Throughout the past year, the way I have thought about food has changed dramatically. I have been looking at what food will actually do for me and, consequently, what food will do to me. I've had a long history with food. When I was 13ish, I came home from figure skating practice and when my mom opened a garage door, there was a skinned deer hanging from the garage ceiling. My dad had gone hunting and brought that guy home. I became a vegetarian very soon after that. I have always been a "save the environment" type girl and this really fit with me. My parents were very supportive and did their best to make sure I got the protein and nutrients I needed. My dad has always been awesome at making two batches of supper - one with meat, one without.
That was really the first time I ever really thought about what I ate. And it pretty much ended there - no meat. I knew what types of food I needed to eat to be healthy but in junior high and high school, I didn't really care.
Here's the deal though. I have been sick on and off for as long as I remember. From ages 15 (?) - 28, I would go months upon months where I would get sick every time I ate, then get a month off, and it would come back. I have had recurrent sinus infections my entire life. I had massive, debilitating migraines in high school. I was always more tired than everyone else I knew. I was achy, irritable, and always coming down with the latest cold or flu that was going around (I think I caught every single one!). Above all, I had major digestive issues. I gave up even trying to go to dance lessons in the latter part of high school because I had to miss class so much. Same went for skating.
Early in my 20's, I noticed that dairy products were starting making me sick, so I stopped eating dairy for quite a while. At some point, I developed an allergy to almonds and I would get sick from eating eggs.
Around the same time, I started noticing that I wasn't able to get enough protein to support myself. I couldn't build muscles to save my life (something that had never been a problem for me) and my constant tiredness only got worse. To remedy this, I started eating chicken, turkey, and fish and sadly had to ditch the vegetarian lifestyle (I still eat this way but refuse to touch pork and beef products). This seemed to help for a little while but my hair was still thinning and I was still getting sick to my stomach every time I ate.
I broke bones easily. I even broke my arm while out doing field work in Oregon and didn't know it until 6 months later when I had an x-ray to see why that arm was bothering me. There was obvious remodelling of that break and a couple others that I didn't know about from when I was younger. I have also broken both legs and several ribs in my life.
About five or six years ago, all these symptoms ramped up a notch, I felt horrible all the time! I feel like I missed out on so much during this time because I was either sleeping, working, going to school, and/or sick. When I'd go to the doctor, they always said I had IBS and sent me on my way.
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