Episode 6 - The ROOT Of Your Fatigue No One Has Told You: My Health Story - Mom Tired Series
CLICK TO LISTEN: EPISODE 6 - THE MOM JOY PODCAST
Hello my sweet mom friends! Welcome back - and can I just tell you how much I love having you here? I love that we are on this journey of motherhood together. You know, motherhood is so hard and complex, and I couldn't pretend for even a second that I have it all figured out - because I certainly don't! More than anything, I want you to know that I'm your sister and friend who is in the thick of it, right along with you. I'm experiencing the ups and downs of motherhood. And just like you, I want to live a fulfilling and impactful motherhood.
The reason I created this podcast is because of that. I know you well enough that you're like me - and in the depths of our souls, we want motherhood to be more than the mundane, more than just a stressful season we're just trying to survive. We want to feel purposeful, impactful, and very intentional about the way we go about this season -- and we want to LOVE it in the process! Which is why I wanted to bring to the table a lot of what I have learned about mindset coaching and child development over the years. I don't have it all figured out - but I do know what I've experienced, what I've learned, and the things that are truly helping me to create an experience of motherhood that I love. So I want to be having these conversations with you.
Together, through the messy middle, we are learning, growing and becoming the women God has called us to be. So my greatest hope is that you feel encouraged and equipped here. I want you to feel like you're getting love and support from a good friend who happens to have experience in emotional well-being and kids behavior - which is a big perk for you in our friendship - and at the same time, I'm also walking this journey with you imperfectly. So because of that - I want this space to be a place of safety, imperfection, and growth. I want you to feel like it's absolutely okay to be in progress, and together, instead of flawless perfection - we are aiming for grace, curiosity, and perseverance. Because these will serve us far more than perfection ever could. So, if you're on board with that, I am so glad you've found your way here. I've prayed for this community and you are an answer to prayer. So, let's continue to walk this road together, sis. I believe God is going to continue to do so much work in our hearts as we explore together what it means to have Mom Joy in this journey of motherhood.
Now, all that being said -- today we're continuing our Mom Tired Series, and we're talking about the topic of our physical health. And the angle I am taking on this today is my own personal experience. If you've followed my journey at all in the last year, you know that I've made some pretty significant discoveries about what was contributing to my own health, and as I've shared some highlights of my journey on Instagram and Facebook, I have been shocked at the response I've gotten from other moms. So many of you were privately reaching out to me, tell me you were feeling the same symptoms and wanting any information I could provide. So that's what I want to do for you here today. I want to share with you what was going on with my health - because I'm sure a large percentage of you may be able to relate - and I want to talk to you about these secret things I discovered were physically burning out my body. And I'll give you some direction about how you can begin this journey of healing if it is a path you want to take.
CLICK TO LISTEN: EPISODE 6 - THE MOM JOY PODCAST
Okay, so we are going to be covering a lot today and I know many of you listen to this while you're driving or doing dishes - I want to make sure you know that you can find entire transcripts of each episode over on my blog at angelajoyevans.com/blog. So if you're not in the position to write down something that stands out to you - you can easily skim back through main points on the blog.
Now, total disclaimer - I am not a medical professional so I want to be super clear that anything I talk about regarding changes you'd make to your body - I want you to run those ideas by your doctor or medical professional you trust. And at the same time, I was exclusively a health coach for many years - so I do know know a thing or two about lifestyle and mindset changes. Now, I am no longer just a health coach, but I'm a Mom Coach. And as a Mom Coach, I see my job as getting you healthy as a whole person - in body, mind and soul. In your physical health, emotional health, spiritual health... in your parenting. Because showing up well for our families is not a matter of getting healthy in just one area of our lives - but all areas. So because of that - health IS something that I work with moms frequently on because our physical health determines so much about how we show up in our everyday lives. The health of our physical bodies impacts our energy levels AND even the chemistry of our brains. And like we talked about back on episode 4, our brains determine how we experience life. So we want to make sure we are really taking care of ourselves so that even our brains can be operating at their highest capacity and we can show up so much better for ourselves and our families.
So - just a reminder, that if you do want support and accountability in your journey of getting healthy, that is something I can do with you. I have a lot of experience from being a health coach for many years and my own personal journey of getting well. I'm very familiar with the mindsets needed to make changes in our health - and I know how hard it is, because I've been there. So, please, if you are feeling frustrated or alone in your health journey, please reach out to me and you can get some coaching support in working towards your goals. You can send me an e-mail at angela@angelajoyevans.com and I'm happy to walk with you through your journey of health and healing.
My Health Journey
So, last week we talked about some of the basics we usually think of with health - nutrition, exercise, sleep, water, & self-care/ relaxation. If you haven't listened to that episode - definitely go back and listen because those basics are super foundational.
But today I wanted to take some time to talk more about what I have discovered in the last year, which I think are some more basics that I was not super aware of and were actually the root of why I was feeling so exhausted.
Now the reason I discovered these other things I'm about to share with you is because I had many of the basics in place, and I was still feeling physically burned out. In fact, for most of my life I've had a growing list of symptoms that I now know were related to these root causes. And the crazy thing is, when added up, I have a list of more than 35 symptoms I've had over the years that were a result of underlying issues. Now, not everyone is going to have the same diagnosis as me. But I want to have this conversation because I've gotten so many messages from women relating to my experience AND because the solutions I've found to these root problems benefit anyone and everyone. What I'm about to talk about doesn't matter if you have the same diagnosis as me at all. They will improve your energy and overall physical well-being.
So, what happened for me is that one of the symptoms I was experiencing (that at the time I had no idea was related to an underlying issue) was infertility. Before we got pregnant with Audrey, we'd been trying for 5 years. I always chalked it up to the fact that one of my diagnosis was PCOS. I never had any serious fertility treatment besides taking Clomid, which I only took a few rounds of and stopped because of symptoms it was causing. And eventually we were blessed with the gift of Audrey, which was a pure miracle. So, right around when Audrey was turning 2 years old, I knew that we had been open to having another baby for the entire last year, and nothing had happened.
I decided to transition my care from an OBGYN to a midwife in the same practice and set up an appointment with her. And before I even met with her, she sent me a message in my chart with a few links to information about another diagnosis she'd seen buried deep in my chart. That diagnosis was called Hashimotos, which is essentially an autoimmune disorder where your body attacks your thyroid. It's a thyroid issue. So when she messaged me, I had honestly forgotten about that diagnosis, mostly because it was one I was given in high school, and the health professionals I had talked with about it didn't have any solutions or guidance about it. So I really didn't know much about what it was.
So I opened one of the links and it was to a podcast about a pharmacist named Izabella Wentz who had healed her Hashimoto's. As I listened to it, I was shocked to hear her list off countless symptoms that I had - so many things like anxiety & depression, asthma, fatigue, brain fog, allergies, headaches, infertility, weight retention, even PCOS - the list goes on. I found out that even heart palpitations was a symptom - and that combined with shortness of breath had sent me to the ER numerous times. As I listened to her share about her physical struggles, how the medical community had no answers, and how she had actually discovered new methods to heal herself - my eyes were completely opened to a new world where there were things that I could do to intervene for my health and actually send Hashimoto's into remission.
So, after listening to that and then talking more with my midwife, she referred me to a wonderful functional doctor - who, if you are in the Indianapolis area, I'm happy to give you a referral to, because she changed everything for me. I met with her for the first time and she was able to listen to me, review my entire history of charts that I had my previous doctor send to her - and she gave me a list of like 17 action steps in that first meeting. Haha! Totally overwhelming and at the very same time, so empowering.
I began following the instructions that she gave me, and within 2 weeks I could tell my body was healing and I was gaining energy. My acne was clearing up, allergy symptoms going away, I could think clearer, and just felt energized overall. And what is so funny is that after exactly a month of working with her, I found myself pregnant with our second child. Isn't that crazy?! I had just talked to my small group weeks before about some of these changes I was making and how hopeful and fearful I was at the same time that it might not do anything to change the infertility issue. I just can't help but think that God used my functional doctor to heal me.
Getting To The Root
So, I want to tell you some of the major changes I made without making this an incredibly long episode. I'm going to just give you the highlights today because I can't give you ALL the information I know that has taken me months to read through and listen to. But I'll break it down into the biggest changes I made that changed the trajectory of my health.
And, I want to address something first before we dive in just to nip it in the bud and help open you up to a feeling of possibility. I know that the topic of our physical health is a sensitive topic for moms. And I know some of you well enough that hearing the list of changes that I made could possibly be triggering to you, maybe bringing up feelings of shame or failure - like you're not doing it right. Or feelings of overwhelm - like there's so many changes to make and you don't think you can do it. Or you may just feel like, I'm not the type of person to make those kinds of changes. And I know that you could have these kinds of thoughts because I had them too before I went on this journey. So I just want you to be aware of what's going on in your head. And I just want to assure you, that hearing my journey is just that. There may be tidbits you want to takeaway and others you aren't ready for or don't want to pursue. That is totally okay. But I want to encourage you to stay open as you listen. I want to encourage you to remain curious and hopeful. Because curiosity and hope are the exact mindsets that got me to where I am today.
Working with a Functional Doctor
So, number one change is obviously, working with a functional doctor. If you are unfamiliar with what a functional doctor is, I like to think of her like a root cause detective. Like I said, she spent an hour with me in our first appointment, listening to all the symptoms I talked about, and gave me a number of action steps that I could take that would help address any underlying reasons for WHY I had those symptoms. Rather than just prescribing medicine or solutions to cope with the symptoms. She went through an entire stack of charts that had years of appointments, testing, and results. She took all the information she could find, recommended further testing on what she needed, and put the pieces of the puzzle together. So, I am 100% a believer in functional medicine for the time and intention they take at figuring out what is at the root of all of the problems going on. Once you know what is causing your health issues, you can then move on to treating THAT problem instead of the symptoms.
So, I know you are just DYING to know what changes she recommended. So, she obviously recommended allllll of the basics we talked about earlier. Super foundational. But then there were 3 major categories of changes that I tackled with her, which were: food triggers, supplements, and detoxing.
Food Triggers
Okay so first - food triggers. I have always operated under the assumption that I had no food triggers because I've never had weird rashes or serious stomach problems. But about 8-9 months before I started working with her, I had actually decided to cut out gluten, per my chiropractor's recommendation. It was more of just an experiment really. But I think back when I started cutting out gluten, I was noticing a big shift in my energy even back then. So when my functional doctor recommended cutting out gluten, dairy, and soy, I was willing to give it a try. Gosh, so there are so many things we could talk about in regards to food triggers. So without giving you way too much information, I will tell you a few things. #1 - you don't have to have a Hashimoto's diagnosis to be sensitive to gluten.
From what I've learned and read, most people's bodies don't process gluten well- they just may not have as severe reactions as someone like me. Like, now if I eat gluten, I notice quite a shift in my energy - I pretty much feel sick. Some people don't have that dramatic of a reaction to it. But you might be surprised that it DOES make a huge difference for you if you've been eating gluten your whole life. I think the science behind gluten is that it messes with the lining of your gut - creating a leaky gut situation that quite literally means the food you are eating is seeping into your body. Obviously, your body doesn't like that and will start to attack it. This creates inflammation in your body, which is similar to when you're sick. So you feel sick. And if you have eaten gluten your whole life, you make have been just coping with a leaky gut and inflammation in your body. You don't even know what it's like for your body to feel any different!
So, that being said - I know many people think, "oh I could never do that!" - but, you never know how you might feel unless you give it a try. If that's something you want to do - I'll tell you, it really wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be. There are a lot of product swaps you can make at the grocery store, and while, yes, slightly more expensive, it's worth it. If you get really serious about your health, you can even stop buying the product swaps because they aren't technically the best for you. That doesn't have to be the first thing you do though. You can ease into it.
As far as the dairy - my understanding was that I needed to first heal my gut and then I could reintroduce dairy back into my diet. This is because I guess dairy is highly inflammatory, so if it is just floating around in your system, your body doesn't like that and will do weird things like create acne. So - I did follow a gut healing protocol that she recommended - which is also foundational. And I haven't eaten dairy for 6 months until just recently I've started introducing it in small quantities. So, for the average women who's wanting to make some changes, I'd say start with eliminating gluten, and follow a gut healing protocol as prescribed by a functional doctor. There are other food triggers that can be considered like dairy, and sugar for sure. Another thing I've been introduced to recently but I'm not knowledgeable about is high-histamine foods. I haven't applied any of it yet, but it's worth a Google if you're wanting to look into some other triggers for your physical health.
Supplements
Now, in addition to identifying food triggers like gluten, and healing my gut, my functional doctor also recommended some supplements that were very specific to my health condition. For me, because I have Hashimoto's which affects my thyroid, she recommended a supplement called Selenium, which was really exciting because there's all this science about how it actually heals your thyroid. So crazy. I'm also taking fish oil, Vitamin D3, a probiotic, Magnesium... probably a few other things. My prenatal vitamin... So. I'm not going to make recommendations to you about what you should be taking. But you can have labs done to see what you are deficient in. And taking the right supplements can be a huge boost to your energy and your overall physical health. This is one thing I know I kind of rolled my eyes at for years, but now that I've been told exactly what MY body is deficient in, it has made a huge difference in how I feel.
Environmental Detoxing
Okay - there are two more recommendations here that are not often talked about but are HUGE for helping you regain energy. So this next one is detoxing. When I used to hear that word, it made me think of drinking green smoothies over a 3 day weekend or something. Now - detoxing is something your body DOES start to do when you eliminate food triggers. And there's other recommendations that a functional doctor can make like having lemon or apple cider vinegar that help speed up the process. I actually didn't get to that place because I got pregnant so quickly, so I'm not as knowledgeable about that.
BUT the type of detoxing I wanted to share some tidbits about is more environmental detoxing. This is what you see when people are swapping out their cleaning and beauty products for "clean, non-toxic products." This was also something I used to roll my eyes at. It just felt kind of high-end and luxury to buy more expensive products just because they were "clean." However, detoxing our environment is one of the things I learned is contributing to this toxic load that our bodies are carrying - and it's draining us - burning us out.