Deficiency Was Born

I’m going to tell on myself. As a health coach I’ve embraced several kinds of dietary theories. Eating and the way I now look at food has certainly evolved. There’s a depth to this because in my preteen years the beginning of disordered eating took place. This is not to say that I was ever given a firm foundation of healthy eating at home because I was not. The one beautiful nugget I have in this regard from childhood is that I did start to have an interest in cooking at about age 8. I can remember the first meal I ever tried to create: soup. It tasted more like what I imagine Stone Soup would’ve tasted like. Do you know that book? Anyway around age 12, I began seriously cooking my own meals because I wanted to explore foods and sometimes wanted different foods than my mother served. I religiously watched the Food Network. During my teen years, however, I ate most meals at home apart from my parents and in my bedroom watching television. This set the stage for some unhealthy habits.

At age 12 I also began dancing. I did ballet, lyrical, and some modern dance. Dance was my first love. The dance studio was my safe haven. I was bullied terribly in school everyday so dance was also a release. I was a quiet and gentle child. I didn’t often fight back with my words or otherwise. I would just go home many days and cry. When my body was moving to that music, nothing else mattered. I was enveloped in the lyrics of the song and my body got to become every word. Those were all good things as a passion and a focus developed. I was also at that age where I began to be very aware of my body especially dancing in front of a large mirror 2-4 days a week. As I got older I took more classes at the studio. Due to the bullying and feeling more of a need for control, I began restricting food (I didn’t connect the two at the time), fell into anorexia, and called it healthy eating. In high school food restrictions and obsessions got fairly severe. In my junior year of high school my mom took me to the doctor. I’d gotten down to 87 pounds. Now I’m very petite at only 5 feet, but that was below my healthy weight threshold. My doctor had a really strong heart to heart with me. I took it seriously, and my mom monitored everything that went into my mouth she could. I never went into bulimia thank the Lord! I did begin eating more because at the root I didn’t want to die, I just wanted to feel safe and loved. I did not know the Lord Yeshua then, so I didn’t know where my self-worth came from and I was in constant identity crisis. So the emotional issues were still there, but since I started eating, that satisfied my mom. I stopped eating beef and pork completely that year, those foods at the time hurt my stomach, and stuck to vegetarian meals and poultry. I stopped eating sweets (except on my birthday my Dad would take me to South Philly to the Italian Bakery). That was also the era of low fat everything so my eating fit right in. I’d ask for low fat everything at the grocery store. Oh the fat free sour cream and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Spray were always on the grocery list. I also started eating 100% whole wheat instead of white bread. I was the quintessential SAD (Standard American Diet) “healthy eater.”

I never went to a therapist then, but when I was in college, I wound up putting myself in outpatient therapy. This introduced me to the world of pharmaceutical antidepressants. Since that God shaped hole wasn’t filled yet I accumulated other unhealthy habits that opened doors for years of torment. I’ll share that another time. So let’s fast forward.

I married a Marine at age 21 (my first marriage). I had my oldest son, and since money was tight, I became an expert at cooking on a budget. Unfortunately, this didn’t for me always mean the healthiest of foods. I still loved the idea of eating healthy, but also could only go grocery shopping every two weeks, and has a $60 grocery budget. Ya’ll I don’t know how in the world we did this, actually I do. It was a lot of nutrient deficient food in boxes. I was still on the fat free train back in 2000. Needless to say there’s been drastic food transition since then. The hugest shift happened while I when I was 30 years old. I’ll share about that more in another post.

Fast forward again, I remarried. One dietary theory I took part in fairly recently during the past 5-6 years that I really regret was going 100% plant based for 18 months and then combining it with intermittent fasting (IF). On top of that I was breastfeeding our youngest son (I breastfed for 4.5 years. I’ll never regret that). So while I never intended there to be a calorie deficit during the 8 hour window, there certainly was sometimes. So of course baby is going to get the best in the milk, and that didn’t leave me with much. I will say I’ve learned so much since that time. It’s humbling. My choices over the years left me very deficient even though I was incorporating animal foods after that time of being plant based, we still were heavy on the plants.

Do not get me wrong. We still love veggies in our home and believe plants are powerhouses of healing goodness from the Lord. There’s also a such thing as too much and a better way to use them. Plants cleanse while animal foods nourish, it’s a balance. For anyone reading this that does eat 100% plant based, I did so WFPB (Whole Foods plant based), ate a mix of cooked and raw, and ate lots of food. I did not fear fat. We ate a lot of protein. If you know me, than you also know 95% of our food is homemade. I did it right, other than IF, no other crazy fasts, no juice fasting, and no water fasts. Everyone is different, but going 100% plant based did not work for me. Before you say anything, yes, I supplemented. The supplements were high quality not from Costco or Target. Many people’s bodies cannot do the conversions with nutrients that must take place for bioavailable assimilation of those nutrients, not on the scale that we need anyway. This important fact is never discussed. Another problem with WFPB is many teach low fat or even some say no fat. Our bodies need fat. Our bodies specifically need animal fat, especially to digest plant foods nutrients well. They kind of go together and compliment a variety of ways, because the plant foods, like dark leafy greens assist then with the digestion of the fat itself. Can you lose weight that way without fat? Sure, you absolutely can, but weight loss does not equal healthy.

All of these choices over the years left me very deficient in key necessities like vitamin A, B12, glutathione, and magnesium. I am bearing the consequences now and building up from those results. Our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made by the Lord Yeshua. We are able to withstand amazing circumstances. We also can only handle so much and there are consequences to all of our actions. I’m so thankful to the Lord for holding my hand every step of the way, and showing me things when I was ready.

I wrote all of this to say, it’s okay to change. It’s okay to learn. It’s okay to do it differently. It’s okay to say when something just no longer works or maybe never did. It took me a long time to get to this point. It’s brought a huge shift in how I choose to health coach as well. There’s been a lot of noise in my head there too. Like how dare I think I can coach women when I’ve failed so miserably. Isn’t that life though? Isn’t that how we get to the good stuff? We fail. We fall down. God holds our hand, helps us get our footing, and we see with fuller perspective. Then in that place we can bless others.

I will share in this space the things I’ve been working on to get stronger. If you are on social media I share things there often.

I would love to know the break-throughs in life you’ve had, the mistakes you’ve made, and have recovered from or are currently recovering.