How many times have you said, "If I knew then what I know now"? It could have been about your love life, a job, school, a large purchase like a car that ended up being a lemon because you didn't do enough research. I know I have said that about many decisions in my life.
A Snapshot of My Story
Not too many of you know my full story. My "why", if you will. My story is the reason why I am so passionate about a food forward approach to getting and staying healthy. It is why I spent years studying science-based information about health with Wellness Forum Health. It is why I love teaching others the skills for adopting and maintaining optimal habits. And I am still learning!
What is Autoimmune?
In the mid-80's, I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. Crohn's is one of the autoimmune diseases that takes a toll on the lives of millions of people in the United States every year. There are many autoimmune diseases: Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, Celiac, Type 1 Diabetes, Graves disease, Hashimoto's, and many more. This is the short list (there are over 80). Autoimmune diseases are the third most common category of disease in the U.S. after cancer and cardiovascular disease and more than 78% of the people affected are women. Autoimmune diseases can affect every biological system in the body, including the endocrine system, connective tissue, gastrointestinal tract, heart, skin, and kidneys. Sounds like the plague, doesn't it?
Autoimmune means "immunity against self." Your white corpuscles-which were designed by God to fight off disease-are identifying some healthy part of your body as an enemy invader and attacking it to destroy it. It is the body attacking the body. In the medical community, the diagnosis of an autoimmune disease is a life sentence. When I was diagnosed, I was given a myriad of prescriptions with potentially dangerous side-effects and was told that food had nothing to do with it. Their best shot was to control the symptoms. There was no looking into any root causes or methods to bring healing. The last medication prescribed was the biologic Humira, which can potentially cause cancer.
The Search for Information
Back in "those days", there wasn't any internet to look for information. I took my meds, cried, and became even more stressed, sinking into depression and episodes of anxiety. Was this going to be my life? If only I knew then that stress and anxiety is a major trigger for any autoimmune disease, so my mental state certainly didn't help.
I will fast forward because the road was long and there isn't enough space to write about the battles, the pain, the weight fluctuations, the different medications, my hopeless mental state, the "pretending" that I was okay, the mental anguish of travel preparation (making sure I didn't eat because I will be on a plane for 4 hours). I was not in a good place physically, mentally, or spiritually.
By 2009, it was bad enough that the GI doctor said my colon was so damaged and inflamed that I needed a bowel resection, and a large section of my small bowel was removed. If I knew then what I know now, I would not have had that done. Why you ask? Because now I know the root causes of inflammation. When you read further, you will learn the consequences of that decision. Now I know how my horrible way of eating was triggering my Crohn's disease (and other autoimmune issues). If I knew when diagnosed in the 80's what I know now, I might have prevented the years of illness. But that is not how life works. We all face trials, traumas, undealt with emotions, and setbacks. We don't know what to do at the time, or we receive poor guidance which makes it easy to sink into the mode of self-pity and fear. These traumas, whether big or small, and our emotions, lead to actual physiological changes in the body.
A Snapshot of the Journey
My road to healing was not easy. It is its own story, and I am thankful to God for teaching me how to listen to my body and how His desire is for us to be whole: body, mind and spirit! My healing started in 2014 and is still ongoing. I share more of my testimony in my free lecture "What Does the Bible Say About Health." He led me to many resources in the nutritional science community and I started to cut out many of the foods that I learned cause inflammation and foods that trigger symptoms. I was starting to feel better, lighter, healthier, and focused. I have not taken medication for 9 years because I radically changed the way I eat, managed stress triggers, and increased daily exercise (which I was finally able to do because I had more energy!) It was a dramatic mindset shift, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
A Setback
Let me sum this up and get to the point of why I am sharing. Think about having surgery anywhere on your body. When cutting is involved that way, it needs to be stitched up or put back together. This results in scar tissue. The scar tissue from my bowel resection has thickened and as a result, caused an obstruction from the stricture. I started looking into that possibility a few years ago and hoped it would not happen. But last November, I could tell that things weren't "moving" the way they should. I went to the GI doctor, but he did not agree with my self-diagnosis. He scheduled a colonoscopy a few days before Christmas. I rescheduled it for their next available appointment, which is in February because, well, Christmas. Ugh, if I only knew then.
In the early morning hours of January 18, I went to the ER as I had been vomiting all night long. The obstruction was bad, and I was hospitalized for 5 days. I had an NG (nasogastric) tube down my nose for 2-1/2 days to drain my stomach. The results of the CT scan done in the emergency room showed the blockage was caused by the scar tissue. The surgeon visited me daily with his scalpel sharpened (kidding), waiting to see if I needed another surgery. I was on a regimen of steroids to control any inflammation and calm things down. Thankfully, I did not require surgery.
So now I wait until February 22 to assess the damage. I was down but have learned to give my adversities, and my scar tissue, to God. I know when to rest and give myself grace.
Choose Life
We can all learn what our bodies need: physically, mentally, and spiritually. If you are not aware of what your body needs, you cannot take care of it. In her groundbreaking book "Radical Remission", Kelly Turner writes about the lives of people who have defied a serious diagnosis of cancer by not only radically changing their diet, but by deepening their spiritual connections, dealing with their emotions and much more. This can be applied to any serious health issue as well. There is healing power available to all of us!
We are all scarred from our circumstances one way or another. Every one of our scars has a story, but they do not define us. God loves our scars, especially when they draw us closer to Him. He invites us into relationship with Him so that we can live in "Shalom", which means more than peace. It means to live in wholeness: body, mind, and spirit. We don't need to identify with our disease, as that is embracing death. We are created with a purpose and a plan. Part of that plan is to learn to be healthy so that we can be of service to others.
Thank you for reading to the end. Please email me with any questions on autoimmune issues. I wish you all Shalom!
Liz Fattore
Nurture Your Health
Licensed Food Over Medicine Professional
www.lizfattore.com
lentil stew
It's soup weather and this lentil stew is definitely comfort food. I love to use leeks in recipes, so remember to slice them lengthwise first, then slice into half-moons. Give them a bath in water to remove any sandy sediment. I used a head of escarole in this recipe, but you could substitute any other greens. I also used Passata, which is a tomato puree, strained of seeds and skins, and does not contain seasonings. It is traditionally used in many Italian dishes. This recipe is quick and easy.
Ingredients
- 1 leek, sliced
- 1 shallot, diced
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 quarts vegetable broth
- 24 oz bottle Passata
- 1 cup uncooked orzo
- Lentils (prepare 1 cup lentils separately)
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon each dried basil & oregano
- 1 head escarole, roughly chopped
- Salt & Pepper to taste
Instructions
Cook 1 cup raw lentils according to package directions until tender and set aside. Sauté leek and shallot until translucent, stirring frequently (no oil needed) add garlic and stir a few minutes more. Add the vegetable broth, passata and all the remaining ingredients. Simmer until the orzo is done. Add the lentils and simmer until heated through. Should serve 5.
Your Wellness Lifestyle Starts HereAlmost everyone agrees that having a routine is a good idea, and that it is needed in order to develop health-promoting habits. But there is a lot of resistance to following through and developing and sticking to routines. A friend who does not like routines says that if forced to do everything in a routinized way, he would lose the ability to be creative, since spontaneity would be gone from his life. The reality is that usually the adoption of routines creates more time for spontaneity, not less. The reason is that when life is organized, chaos is reduced, and chaos interferes with getting many things done, including creative endeavors.
One of the keys to success in adopting health-promoting diet and lifestyle habits is establishing a daily/weekly routine. Routines provide structure, and structure is needed for organizing your life.
"Success doesn't come from what you do occasionally, it comes from what you do consistently."
How can you develop a health promoting environment? The key to good habit formation and maintenance is routine. I was away over the holidays and went off of my routine. But when I came home with a cold, I went back to my routine because I knew it would help me heal quickly. Once your health promoting routines and habits are developed, they are easier to resume.
Habits are defined as actions that are triggered automatically by environmental or contextual cues. Examples would include fastening your seatbelt as soon as closing the car door, or flossing your teeth after you brush. The cues (shutting the car door and brushing your teeth) remind you to perform the good habits (fastening seats belts and flossing). About 40% of the things you do every day are performed in the same situations and in response to the same cues. In fact, a considerable amount of research shows that performing any action again and again, under the same circumstances and in the same context, turns it into a habit.
As we enter a new year, we tend to want to set goals. There is something about the newness and excitement of starting over. The danger lies in falling for the trends, the new magic bullet for weight loss, the introduction of "super foods", the confusing and unsustainable diets, etc. Advertisers jump on the bandwagon to convince us of these magic formulas. The results are usually temporary. Trendy diets are not sustainable.
"New goals don't deliver new results. New lifestyles do. And a lifestyle is a process, not an outcome. For this reason, all of your energy should go into building better habits, not chasing better results."
The key is patience. Research shows that it takes between 15 and 254 days to form a new habit, depending on the person and the habit the person is trying to change or form. You can't just "break" a bad habit. You need to replace it with a good habit.
Honor yourself-body, mind and spirit-by establishing healthy routines and good habits which lead to a healthy lifestyle.
Sources:
Atomic Habits
Wellness Forum Health
DO YOU HAVE A STRATEGY?
The holidays are here and part of the fun of the season is the gatherings and spending more time with family and friends. Almost all of these occasions involve food, and it's a fair guess that they also include treats, sweetened beverages, and alcohol. While everyone has to make up his or her own mind about how to handle these occasions, I don't think it's a good idea to throw caution to the wind, eat anything and everything, and start over again in January for several reasons. One of them is that you were engaging in this type of behavior for a long time before deciding to change your diet and lifestyle to a healthier version, and it contributed to weight gain and health issues. One very important principle of the program I teach is that it is a plan for life. It is not a short-term heroic and restrictive diet that cannot be sustained. On the other hand, binging on junk food for short periods of time is not a good idea either.
Another reason to avoid a holiday eating orgy is that it will inevitably be accompanied by weight gain and feeling bad. It does not help to go backwards if you have been making progress toward your weight and/or health improvement goals.
The better strategy is to continue the "changing your life" program and learn to how to be a healthy eater who can enjoy the holidays. If you have been to any of my classes or events, remember the key strategies to implement any diet and lifestyle changes. It needs to be accessible, sustainable, and defensible with science.
If you are attending a party, eat a large salad, or a healthy soup with lots of veggies before you go. It's important to not attend these events when you are "starving". Fill up on salad and vegetables at family dinners and enjoy a few Christmas cookies!
Remain mindful of your strategy and intentions. This way you can have fun, indulge yourself a little, and wake up on January 1 feeling good about yourself, your weight, and your health.
Lastly, don't forget about exercise! Continuing your workouts is part of learning how to enjoy holiday seasons as a healthy person. Exercise can offset the effects of those cookies!
Stay tuned for 2024 as I resume classes and events, with hopefully more zoom meetings for the out-of-town folks.
I wish all of you a happy and healthy 2024!
Looking for a healthy side dish to bring to dinner? Check out this Cranberry Kale Pilaf. If you don't like Kale, sub spinach. Cranberry Kale Pilaf - Center for Nutrition Studies
wellness forum health smoothie
Since I am asked often about my daily smoothie, I wanted to share it with you. This health promoting smoothie mix contains spirulina, beet, spinach, wheatgrass, tomato, carrot powders, and Stevia. I order without Stevia (upon request). I pre-grind the whole flax seeds and it's the finest food grade organic flax seeds you can buy! Larger, flatter, softer and tastier than other flax seeds. The Brewers Yeast contains B vitamins and trace minerals. The green tea is optional as well. This food-grade tea is grown in a remote area of China. Each leaf is hand-picked and packaged to preserve nutrient density.
The super foods smoothie gets me going in the morning with lots of energy to do my morning workout.
Ingredients
- 8 oz plant milk
- 1 cup frozen berries
- 2 tablespoons smoothie mix
- 2 tablespoons raw oatmeal (optional, but it makes it creamier)
- 1 banana
- 1 tablespoon flaxseeds
- 1 tablespoon Brewer's Yeast (optional)
- 1 tablespoon green tea (optional)
Instructions
Place all ingredients in a blender!
I always have smoothie mix for $26 for a 1 lb bag (includes shipping) in stock to bring to events, as well as the other dry ingredients and other products such as soup mixes, probiotics and Elderberry Syrup.
These are some of the products that I keep on stock:
Smoothie mix $26 1 lb bag
Brewers Yeast $6.75 1 lb bag
Flax seeds $6.00 1 lb bag
Date & Almond Granola $8.70
Chocolate Oatmeal Bar mix $9.25
To view all of the products and to order directly, click on Foods and Products - Wellness Forum Health. Prices listed on the Wellness Forum Health website do not include shipping, however, shipping is free on orders over $250. To order directly, call 614-841-7700 and tell Kelly that I sent you!
