Weekly Posts – The Whole Blog

It’s Been A While

hourglass-time-hours-sand-39396 In all honesty, I have no idea how so much time has passed since I first posted. Since (W)hole is such a new business, I sort of feel like I’ve left my kid home alone for too long. Well, since January, I’ve found my life exploding with mostly positive albeit time consuming things. Full time at work, helping with the new puppy, continuing my writing amongst other things – like my birthday and trips to San Francisco/Wyoming!!! The negatives include attempting to balance everything that’s been going on, which in turn has been causing stress. I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of stress eating and overly consuming coffee that’s also heavily creamer-ed. I grasp the fact that I am still a paleo-lovin’ babe, but unfortunately it is still much too easy to find packaged and/or convenience foods within that specific dietary lifestyle. And I know this, because I have been slowly indulging in such boxed wonders. Not much, but still, it’s been enough. Beyond the occasional packaged treats – and hard ciders, and whiskey neats – my number one negative cloud has been has been the two tests run by my doctor.

In March, I went to see a new doctor. Since my mother has RA (rheumatoid arthritis), and I already being diagnosed with Raynaud’s Phenomenon, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was on the path to at least one autoimmune disease. So, giving my symptoms (swollen joints, horrible pains in my feet at the end of the day, increasing anxiety, chronic exhaustion, blurry sight, completely random mood swings) I was told to get a blood test. I find that the worst part about blood tests isn’t really the prick of the needle, but the waiting. Waiting for results is boarder line torture, especially when you know that something is very wrong, and your appointments have to be booked a month in advance.

Before I had my blood taken, something incredibly strange happened. My body was reacting to things like work and the stresses of normal life at an increased level. I couldn’t control my reactions to things, and found myself hiding away because I didn’t know what was causing these outbreaks. I felt like crying, but there was nothing to cry for; my body hurt more then it ever had before. Any little thing would set my heart racing in the worst way, and I couldn’t control it. Six days of this before finally, I slowly began to feel not like myself, but slightly more under control again. Thankfully, I was about a week away from getting my results. Seven days later, my doctor told me that I may have lupus, but we needed a second blood test to be sure. Just keep breathing is what I told myself over… and over… and over again.

There I was receiving the results from my second test, and as it turns out, I don’t have lupus… yet. Incredibly, I was angry about that outcome. It will sound outrageous to some, but I actually wanted lupus – not because I wanted a disease, but simply because I wanted to know what was up with my body, and how to care for it. Why in the world couldn’t I just know? Since I was eleven I’ve been trying to figure out what my body wants, and here I was again, answer-less. In all truth, it took me one whole day to calm down and realize what had happened to me. I hadn’t been throw out int he cold, I had been given a gift here, one that allowed me complete control over what happened next with my physical and mental health. I had the potential to either accelerate the “landing” of an autoimmune disease” or keeping the “switch turned off”. I could, should I decide to do so, not live in the world of crippling autoimmune diseases. How incredible!

So, that is my next mission: to restart my immune system while it’s still working and keep this lupus or any other AD (autoimmune disease) as far away as possible for as long as I can. That’s possible by discarding the dietary choices I know to be bad for my own body (processed sugar, red meat, grains, dairy, soy) while weeding out some of the new foods that cause inflammation in my joint, or send my blood racing due to the anxiety is brings out in my body.

(W)holistic Transition Program

January… The month of “New Year, New You” is here, and I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for the new year as much as I can dread it. Setting goals for the length of 12 months can be daunting, and more often than not it seems that most people tend to alter, change, or stop their plans altogether when life starts back up.

I was twelve when I made my first New Year’s Resolution, and it was something unreachable and unrealistic not only in general but also because, you know, I was twelve. My body hadn’t really begun shifting around into the body I have now, yet still, when the end of the year rolled around I found myself facing my first a many Year’s End disappointments, because I was still gaining weight, not losing it. In all honesty, I didn’t actually try, and that was a part of the misery. But what could I really have done at that age? Especially when the goal was to be “skinny”, not healthy; when I had no knowledge of what is inside the food I was eating, or the realization of the age I was at. So when 2008 came nothing was different.

Soon, Resolution after Resolution was slapping me upside the face. I finally, in January of 2017 (Yes, it took me that long to figure it out haha!) I made a realization that made me actually keep a Resolution: go month-by-month! This incredible, simple tactic that has given me a hell of a 2017, and has allowed me to continue on with my progress to this very moment. Think about it. You end up having accomplished way more – at least twelve separate goals reached by the end of 2018! Once I really bought into the slow and steady techniq, I found all the results I had been looking for since 2006, and actually excited to begin another year!

(W)holistic Life & Nutrition is starting off the (W)holistic Transition of 2018 right here, right now! Over the next twelve months, I will be posting the guidelines of the month’s goal setting, along with examples for you to choose from or simply to get your own ideas flowing. The key to this program is taking our time, and taking control of our choices, our goals, and time after time reaching those goals!

If I haven’t lost you yet, I want to make sure that I tell you that feeling overwhelmed by this is completely understandable – but believe me, it is possible for everyone! Because of the gradual aspect of this program, there is a strong ability to mold this around any hang ups or potential doubts that you may be feeling in your life and with your daily routines. Time, responsibilities, and daily “to-dos” involving ourselves, our families and our work can create a series of roadblocks, but believe in yourself – you can follow along with the (W)holistic Transition Program; you can find yourself living a more holistic lifestyle by December 31st of 2018! All it takes is starting, no matter where you are!

One of my personal hang ups is lack of outside encouragement and validation alongside no accountability. Since I need all of those things too, I’m offering the option of receiving monthly, weekly, or even daily affirmations from yours truly to give support, and accountability to help keep you on track with your goals! For an even more personal approach you and I can be in contact so I can help you plan, execute, and accomplish all of your goals for 2018! If that sounds like the extra push you need, please feel free to contact me for more details!!

Without further ado, let’s start this already!

What is “holistic”?

“Holistic” can be seen as many different thing to different kinds of people. The general definition is all the parts of a something that are interconnected, resulting in a connected whole. When applied to the human diet and lifestyle, I found a quote in a book titled Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition by Dr. T. Colin Campbell that helps paint the right, simple picture of a holistic – or also known as the WFPB diet. (His book was one of my texts for the first half of my current nutritional certification. If you’re curious enough about the WFPB diet | Whole-Food-Plant-Based | I would highly recommend grabbing a copy of this book and settling in with it).

On page 7, Dr. Campbell writes, “The ideal human diet looks like this: Consume plant-based foods in forms as close to their natural state as possible(“whole”foods). Eat a variety of vegetables, fruits, raw nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, and whole grains.” That is the ideal human diet, with the dismissal of “-heavily processed foods and animal products.” The quote continues on with a warning to stay away from added sugars, salts and oils. And that’s it, easily spelled out here, and in the book. Yet still, what about the reality of attempting to apply this kind of lifestyle and diet to someone who had been following the SAD (Standard American Diet) their entire life? That seems insanely daunting no matter where you are on you’re diet journey

It is with these simply put but overwhelming statements and lists that create a resistance to trying out the holistic diet and lifestyle like the WFPB diet mentioned above. There are delicious recipes, and yes, there are countless cookbooks and Google searches to prepare you for the change. But there is one thing that is intertwined within the American lifestyle that seems to make the biggest argument: time.

Our time is the only thing we can’t get back, and we refuse to put it into anything we don’t find essential and/or pleasurable. We Americans run on stress and instant gratification – which is why we immediately Google search something like “holistic lifestyle for beginners”, see that it involves no fast food and no meat, and back away quickly. We work too much, see our loved ones less often, and cherish the tiny amounts of time between shifts. Meal prepping, multiple days at the grocery store and lack of convince food = too much trouble for us busy people. Believe me, I understand at last some of these struggles.

Here is the kicker though: when applying our time to things we find enjoyable and pleasurable we seem to always find the time and/or the money. It’s something I struggle with every single day – I can’t tell you how many times I said I couldn’t sit and make my own dinner between plans, but found enough time to add in an extra episode or two of Parks and Rec. on Netflix.

Since my passion for sharing my findings, I have been accused of trying to change the American way of living; of judging things and ways of life that I had been raised with my entire life, but I am here to say that I have no intention of destroying the BBQ on the 4th of July, or turkey dinner on Thanksgiving. What I want to change is the way we look at our edible traditions we’ve been blessed with, and change them for the better.

Since the Holidays just passed, most people are looking for a reset on their diets, or signing up for an insane, rigorous workout routine that about kills them by week two. What if, instead of trying to better the outsides of our bodies first and working on the insides way later on, we use the next few holiday-free weeks and reverse that habit? What if we all tried to better our insides before our outsides?

Over the next year, (W)holistic Life & Nutrition will be promoting the realities not only of the outcomes through transferring into a holistic diet, but the ups and the downs, and the pitfalls and the victories. We are all together, and we are not alone, even if we are the only ones in our family and friend group living this way! (Which I am!!)

I look forward to meeting with all of you readers throughout the year, and sharing my own real-life moments and memories of living a (W)holistic Life!