literally everywhere. I had already started living with lowered toxins due to my journey earlier. So what I really needed to tighten up was what I was eating. I took out all the inflammatory foods that I had been eating, and off I went!

The second part of the protocol was supporting the adrenals. Statistics show that most people with Hashimoto's also have Adrenal Fatigue. I am not sure if I have/had it or not, as I wasn't tested. BUT I knew that I could definitely use more sleep (#toddlermom) and I could definitely learn to lower my stress. The protocol recommended staying in bed for at least 12 hours, but I couldn't do that. As I was praying over this part of my healing journey, I was asking the Lord what I should do.

My morning routine is really important to me. I usually get up around 5:15 am, make myself some pre-workout, go upstairs and read my Bible. Then after that, I get my workout in so that I'm back downstairs and ready to "Mom" at 7 am. Well, a solid morning routine begins with an evening routine. This meant that I needed to be in bed asleep by 9:15 pm every night. There were so many nights that I didn't make this happen, so I would get 6-7 hours of sleep, instead of the 8 that my body really needs. Then, there were a couple months in there that Henry had a sleep regression and was waking up between 4-5 am. I was the one to get up with him, and I was not in a good mood for those months, because I wasn't getting enough sleep. It was tough.

As I kept praying over my morning routine, I felt like God was telling me to let go of that routine. Each season comes with its own challenges, and if I was really seeking healing, then I needed to sleep. At that point, I decided to allow my body to wake up with Henry, who was thankfully back to his "normal" wake-up time, which was anywhere between 6-7 am. I was still able to be up with him and have my "quiet time," but it was no longer quiet. Again, I knew it was just a season.

I was truly able to focus on my sleep, and I got 8-hours of sleep almost every night. This was much needed, as I continued on my journey. It showed me just how important sleep is to healing the body.

At this point, the 4 Week Gut Protocol had launched. I wasn't quite to the gut-healing portion of my protocol yet, so I wasn't interested in doing the program. [Side note: it was mentioned in the book that if I were to skip to the gut-healing portion before I supported my liver or my adrenals, then I could have even more food sensitivities than I was already dealing with.] I did, however, want to know how to lead others through it. So I purchased the program and joined a group of women who were doing it and followed along with them.

A few weeks after those ladies got done with it, I got to the gut portion of my protocol. So after going back and forth with myself, I felt gently led to do the 4 Week Gut Protocol within my Hashimoto's Protocol. It was similar to what I was doing, so I felt comfortable doing it! I was already taking the supplements needed, and there wasn't a huge difference between the programs, other than the fact that the HP gut-healing portion is two weeks longer. That's okay, I knew I could handle that.

Once again, off I went. The part that was most difficult for me was the meal planning portion. The 4 Week Gut Protocol utilizes portion-control containers. I had used them previously, but it always feels like a game of tetris while planning meals. I had to make sure I was eating all of my containers (for example, I was allowed 7 green containers. This is a 1 cup measurement for veggies. I needed to make sure I had 7 cups of veggies in my plan for each day.).

It requires you to remove 6 common inflammatory foods (gluten, dairy, artificial sweeteners, corn, soy, and alcohol). I had already been free of most of those foods--corn was the only one I really had to pay attention to. But it was fairly easy for me since I was already everything free. haha! I was just really hopeful at this point, that even if I lost nothing, that my gut would be that much closer to healing. I was maintaining everything that I had learned through the Hashimoto's Protocol. So when I got to the adrenal part, I was still supporting my liver. And when I got to the gut part, I was still supporting both my liver and adrenals. It's a program that builds on itself, which is really cool. The 4-Week Gut Protocol just fit right in with the gut-portion, and I'm really glad that I completed it, as it showed me SO much about my  body. More to come on that...

Missed a part?

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7