Last month, I shared my health challenges with Thyroid Disease, hormone imbalances, and adrenal deficiencies. This has been at 17-year journey of ups and downs, twists and turns, successes and defeats. Since my Health blog last month, I have consulted with my Doctor and I am going to begin a new journey to address the issues that she believes I need to work on next. One of my favorite music videos is Mandisa’s song, “Overcomer” because I can identify with the words. The song expresses how I feel about my health challenges. My body has not been operating from a position of strength. There are still a lot of things out of whack and the deck is somewhat stacked against me, but I am going to continue walking forward in faith, believing that God will bring the right people to help me, the strength to keep going, and hope that around the corner there will be better days are ahead.
You might be thinking to yourself, why is Heidi so willing to openly share what is going on behind the scenes with her health? Well, the scoop is, I am a firm believer that when God brings a challenge into my life, He wants me to somehow use that situation to turn back and help others. I am not a doctor, but I have learned a lot about metabolism, how eating and exercising can improve your health, what to do and what not do to achieve optimal health; and I want us to share ideas, so that we can help one another. There may be things you know that I don’t know and vice versa. I have a sneaking suspicion that I am not the only one out there who struggles with health issues. Just in my circle of friends, there are at least 5 – 6 of us, who are struggling with similar circumstances. So I think there may be some benefit to sharing ideas, recipes, and what we are learning from one another.
My plan will be two-fold. First, I will be adopting a new eating lifestyle that should improve my overall health, and more importantly, improve the issues my doctor wants me to address next, insulin resistance, leptin imbalances, and gut health. I will be focusing on eating foods that will improve my health and not compromise it. The Paleo Eating Plan has foods that are mostly gluten free and dairy free and should help me to achieve better health. Second, I will begin building muscle by lifting weights in hopes that the muscle will burn the fat off of my body and improve my metabolism.
I have two reasons for sharing this on the blog. The first is that I want you to know about this, so that you can hold me accountable to stick to the plan that my doctor wants me to pursue next, as I work to achieve better health. And the second is I believe that by sharing, we will be able to get new ideas about the recipes, food choices, and exercise options that are helping to achieve better health. Each month, I will report back on what God is teaching me, what new things I am learning about myself through this experience, what is working, what isn’t working, my successes, and my failures. I also want you to share your “take home” thoughts for the month on this subject, so that we can learn from one another.
Last week, I watched a music video by Colbie Caillat entitled “Try.” It really struck me to the core because as women, I do think there is so much pressure to try to always look beautiful on the outside. Often times, it is for the wrong reasons; to get attention or to look good on the outside without any care to what is happening on the inside, because society tells us we have to be a certain size and look like a model. I want to be very clear that the reason that I am embarking on this journey is to improve my overall health and well-being. My main focus is not on the outside appearance. In fact, I am going to keep doing the things I know I should be doing to improve my health regardless of the results. I refuse to get discouraged by the weight on my scales or the size of my jeans. My goal is to care well for the body that God has given me, entrusting the results to Him, knowing that he will take care of the rest. I am praying that I will feel much better and have more energy when I change some of my eating and exercising habits. I believe this shift in focus will yield positive transformational changes. Please consider joining me in this endeavor.
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