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Helloooooooo!

I know. I’ve been gone forever. What have I been doing?

Healing.

Sort of. Slowly. Mixed with occasional bouts of panic attacks and extreme fatigue.

I’m working on it.

As I mentioned in my last post, I got test results back showing that I have subclinical hypothyroidism, low vitamin D, low sex hormones, and likely a converting problem. I began working with a health coach, who believes that the main things I need to work on are building up a good gut microbiome and removing heavy metals. A test confirmed that I do have slightly elevated levels of lead and mercury, as well as another metal I have never heard of.

In the weeks leading up to starting my new protocol, I was bad. I had to travel and instead of bringing healthy snacks with, I brought off-brand Pop-Tarts. Seriously, Chloe? They made me really sick, but I kept eating them. Because Pop-Tarts! *shakes head* This is why I need to stick to strict diets. Healthy people supposedly can eat what they want and won’t want to eat foods that make them sick. Yet here I was, continuing to eat something I knew was making me sick. I cannot be trusted around food. I’m working on that.

Anyway, so I got back from that trip and began with a fast where I only ingested a certain cultured beverage. From there I began a grain- and sugar-free diet, as well as many supplements to help support my digestion, build up my gut bacteria, and make sure my body is getting what it needs. My husband and I are on a budget, so we get our produce at Aldi and our animal products at Costco or Lunds. Aldi has very affordable produce, and Costco has great prices for organic animal products – less than $4/dozen eggs, and less than $5/lb grass fed beef or Kerrygold products. We get our whole, organic chickens there, too, for meat and healing bone broth. I don’t eat much dairy besides butter, but if I am really craving something that calls for dairy, my local Lunds has the best organic dairy in my price range.

I had one huge slip-up: I had to go to a funeral and I gave in the day of the wake. Then the day of the funeral, I forgot to  bring my food to the luncheon. They were serving ham sandwiches (just ham, no cheese or lettuce, and I hate ham), 10 types of jello, and cupcakes. Seriously. You can’t make that up. So I had a great time discussing this with the cousins, but it means that I ate 2 cupcakes and a piece of banana bread for lunch. I upped my probiotics and took digestive enzymes, and I got through and back on track.

I’m still tired, my hair is still falling out, and I am still dealing with my chronic stress. Just last night I couldn’t sleep because I was freaking out about writing blog posts and cleaning the apartment and finishing all the wedding tasks that we’ve been putting off for 3 months. Worrying about money and how I’m not working on growing the blog or my essential oil business the way I should, yet I can’t bring myself to even think about applying for a real job. But I am noticing improvements. I’m no longer spending an entire day just watching Netflix. I’m starting to do a lot of research and cleaning occasionally. I ovulated the week before I started this protocol, which means that I am currently ending the second week of my follicular phase. I always feel great from the end of my period until my follicular phase begins to move into the 3rd week, so another week or so will tell us if my cycles are going back to normal, if I’m starting to heal, or if there is another long bout of extreme fatigue coming my way.

Beyond this general health update, we had a big health event happen in the How We Flourish household, which I’ll be posting about tomorrow.

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