Hey friends,
Dealing with a autoimmune dis-ease isn’t always easy. Trust me, I know. Really, I do.
Having been diagnosed with hypothyroidism in 1995 (after being misdiagnosed for a year and gaining 100 lbs while everyone was scratching their heads and shrugging their shoulders was no fun) and then, Hashimoto’s in 1999, I understand what it’s like to live with dis-ease.
As I wrote in my book, ‘You’re Not Crazy and You’re Not Alone: Losing the Victim, Finding Your Sense of Humor and Learning to Love Yourself through Hashimoto’s’ I’ve taken the approach of shifting how I see things because I want to let this serve me and not undo me.
One of the things I share often is this:
Hashimoto’s is not my master, but it is my teacher.
I figure that everyone has a pathway to learn what they need to learn in life. Whether we choose it, or some other force does — or we co-create it — or it’s just life the way it’s dealt, I’m not entirely clear on. All I know is that how I choose to look at it and learn from it is where my power gets restored.
The Next Two Weeks
So, this week and next, as The Hashimoto’s Institute’s online summit is preparing and presenting to us 26 experts in the field, I’m going to blog about the lessons I’ve learned through Hashimoto’s. Sort of the inside scoop and the behind the scenes on the topic I’m presenting at the summit. Izabella Wentz and I had a really great time in our interview together. I adore her. She rocks. I can’t wait for you to hear it and be empowered by it!
It’s totally free, you can sign up here. I’m an affiliate, as are all the speakers and we all have our special links. And if at some point you choose to purchase the entire event for your learning library or to listen at your own pace, feel free to use this link. Thank you!
You ready to hear about one of the lessons (in no particular order?) Here we go…
Lesson #1: Food is a POWERFUL Drug
Holy guacamole, Batman. You don’t know how powerful gluten and dairy are until they render you sweating and speechless and racing to the bathroom at an Italian family reunion after you’ve just shlurped down the biggest, creamiest, dreamiest bowl of Fettuccine Alfredo.
You don’t need a food sensitivity test for that one. You pretty much are the living lab experiment at that point.
And yet. I still went on, eating that way for a long time after. Trying to figure out which pill to take to make the pain go away,
instead of taking responsibility for what went into my mouth to begin with.
I just didn’t want to let go of my food-related dreams: They meant so much more than a bowl of pasta — it was what food represented: it was my culture, my fun, my freedom, my dreams of going to Italy and my sense of living ‘the good life.’
But nearly dying in a bathroom above everyone else who’s eating, isn’t exactly “the good life.”
It took YEARS to let go of how I saw food — and embrace how I needed to see food.
It was there for my healing first, and yes, with that my pleasure. (There are a thousand recipes on how to make healthy food pleasurable to your palate.) But it wasn’t there to bring me pleasure at any cost.
I’ve realized I can’t live the rock star life — mojito’s at noon, followed by a day of noshing on everything fried and fatty until we go out for dinner and drinks. I just can’t.
I’m half-dead after the first mojito and completely done-in after the first appetizer.
I’m not that kind of rock star.
I’m a different kind. The kind that needs to go to bed by 10 and eat anti-inflammatory foods so that I won’t be a cranky bitch to my husband and too tired to do anything fun with my kids.
I’m that kind of rock star.
I realize it’s not that way for everyone. Some people can eat things that I can’t, but it was that way for me and I needed to get to the point where I honored my health through my food choices.
You know what’s weird? I had right priorities when I was a kid. I remember watching the Pepto Bismal commercial where the guy is out partying all night, eating crazy foods and then, he clutches his stomach. The screen changes from his real body to a cartoon picture of his intestines all in flames like his stomach was the pit of hell.
Then, he goes to the medicine cabinet and takes Pepto Bismal. It goes down his cartoon stomach and the magical pink liquid puts the fire out.
I remember being like, I don’t know, eight years old and thinking “That’s so stupid. Why doesn’t he just stop eating the stuff that puts him on fire?”
Yeah.
I apparently lost that wisdom in the bottom of a bowl of fettuccine alfredo.
Sigh.
So, my journey through Hashimoto’s isn’t really about food — as you’ll see with each lesson — it’s about loving myself and that includes my food choices. Because I’ve learned that people who love themselves like actually having energy, and being happy and enjoy hanging out with the people they love instead of being holed up in the bathroom above them.
When I have a racing heart, or an upset stomach or a pain in the left side of my neck, or a headache, or extreme exhaustion after I eat a food, I know that my body hasn’t figured out how to be friends with it. It doesn’t mean the food is bad or that I’m bad. It just means we don’t know how to get along.
So, until that time — until my gut heals and my body shifts, I’M going to be a friend to myself and make my health and happiness the priority over that particular food.
That’s my lesson to share: Food is a powerful drug — and loving yourself helps you take responsibility for feeding your health with every bite of food you take.
‘The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.” Ann Wigmore
Sending you love and a happy, healthy day,
Stacey
Sign up to listen to the Hashimoto’s Institute online summit here: https://jz197.isrefer.com/go/hashimotos/StaceyRobbins
For my book: You’re Not Crazy and You’re Not Alone” click here.
I love my doctor, she is very sweet. I have been aware that I have Hashimotos for 3 years. I have gained 10lbs. Some days I am extremely hungry and others not so much. I can’t seem to drop more than 3 lbs. My doctor has never told me what I can and can’t eat. I w ant to get back to my normal weight , I have asked her to no avail, and I haven’t got a real answer. Can someone help me with a food plan?
The food this s crazy hard to let go of.. and I don’t know why. I know it is what is best for me, my body and ultimately those around me too but giving up bread has felt like loosing a limb. I know it’s what best and all I can say is fingers crossed I figure it fully out sooner rather than later.