My First Blog...

Hey there fans!

I decided to try a Blog. I guess it sort of came to my attention that people do this. After a lot of deliberating I decided to hop on board the blog train.

I guess I hadn’t really condidered a blog before because I have ADHD and that makes it feel a bit like a homework assignment. So in order to not make it feel that way I am going to be a little rough, a little crass and share my thoughts and feelings in regards to my lifestyle and daily life.

So for starters I guess I can give you some insight into why I chose this lifestyle.

I was a fat kid…At least that’s what the other kids told me...

"So what does that have to do with anything?” you ask. Well…Being a chubby kid comes with a handful of challenges. You learn very early on that humans have a capacity to be very shallow and its harder to make friends when you aren’t the prettiest girl in class.

My coping mechanism very quickly became humor and making people laugh to win them over. So I started to act out and entertain very early on in life.

So projecting forward a few years. I got bullied on the bus ride home from school. I lived at the top of a very large mountain side. So after having a boy (the very boy I had a massive crush on) wipe his snot in my hair from behind me on the bus, and tell me I was fat and I was going to marry the fattest boy in school while everyone either looked on with laughter or horror. I went home and told my step father who just laughed at me. So needless to say I stopped taking the bus. And I told myself I didn’t need the bus and rode my bike to school every day. Here’s the thing, I also had to get my bike home. This was around 1991 when mountain bikes still weighed the equivalent to a gravel truck with a full load. So I was too weak to ride it straight up that hill but I pushed it. So there was 12 years old running up the side of a hill every day doing super intense cardio. By the time June came around I was finishing school for that year and started going to the beach. My friends aunt saw me and commented on my body and how fit I was looking. All I remember is being that I was going through puberty, I was very uncomfortable by her compliment and had no idea I had grown, or that I had lost weight. All I can remember is standing in the Okanagan lake with the water up to my knees in my bikini feeling extremely exposed. I went into my head and just kept saying over and over “stop talking about my body, stop talking about my body…etc."

I absolutely saw myself the exact same way it want not until she had told me I had lost weight and that I looked great that I looked at myself later and saw what she saw. People have no idea the damage that calling someone fat can do to them. I spent a great number of years after that yo yo-ing, over eating, over exercising, and starving myself and this cycle continued into my late 30’s. Up until my pregnancy with my daughter at 38 years old.

My experience growing up an overweight child with undiagnosed ADHD taught me that I was a dopamine junky. Whether that was from food, or adredaline and sadly later I found comfort in the release of dopamine from drugs and alcohol. During my mid early 20’s I tried very hard to only use exercise as my dopamine release. I tried eliminating as much sugar as I could and found I felt the best when I ate “clean” or what I called the “Tania Atkins diet” I always allowed myself to have fruit and nuts and seeds. I basically naturally ate a “Paleo” diet just on instinct. Every time I went back to a “traditional” diet I found I would get irritable, peaks and crashes, I lacked energy and focus. That’s just the ADHD side of things. I also was later to find out (through emergency surgery) from an ectopic pregnancy that I also suffered from endometriosis. All of my pms, depression, difficulty with birth control, pain during sex and excruciating back pain (from ovulation until menstruation) started to make sense. I had started to think I was going insane. Doctors kept telling me my back pain was in my muscles and that I should just go to physio. I was consistently dismissed and felt like I was just going out of my mind.

After the birth of my daughter and due to complications my husband took over a lot of the cooking when she was born. And then it happened I passed the 200lb mark. I was the biggest I had ever been. My weight continued to climb. I was gaining post partum and was heavier than when I was actually pregnant with my daughter. I had somehow told myself I was just stretched from being pregnant. But after her 1st birthday I saw the photos….. "oh…..I said quietly to myself….My stomach isn’t stretched….I’m just fat…” I had somehow convinced myself I was fine and it would come off.

On June the 12th 2019. I looked at my husband and I told him that I had had it. I was going to take over cooking again. Our diet was going to be paleo and that was it.

At this point I thought “Paleo” was just low carbs allowing natural whole food carbs like nuts and seeds.

Then we saw “The Paleo Way” on Netflix with Chef Pete Evans. And I learned that there is so much more to a paleo life. I learned to create meals with healthy fats (from plant and animal sources), grass fed meats, wild fish, whole food carbohydrates (such as nuts, seeds, root veg and fruit) in addition to an abundance of vegetables.

I learned the difference between virgin fats and fats that are extracted with solvents and heat. I learned the benefits of eating animals that are treated well and free of antibiotics and poisons.

I learned that I CAN grow my own food and raise chickens for meat and eggs.

I learned that my way of eating reduces inflammation and makes me healthier and happier and more relaxed daily.

And most importantly I learned that this way of life, (Eating Whole Foods) feeds my cells and replenishes them due to the nutrient dense foods I am giving them. I learned that when I eat Whole Foods my body then becomes whole.

Whole Food, Whole Body.

I am so happy to share my journey with anyone who wants to learn about this awesome way of life. I want people to feel and look the way they see themselves in their minds. its nice to be able to look in the mirror and see the version of yourself you want to see.

I still have a way to go. But I see the future. It’s bright...

Thanks for reading my first blog.