One year, one W47 plus a W85 later I finally feel like a success

[LadyM]

Though I completed my first W30, a W47, actually, in May 2013, this is my first time writing a success story. So much has happened between my W47 a year ago and the W85 I just completed that I can finally feel like a success even though I still haven't achieved the kind of magic I (falsely) expected when I first decided to give W30 a shot. And that's why I'm writing this. For all the people who begin W30 believing it will be the final magic bullet they've been hoping for but then perhaps find something else different than what they expected.

For me that something else has been far grander than what I could have imagined.

I was one of those people who didn't lose weight and may have even gained some during my first attempt at this. But I came back one year later for another go round because of what it set in motion. Whole 30 has dramatically changed my relationship with food and with my body for the better. This is the dream of all dreams come true, I now realize.

Here's what's changed for me:

1. I eat three meals a day, no snacks, no problem.

2. I no longer suffer from sugar cravings of any kind. No real or fake sugar, fruit, or nuts and nut butters call the siren song.

3. My digestion and elimination are regular and gas is infrequent.

4. Food is not a reward. It doesn't set me on fire, bring me up, or bring me down. Food is food. And I take genuine pleasure in preparing and eating it. I have finally learned the importance, meaning, and practice of savoring food.

5. My mood is stable and I am a nicer person.

6. I have made sleep and stress reduction a priority, and I now sleep the sleep of angels. Every night.

7. My skin is clearer (acne has been a serious problem since puberty).

8. Despite an injury set back, exercise is a regular habit.

9. I have finally lost some weight. Some time around day 60 I was about 8 pounds down, and I don't know what that number is now, but it doesn't seem like much more than that. My clothes aren't hanging off me, though my smaller clothes are fitting me better.

10. I am no longer at war with my body. I accept it for its protean nature, and I am much more attuned to its needs and hungers, most of which have nothing to do with food now because I have learned to genuinely nourish myself.

 

In between my W30 experiences, my mom died from kidney failure, a complication resulting from diabetes and heart disease. I could not save her, and my grief significantly affected my own health. One of the ways I can make sense of her early death is to learn from it, and to choose to thoroughly care for myself in ways she never managed to care for herself.

During my most recent W85, my dad came to visit me, and I gave him three days of compliant meals as well as a copy of It Starts With Food. He has been morbidly obese for most of my life and on a roller coaster of diets and weight loss successes and failures for most of his life. With the support of OA, which he began a year and a half ago, and the tools of ISWF, he and his wife, who suffers from MS, have completed a W30 and are living a W9 life that is transforming their health for the better. This makes me at least as happy and proud as my own success with W30.

There is no end point for me. As long as I live, I will need to tend to my body, a complex organism complicated by childhood cancer and its treatments that left my immune system in shambles and my thyroid obliterated. I am working with a functional medicine doctor I trust to help my body heal and repair itself. She supports the W9 lifestyle, and I finally feel I am receiving the kind of integrative medicine I've needed for decades. I also trust now that my body wants to heal and that it will take persistence and patience on my part.

So, I move forward with joy and with gratitude for this program, the wonderful supportive community of this forum, and for my doggedness in finding and staying on my own peculiar path. I will continue eating W30 style with minimal off roading only when I can truly savor the experience. And I'll be checking in while riding my own bike here.

[GFChris]

Way to go, LadyM - I applaud you, your success, and the role model you're being for your dad and others who read your powerful story.

[LadyM]

Thank you so much, Chris!

[GoJo09]

10. I am no longer at war with my body.

 

So much more important than losing a few kilos!

[LadyM]

Indeed!

[missmary]

I love reading this. You are an inspiration, LadyM. 

[LadyM]

Thank you, dear MissMary. So are you!

[kb0426]

I want to hug you, kiss you, dance with you! I can feel your energy in your words. Thank you for finally sharing your story!

[LadyM]

Thank you, sweet kb! Yes, let's do hug, kiss, and dance!!

[Nadia B]

And eat liver. I had to, sorry  

 

I just want to say that your journey has affected my own in a major way. I think I have developed a mild "morning LadyM's log read" addiction. Thank you, you always bring me back to reality or make me look at things from a different angle. 

[LadyM]

And eat liver. I had to, sorry

 

I just want to say that your journey has affected my own in a major way. I think I have developed a mild "morning LadyM's log read" addiction. Thank you, you always bring me back to reality or make me look at things from a different angle. 

:wub: Love me some Nadia B.

 

And LOVE eating liver (heart, kidney, gizzard, too. . . . ).

[cottagequeen]

Thanks for your story. I began my journey in April 2014. I love liver, heart, gizzard and tongue!

[meredithm1]

That is fantastic!  What a concept - not being at war with food or your body...I hope to get there some day.  In the meantime (having just finished my WHole 30), I'll be mostly compliant...:-)

[LadyM]

UPDATE: less than a year after posting this (and a couple more Whole 30s under my belt), i got the green light from my endocrinologist to go off my daily synthetic thyroid hormone.

 

With a lot of love and dedication and good food and appropriate movement and supplementation and playing outside and meditation and sleeping sweetly and a little help from my friends and a terrific functional medicine doctor, my body is healing itself. Miracles are possible.

 

And it started with food.