I am having the healthiest winter I think I have ever had. Where everyone around me keeps picking up germs,flu bugs and colds and flu, I am not even having so much as a sniffle. (Hoping I make it through the whole winter!) I am famous for the, “long UTI, four cold, two flu bug, three cold sores, maybe a stomach bug or two, at least a few fevers,” Winters. Seemed as though I would just finish fighting off one thing and something else would pop up. And of course, throw in there that my Hashimoto’s would rear its ugly head with some reaction I never had before. Last year, it seemed to just go on and on and on with no relief until May.
Who is that in the mirror?
Okay, so the first time this happened to me, I was really embarrassed about it, but then it happened again today. The last time was at Dr. Jack’s seminar in February. After his presentation, I got up and a few people who felt that they could relate to my story came over to talk to me. The venue for the evening was at Traci Bissonette’s hair studio, Montage. She opens up her shop and invites people to attend seminars hosted by Dr. Jack. She is also a patient of his and has had tremendous success. Dr. Jack invites us to share our stories and although I am always nervous, I do.
Well, anyway, after the presentation, I got up to talk to some people and because it is a hair studio there are mirrors everywhere. As I am talking to this one really nice lady, my eye catches just a glimpse of someone I think I know across the room. I didn’t want to be rude so I kept talking to her about her experience and mine, and when she walked away, my gaze looked across the room for someone I might recognize. It occurred to me that I did know a few people at the seminar, but that wasn’t them, as they had left. Was there someone else here that I knew?
Itty Bitty Plateaus teach patience…..
I admit it… A little itty, bitty, teeny, tiny, minuscule plateau hits and I get all worked up watching every thing I do. I start questioning whether I did anything wrong. I read every ounce of my food journal, checking, remembering, recalculating, over and over. I check my measuring spoons against a second set to see if they are accurate. I get on the scale each day, looking down out of only one eye, and throw my hands up in the air.
Old habits die hard. After all, I was conditioned to think that way. I got this way through years of conditioned behaviors met with negative reinforcement. You are on some program, and all of a sudden weight loss stops, and the people who are supposed to help you, instead say it’s your fault. They say you aren’t writing it all down. Are you sure you are really measuring and not just guessing? Are you sure you aren’t secretly cheating and just not saying so?
Why coffee and I broke up…..
A lot of people couldn’t believe that I gave up coffee and tea. After all, anyone who knows me well, knows I loved coffee. yummmmmmmmmm Not the caffeine, I just like the taste of coffee and tea was my beverage of choice in the evening. Does not matter what kinds, flavored, plain, herbal, decaf….. I just loved wrapping my fingers around the warm cup and the peace it always brought.
You have to trust me…..
Dear Chris,
…….. You have to trust me.
Dr. Jack
I can’t count the number of times that Dr. Jack has had to say that to me, probably more than he thought he would. Trust is hard for some people, really hard for me. But, in life, you have to be brave. Sometimes, you have to take a massive step and just go for something that seems so totally out of your reach that you don’t have a prayer of ever getting it. Skip the brass ring and go right for the gold, no matter if you have to crawl there to get it.
Making peace…..
I decided that this week, being February break at school, I was going to take my vacation time from Walmart as well, so I had the whole week free. If I didn’t take my Walmart time, I was going to lose it and in the eight years I have worked there, I have NEVER taken my vacation, and lost it, which is really silly.
I can never look at food the same way again….
Food and I go way back. My mother was Italian, and my father, Hungarian, straight from the old country. They were children of the Depression, and one thing they were great at? Cooking everything from scratch and being able to make a meal out of almost nothing. What’s funny is neither my brother, sister or I like anything packaged. We all love homemade food and nothing tastes as good to us. We were pretty spoiled.
Growing up, I never even knew what boxed spaghetti was until I had dinner at a friend’s house in high school. I remember turning to the mom and saying, “This looks so good, what is it?” The mom looked shocked, “Your mother is Italian! And you never had spaghetti before?” I remember telling my mom that story, who roared laughing and told me, yes, some people don’t roll their own pasta dough!
Why I love Dr. Jack…
It is no secret to anyone who reads my blog or my Facebook page, that I absolutely love Dr. Jack, partnertohealth.com. Have you ever met someone and immediately knew in your heart that you and the other person shared some kind of connection? I have met only two people in life where that happened to me, and Dr. Jack is one of them. He is always telling me that I should write a book!
I should write a book…. About HIM!
When you are trying to decide if you should work with him, you don’t really know him. So if you came here from another site, I thought I would tell you more about him, not about his credentials, but more about him as a person.
From the very first time he called me to discuss working with me, I just knew that there was something different about this man, something different about his approach. And from the second we spoke, my heart knew I could totally trust him.
No more weird food cravings!
If you have Hashimoto’s disease you will totally relate to weird food cravings. When I started with Dr. Jack I was worried about the weird eating habits I had picked up with this disease.
I used to think it was me, but I have several Hashimoto sisters as I like to call them, so I know it isn’t just me that used to have the weird eating habits. It is a lot like the first months of pregnancy. One day, you get up you are dying for pasta, but two seconds after you start, it tastes awful to you. You can’t even finish it.
What to give up for Lent….
Lent has always been a time in my life to give up something. I have been raised strict Catholic. I teach in Catholic school, and every year I give up something. I always laugh when people tell me they give up something for Lent for just weekdays and then Sunday does not count. My parents would have been flipping. When we gave up something, we gave it up, period.
Over the years, I have done traditional things like sweets, but often I went different routes. I gave up coffee a couple of times. I gave up meat a few times. But this year, my diet is so cleaned up, I wasn’t sure what to give up. I gave it a lot of thought, and really, the food I eat is so important to my body. Despite the fact that baby bok choy is my new favorite veggie, giving up a great vegetable does not seem much of a sacrifice to me. So I decided to do two things. One is that I would try to do a few more meatless days. Keep my focus on good vegetable dishes and eggs, and steer clear of any meat. I don’t know why Lent does not feel like Lent unless giving up some food thing is not involved.