• The Gut Makeover, Round 2.

    17/01/2018 - By 

    Happy January everyone! Did you make New Year’s Resolutions? How are you doing at keeping them? I made promises to myself to make some big life changes, out of necessity to my physical health and mental sanity.  This very important motivation made it easy for me to stick to my goals, so far. These last couple of weeks have been about getting back on track with my eating, so I restarted The Gut Makeover eating plan on January 2nd. In November and December I got way off track with my eating. I was a bit depressed, to be honest, and…

  • Leaky Gut and Flaky Eyes: How It Happened to Me and What I’m Doing About It.

    26/10/2017 - By 

    My health has slowly been improving this year. I suddenly decided I didn’t want to sit on my hands and just accept that my health would never be great again. As you know from previous posts, I just coasted through life eating whatever I wanted and exercising sporadically until my late twenties. Not because I was naturally skinny and comfortable being that way, but because I was lazy. I swung between being chubby and downright fat and had terrible acne. When I had my kids, I focused a bit more on my health, but it took getting really sick to…

  • Why I Am Suddenly So Concerned with Giving My Kids Healthy Breakfasts.

    25/09/2017 - By 

    I had an epiphany this weekend. My kids came up twenty minutes after finishing breakfast and they were hungry already….and crabby.  I asked Isabella what she had eaten and she said, ‘an apple sauce and some cereal without milk’. I realized that what she had eaten was basically a sugar bomb and it was no wonder she was hungry! Now that we aren’t moving anymore, and that I’m mostly unpacked, it is time to get on top of things again. I decided we would have more filling breakfasts full of real food. I also decided I would carve out time to…

  • The Thing I Did to Help My Gut.

    20/07/2017 - By 

    As you know, my gut was in bad shape. I think the combination of taking maca powder for too long (you can read about that here) and then the food poisoning that happened a year or two later didn’t help. My eagerness to take antibiotics for every ailment stripped my gut lining and the food poisoning that lasted 7-9 days ravaged it. Through the process of elimination and doctor’s tests, I found out that, since the food poisoning, I had become severely gluten intolerant. With that came lactose intolerance (since the proteins in gluten and lactose are similar) and a…

  • Monday Feels

    19/06/2017 - By 

    Today feels like….   We had such a busy weekend that I’m having trouble getting back into the groove. I hope everyone had a happy Father’s Day weekend, whether it was celebrating with one or in memory of one. Our family had a great time. We went to The Hangar Flight Museum all day Saturday and then Heritage Park on Sunday, followed by (amazing!) sushi at Momoyama Sushi here in Calgary. But now, exhausted. I cannot have caffeine since I am still doing the Gut Makeover meal plan, so strong herbal tea smells will have to revive me. Have a…

  • I’m on Day 5 of The Gut Makeover!

    05/06/2017 - By 

    I have a hard-working husband, an anxious kid, a sensitive kid and a neurotic cat (she likes being slapped on the butt, (seriously!), which makes me wonder about her past life, but more on another time). I didn’t need a leaky gut on top of all of that. It’s so broken that I am constantly fatigued and in constant pain. I needed a change. So I got a book written by a nutritionist and started to learn. Once I read the entire thing, I started the program to (hopefully) heal (or at least help) my gut. And I started The…

  • The Gut Makeover

    17/05/2017 - By 

    I’m almost finished this book: I’m impressed with it so far and ready to try it in June. I am sick of always feeling crampy and bloated after meals. I feel tired, have horrible acne and sore joints. There are a lot of other symptoms, as well, that cross the line from “discomfort” in to “chronic illness”. I have leaky gut in a big way. I have a couple of friends who have suffered from it and have healed themselves using a similar diet that is outlined in this book. I can’t wait to start eating from an elimination diet…

  • My Pants Are Tight, I’ve Gained Weight….and Perspective

    03/05/2017 - By 

    Omigosh, my pants are tight. I’ve gained weight. Not a big deal….just have to get back on track. Or at least, that is what I am telling myself. We read a great kid’s book the other day, (hang with me, it ties in) called Virginia Wolf. It perfectly explains the “doldrums”, as the author puts it. I felt that last month. And I gave up, just like Virginia in the story. I was crabby and isolated myself. I stopped working out and I reached for comfort foods a LOT.  I justified it by skipping my first snack of the day,…

  • Gut Health Help: Article Roundup.

    12/04/2017 - By 

    I have massive problems with my gut health and I have had them since suffering severe food poisoning two years ago. Since that day, my gut has turned into an unhappy monster. I now have a severe intolerance to gluten (although my doctor says she suspects that I have always had a sensitivity to it) and I am adverse to a bunch of other foods (including sweet potatoes! *tear*). What happened? I was out with my mother-in-law and Grammy-in-law a couple of years ago for my husband’s bday dinner. The restaurant we were thinking of was takeout only. Since it…

  • Gut Health Update

    13/01/2017 - By 

    Well, we made it to the end of the week! It has been freezing cold here and my kids have been going a little stir crazy. I have been distracting them with chores, playing with their new Christmas gifts and movies. Isabella has been watching the blu-ray of Anne of Green Gables that we borrowed from the library. I used to have the VHS of it (just dated myself) and I watched it until I wore it out. I was Anne growing up, from age 8 onwards, once I found my voice. I was so excited for Isabella to see…