It’s hard to explain my health because I don’t normally talk with others about it and it’s a bit all over the place. I’m not sure any of my friends truly know everything about it because frankly I don’t want to burden them with it. It started super young, before I was 1 years old and my father had to resuscitate me. My body and I have been fighting each other ever since.
And to be clear, it is fighting. Even when I am proud of my body or happy with it, there is always a when is the other shoe going to drop. Also, even when I have a moment to feel pretty, I see my scars and immediately feel broken. But I have had a lot of surgeries and even more hospital stays so there is only so much that you can delude yourself into believing before it just becomes, it is what it is.
I had tried to get my health in order, do right by my body. It was crying out with pain and I decided to be better. Did what I was supposed to do, see doctors, eat better, workout, wasn’t working. Now on the eating better part, to be honest, it was a half hearted attempt. Honestly I think if a man came into my life and said he would handle what to eat going forward I would fall in love immediately. I’m joking, but I got to say a man handling dinner on a regular basis is a total panty dropper.
Anyway, it wasn’t working, my migraines were going nuts so my dear friend insisted I go to a functional medicine doctor because they focus on nutrition for health and deal with multiple chronic illnesses, which I do have. Well they put me on this diet…and guess how my body responded…
Not well.
Both the functional medicine doc and my PCP said go to the ER. Apparently my electrolytes where super low. I was dehydrated and low on all sorts of stuff. Because it wasn’t just the diet, but also the Vyvanse, I was a total hot mess. I haven’t been eating enough calories and I was REALLY not getting enough salt. And how Vyvanse works, it just sucks up calories so it made it incredibly worse.
So two bags of fluids, a bunch of nutrients and fun stuff and I am back home. But I’m done with the diet. Yes, I should probably test various things to see if I feel better without them in my life. But we are going to do it in moderation, like one at a time.
I am not known for moderation but it is normally my doctors calling for it, not me telling them to slow down. So I am going to design my own approach. I have already proven I can live without pop, which is a very new experience for me. And I won’t keep it in the house. Doesn’t mean I won’t have one, but not every day. Or 5 a day. Same with candy. And I will up my protein. I need to figure that one out a bit more, but it is doable and will be good for me. Because of this experiment I was using protein powder and I felt a lot better. Well, until everything came crashing, but still.
And though I drink a lot of water, I am going to up it even more. But I am going to find ways to ensure I am getting electrolytes as well, I drank so much water while my calories and salt went down, I set myself up for this accidentally.
That said, I did say once this diet was over I would start looking into starting to date again. So…guess I need to see how dating works post-covid (well not exactly post, but ya know).