Weight weight go away... and come back never

I've always had a healthy fear of gaining weight because my mother has always yo-yo'ed with her weight and my father and his side of the family are for the most part all morbidly obese. I always knew i had the wonderful ability to gain weight FAST which was definitely something i didn't like. 

But when i realize my genes sneaking up on me i would join a sport and i would be fine and go back to my 140ish pounds on my then 5'7" athletic frame. When i went into highschool i had suffered from depression and anxiety after being "dumped" by my group of friends who then went onto being popular and i kept being myself. I lost a lot of weight and i was a tttiiinnnnyyyyy (well for me anyways). But of course as being a 15 year old girl i thought i was massive. You can thank having two brothers for that bad body image... 

9th grade: 125- 5'6"
10th grade: 135- 5'7"
11th grade: 160- 5'9"
12th grade: 140- 5'9"

Now what i find to be hilarious is that for a daughter of a professional photographer i can't seem to make a normal body pose or facial expression in any photo.. so get ready for some creative photos.

Now i am very naturally muscular and for such a klutz i'm pretty decent at sports. I credit that to being obnoxiously competitive from being raised around all boys. Whether its a simple game of rock paper scissors for control of the clicker for another hour or a kickball game for a free beer i'm in it to win it. 

Now when i get depressed i lose weight fast and lose my appetite. So after the death of a few close family members my weight went back down. 

AKA. A fat Katie is a happy Katie. A skinny Katie is sad.

When i was 15 was when i started high school. This is also around the time i started having serious stress and weight issues. Along with battling personal problems with family and friends i got the wonderful gift of grey hair! Which i now know is attributed to having adrenal fatigue.. but either way being a silver fox at 15 isn't the best look. 

After weight going up and down up and down during school i then moved onto my first year of college. The personal issues with family got worse. Stress got higher. I worked three jobs and went to school full-time so i could afford my car and a place to live. And skinnier i got. 

Don't judge me too much this is literally the only picture i have of myself for those two years. But i show my weight in my face anyways so its a good way to scale it. (circa 2010)

All from high school up until this time i was having known issues with dairy. I thought i was lactose intolerant so i was drinking soy milk like it was nobodys business. At this point i was also a vegetarian for a few years and starting to have moderate stomach pains after i ate. At this point i blamed it on stress and honestly i didn't have the energy to take care of myself at that point in my life. 

About two years later i dropped out of school and started to work. I made some good friends and commuted to working in Boston. I found some people who cared about fun and going out which was very tempting for a 19 year old who never had the "traditional" college experience. 

At this point i had gotten seriously into working out. I ran my first 5k and 10k in 2012 and actually TRAINED for it! I then did a few fun runs like the color run, ruckus race and a spartan race.

 I had gotten into crossfit and started eating paleo. At first it helped my stomach calm down but i noticed my weight was creeping up... Over the course of the past three years i had gained an additional 30 pounds more than i had ever weighed. Blame it on growing in womanhood, dealing with the "real world" or whatever else you can think of. I was pissed off. I was doing everything i should have and i couldn't stop gaining weight. I logged my calories, sought out the advice of nutritionists and personal trainers, ate all the right foods, worked out in high intensity intervals and still i gained weight. Now i work in the health field and it sucks when you work at a facility that is all about losing weight and you are telling your best friend (who is a personal trainer) that you are doing everything they say and it isn't working.. now of course she thought i was lying. 

Now i truly don't believe in comparing your body to another person or that a number on a scale should ever define your happiness (see i'm still workin in) but when i was putting in MORE effort than the girl standing next to me in that picture and i get stuck with that body.. i was pretty upset and discouraged. 

This is when i finally had given up with feeling crappy and complaining to my doctor of stomach pain and i started the disappointing process of seeing specialist after specialist to just be told i was fine or that they could give me a pill for that. I then found a holistic doctor who told me about my food allergies and then was later diagnosed with LEAKY GUT! 

So now here i am starting at my heaviest weight ever. (see embarrassing "before" photo below :(  )

Standing in the corner at a whopping 5 foot 9 inches.. I weighed a total of 196 pounds officially classifying me as obese. My worst nightmare and everything i have worked so hard to avoid has become my reality. 

After being set up on a diet basically eliminating everything delicious for four weeks i have now dropped 15 pounds! As of 5/28/13 i weighed 180.2 . Now i am beginning to tinker with my diet to try and add foods and do the "see what happens" approach. More importantly than losing weight i am feeling UHHmazing. I can't even explain how bizarre it is to wake up with no pain. Seriously a change i could get use to.

Needless to say i'm pretty excited to see what will happen as i continue on my journey to be happy and healthy but its pretty neat to see the progress! As i lose more weight and get better i'll post updated photos to show progress!

What is means to be "Sick"

So i feel like i have gotten a lot of grief from my own family as well as other people when trying to explain my condition and my pain.

I want to emphasize that just because someone does not physically see my pain it does not make it any less real.

Now let me explain to you what it feels like when i eat bread. I would say if i were to eat that devilishly delicious piece of french baguette that comes with my meal at Panera. Within ten minutes i would be clutching my stomach, rolled up in a ball on the ground and most likely cursing out whoever is closest for letting me eat that. Its like period cramps on steroids (its on both the sides of my abdomen and not centralized) and comes in waves of pain while its oh so slowly being digested. mhmmm sounds like my kind of party right? Completely worth it...sometimes :/

For five years before my diagnosis of leaky gut i had moderate to severe stomach pain after i ate anything. Now trying to explain this to people can be difficult. I would often excuse myself to go use the bathroom and cry or i would dip out of hanging out with friends to go run home to use the bathroom. Not only were the reactions from eating either completely embarrassing and humiliating (running to use the bathroom as if you had just eaten bad food from a brazillian steak house...see Bridesmaids for more details on that one) or i would go home and legit clutch my stomach and cry because there was a war of epic proportions going on in there and there was nothing i could do to stop it. And believe me i would prefer neither to happen when i go on a date...or hang out with friends.. or in general eat anywhere that isn't in my hypodermic bubble called home.

Now i use the word sick to describe a variety of things that could happen to save my friends the gory details. Because honestly how many poop conversations can you have with your friends before they just get that that's what you meant?

Being my type of sick is no fun. It has made me miss out on opportunities to experience new things, having fun with my friends because i'm not sure what food will be available or if there will be an excess able bathroom, eating new cuisines because i have NOOO idea what is in it and we don't want an erupting volcano moment.

So when you look at someone with THAT face, try to not judge and make me feel like my issues aren't any less real because you can't see it. Try to understand and hugs heal a lot more than you would think.

HUGS

My daily nom noms.

Okay!

Now to try to explain my super confusing diet that i certainly don't totally even understand myself..

So i started first ignoring all of my food that my blood panel told me i was a allergic to. Now let me impress you with my allergies... (level 1=less severe, level 2=hives, throat swells, level 3=anaphylactic shock, severe stomach pain etc.)

Level 1:

Brussel Sprouts

Blue Cheese

Cherry

Ginseng

Licorice

Lime

Millet

Nutmeg

Parsley

Pecan

Red Pepper

Pecan

Pumpkin

Radish

Tumeric

Turnip

Vanilla Bean

Almond

Asparagus 

Barley

Carrot

Cauliflower 

Swiss Cheese

Cocoa

Crab

Egg Yolk

Gluten

Cows Milk

Oats

Green Olives

Oranges

Peanut

Rye

Shrimp

Black Walnuts

Wheat

Yogurt 

Level 2:

Cranberry

Goats Milk 

Malt

Level 3:

Casein

Whey

Bakers Yeast

Brewers Yeast

TA DA! Look at them apples... now lets add in my other dietary restrictions.

I also followed a Dr.Feingold's diet for four weeks following my diagnosis to calm my stomach from all possible irritants. (i also briefly avoided FODMAP foods but since they were all already on my other lists is seems pointless to mention it) So there goes:

Artificial food coloring

Artificial food flavoring 

Many others (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feingold_diet )

So basically all the delicious foods in the world haha.

Currently i follow a Paleo diet and i add some of my other diets ideas in there too.

So for me i avoid all:

Gluten

Dairy (casein, whey)

Wheat 

Yeast (bakers and brewers)

Grains (oats, rice)

Red Meat

Added sugars, flavorings or colors

Nightshades

Corn & Beans

So basically i live on a steady diet of eggs, turkey burgers, jack daniel's honey BBQ sauce, chicken, salad and sweet potatoes. Now i found certain cookbooks to be a HUGE help in finding what to eat. I LOVE the Practical Paleo book. It goes into great detail about which certain foods and activities can be avoided to help your particular situation. 

I do occasionally do cheat by eating gluten free bread (contains brown rice flour) or frozen yogurt. They don't hurt my stomach but i do notice an immediate gain in weight or stomach bloating. 

Please if you have any questions feel free to drop me a line :) 

Introduction

Hello Everyone!

My name is Katie and i am a 21 year old living in suburban Massachusetts living with leaky gut. Now for some of you who may not know what that is...

Leaky Gut (aka. intestinal permeability) is when your digestive system isn't properly functioning! Rather than allowing smaller single amino acids to pass though the intestinal lining into your blood stream, it allows larger partially undigested proteins to pass through and make havoc on your body! This leads to all sorts of nasty problems :/ in my case the allergic to "everything", resistance to weight loss, weight gain, stomach bloating, mild to severe stomach pain and a backed up lymphatic system. For other people they can also have problems like: constipation, diarrhea, gas, vitamin deficiencies, frequent colds, intense seasonal allergies or other inflammatory responses. 

PICTURE TIME!

Now to explain this. I like to think of my intestinal lining like little security guards (like the ones at Buckingham Palace..who don't do their job apparently) who are the gate keepers to my blood stream and SHOULD let only fully broken down proteins through. Now see my guards got lazy and decided to let anyone into my blood stream and thats where we get this leaky gut party started! Now the impermeability can be caused from many things: an overactive adrenal gland, infection, taking NSAIDs medications, hormonal or neurological problems, or a bad diet. And the best part of all of it?!.. drum roll... this diagnosis is not accepted by all "traditional" doctors and is a process of elimination for the diagnosis not just a set test. 


Now all of this came from about five years of playing the super fun game of "guess whats making Katie sick?!". I had been to my primary care doctor and at every visit i would make mentions of my growing stomach pains. The past three years after consistently going to from specialist to specialist just to end up begging for tests that i have determined from my oh so reliable internet searches to perhaps contain the answer. First i thought it was my thyroid (which wouldn't have been too far off) since hypothyroidism was in issue in my family, i had at this point gained about thirty pounds and after reading the symptoms so many times i'm pretty sure i convinced myself i was loosing my hair and had thickening skin. Now blood test after test kept coming back as negative, within normal range or positive. Nothing was coming close to my badly needed diagnosis. 

Now after this point i had been looking for a new PCP since i was getting annoyed and felt like he wasn't taking my pain seriously. I mean what does a girl have to do to get some attention around here?! I know i wasn't blowing up like a pufferfish and turning blue but just because you can't see it apparently that makes some people feel like your problem isn't real. :(

I had heard about integrative doctors and i liked the more holistic approach to healthcare. So in conjunction with him my new holistic primary care and a naturopath we came to my mystery diagnosis.

Now i was set off on my way with a new diet, new medications and some lifestyle adjustments to manage my pain and make me a healthier and happier me! (see future post)

And now we start my story and battle with managing a health leaky-free life...