My Gut Had An Attitude...and it wasn't a good one.
My journey through Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder to Mindful Eating.
I didn’t have an eating disorder.
For the better part of my mid-twenties I suffered through every mealtime, and I ate so little that I reached my all-time lowest adult weight ever.
Food always looked and smelled soooo good.
I wanted to eat. Really, I did.
But was it worth it?
✏️ Future Post Preview ✏️
Later this month I will write about Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) and how gut-rot, leaky-gut, and gluten-intolerance is causing a rise in this form of eating disorder.
My gut had an attitude…and it wasn’t a good one.
While my stomach’s loud grumbling voice expressed its hunger loudly,
My rotten gut argued back within seconds of my first bite.
Let me tell you, Gut’s language wasn’t low toned tummy grumbles.
No. . . Gut spoke in penetrating pangs of pain.
First came the bloat.
And then the gas.
The silent-deadly-stinky 💨 kind.
Or worse. The wet kind 💩.
I had become an expert at the “hold-in-the-fart squeeze” exercise, something I liked to call the not-quite-kegel.
Running to the bathroom 🚽 due to sudden-onset diarrhea was a common occurrence at my mealtimes, and leaving the table with my pants unzipped was the norm.
If I drank even half of the 4oz pour wine, I’d be awake ALL night, only to greet my morning self with a fresh flush of rosacea cheeks.
Dessert, just a couple bites of molten chocolate cake, red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, or key lime pie I’d spend half the night with the foot jitters. If I dared to eat the whole slice, I’d suffer full on restless leg, for hours.
I didn’t have an eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia.
I was just afraid of food.
Then, I met Dr. Gary, a humble chiropractor turned functional medicine doctor (long before “functional medicine” was even a thing- this was the late 1990s!) two decades ahead of his time.
Dr. Gary explained to me that I had gut-rot. Yup, that’s the very technical term he used. He said that over-use of pharmaceutical medications (anti-biotics, anti-histamines, anti-depressants, anti-inflammatories, and corticosteroids) prescribed first to treat a severe cat allergy but later to prescribed to treat the various side effects of the various medications.
✏️ Future Post Preview ✏️
Later this month I will share a more detailed story of how over-use of anti-biotics (and other pharmaceuticals) led to my clinical depression diagnosis, and why I chose to become 100% pharmaceutical-free (going on 25 years now).
According to Dr. Gary, I needed a total gut overhaul.
Like I had with every other doctor I’d ever met, I nodded and agreed to follow doctor’s orders, because doctors are the authority.
But Dr. Gary was different.
He refused to accept the title of “authority” and made it clear to me that the only authority of my body was ME, because no one else can ever really know what it is like to live inside MY BODY.
No doctor had ever talked to me that way. It was refreshing.
I left Dr. Gary’s office after the initial consultation not only informed and educated, but feeling empowered.
✏️January 2024 Mindfulness Theme ✏️
Over the next month, I’ll be sharing here on Substack, more details of my journey to Mindful Eating, how it is different from Healthy Eating, and how I healed not only my gut-rot, but my whole relationship with food, and how that contributed to healing my relationship with my Self. I’ll also share with you the science of how hormones and moods and emotions are connected to your digestion. I’ll offer simple mindfulness tricks and tidbits you can do everyday so that you too can start to feel NOURISHED in your life.
January 2024
FREE Monthly Mindfulness Masterclass
Tuesday, January 16, 2024 @ 7pm CST (USA)
After suffering for years, I healed my gut-rot in six months.
Dr. Gary was a humble man. He didn’t want the credit. Every time I thanked him, he tossed the credit back to me.