You Are What You Eat

I'll have to remind myself to see a nutritionist, after this diet, regarding what I should avoid eating to keep my body from blowing up like a whale whenever I have a meal from inflammation.

Speaking of nutritionists... the past few months I have been trying to determine what vitamins I am missing. There is a reason why I gained all this weight in a short amount of time... and yes, that's Celiac, but Celiac creates a vitamin insufficiency, but sometimes the blood tests don't tell you which vitamin it is.

For me, it's not Folate or B12... the blood tests indicated a really low level of vitamin D, which may be due to my age and also because of my weight, so I don't solely blame Celiac on that.  The doc didn't run any other tests, so I'm just testing items that just can't hurt if I take a little extra.

So in my research... Zinc is a huge player in metabolism and the immune system.  See this article by Dr. Barbara that I ran across a couple months ago... Celiac Brain: When you are gluten sensitive, you may be zinc deficient!  She explains in her article that zinc is the most popular mineral that is used by our enzymes, which if you are not absorbing it properly, you're basically going to have some serious issues.

Also, in my obsessive search for an answer, I found magnesium tends to be an issue with EVERYBODY... not just Celiacs or gluten sensitive people.  Magnesium has a major effect on weight loss and also inhibits inflammation.  See this for the full article: Magnesium Can Help Fight Obesity

When I read those items, I started taking 50mg a day zinc supplements as well as 400mg of magnesium along with my normal supplements of 5000iu of D3 (for my low D levels), 400iu of Vitamin E, and my food based multivitamin, and I don't know if this was just the placebo effect, but seriously, I started feeling better.  I had more energy... I just felt brighter.

I know that since I went gluten free 6 months ago, my hair started growing properly and my skin cleared up, but I still had some thinning hair issues (and I'm only 30... so I'm going to avoid that as much as possible!!) but since adding the zinc component to my supplements, I can't help but notice that my hair "behaves". Note that zinc is a major ingredient in shampoos like Head and Shoulders and Selsun Blue.

For the rest of my life I'm just going to keep in mind that I am what I eat... so if I eat crap... I'm going to feel like crap.

HCG Diet Journey... with a discovery of Celiac Disease

Let me tell you about the HCG Diet.

Me before the HCG Diet at around 190 taken December 2008:

I have completed 6 rounds of this diet... all in all, I lost a total of some 70lbs.  I went from 190 down to 140lbs in 3 rounds.

Me after the initial rounds at 140lbs taken December 2009:

Huge change right??? I felt so great after it too... I started exercising, P90X, playing volleyball, and Ultimate Frisbee... because I felt awesome.

I then gained 20lbs within 4 months, did another round and lost 10, gained another 20in 4 months, did another round and lost another 15.  I waited 5 months this time and had gained some 30 lbs, which I lost 25, then I gained it all back in 2 months. 

I was like... WHAT THE HELL.

I'm not a ridiculous eater.  I am very very strict with my diet as I have always struggled with my weight. This diet was perfect for me because I hated eating... it just made me fat.  Didn't matter what I ate it seemed.  I was exercising at the time when I gained the 20lbs, but the last round where I gained 30, I had gotten so heavy that exercise was difficult and I was exhausted.

This is what I looked like at the end of the last round, which was April 2011. I was at 186lbs here. I still look better than my original photo where I was about the same weight... you can see where the HCG had readjusted where my fat deposits were.

Not bad right?  You can see my abdomen isn't swollen... from my lack of taking in anything that caused it to inflame.

So... here I am today... at 225 lbs... a year later.

The above photo was taken in February 2012, Super Bowl. HUGE change from just the year before.  After the round in April 2011, I was thinking there was something wrong... so I went to the doctor.  They had found issues with my Thyroid Stimulating Hormone and that my testosterone levels were on the edge of being high, but other than that, I was perfectly healthy.  I couldn't figure out what was going on... I didn't feel good.  I suffered from depression and had a miscarriage in December 2010. 

Finally... December 2011... I figured it out. I got tested... and BAM. I have Celiac Disease.  This is a genetically inherited disease where basically your body reacts to gluten as if it were poison.  In the process, it kills your intestinal lining... yeah, the part that helps you actually gain nutrients.  So basically, I was malnourished, yet the rest of me was healthy, so it was taking in as much as it could get and storing it because it was starving for nutrients.

So... I went gluten free in December 2011 and haven't gone back.  I haven't struggled with it either... I have tended to avoid gluten anyway, knowing that it creates a weight gain for me, but there were other items that I loved (like beer) that brought the Celiac symptoms right to the forefront.  My weight has decreased to about 220 (in the last month) after a brief increase in weight (likely due to actually getting nutrients) but it has started to slowly drop off.

My goal now is to do another 3 rounds of HCG to bring myself back to where I was at... 140lbs.  I should be able to stay there since gluten is no longer welcome in my life.

So... I got my HCG in today... I am doing injections... and doing it purely Dr. Simeon's style.

I'll be tracking my weight and measurements on here... I will start with my measurements tomorrow... when I do my first injection.

I have 3 things of HCG to go.  I am hoping, since my diet is so limited anyway and I don't really care about eating, that I can go with the full 40 day cycles on each one.  My goal for this round is to lose 40lbs.  Not sure if I'll make it that far, but at least 30 and I'll be happy.

Intro

I start this new record of my thoughts. 

I have 6 weeks of stress leave off work to figure out what I'm going to do with myself, and I'm hoping this blog can help me get my thoughts in order.

A little background...

I have been working full time since I graduated high school.  I have pursued college multiple times throughout the years, and I am on another stint to get a degree, but for some reason, I just can't seem to do it.  I hate school.  I'm sure there will be a post on this later.

I am looking to start my own business in herbs or gardening, or some sort of naturopathic medicine. Of course, I have no naturopathic medicine training at this point... I am still trying to get my degree in Complementary and Alternative Healthcare.

Full time job behind a desk dealing with screaming people all day doesn't help me.  Nor does recently being diagnosed with Celiac Disease, raped a couple months ago, and having moved a couple weeks ago.  Major Depressive Disorder has kicked in full time, and I find it difficult to find any real ambition to do anything... yet the urge to do something is still there.

Life has been rough... but this point... I am here to ground myself to restart.  I can't keep going on the path that I've been going... it's time to go bushwacking.