My Story

I guess we’ll go back to Monday 5th January 2015 since that date is now forever etched in my memory. You see, I had naively decided this day was going to be “the first day of the rest of my life”. I had gotten married and quit my job as an Account Manager just before Christmas. On Monday 5th January, when everyone else was going back to work, I was going to figure out what on earth I was going to do with the rest of my life!

You see, I’m an extremely conscientious person. I’ve always applied myself wholeheartedly to whatever I undertake. I’ve always wanted to do my best. I was a straight A student in school and college. When I graduated in 2006, I started my (what turned out to be) 8 year career in business. That time was filled with success and high praise from my employers, colleagues and clients. But what I mainly remember from that time was the overwhelming, unrelenting, stifling stress. I put an enormous amount of pressure on myself to be ‘perfect’. I quit my job at the end of 2014 because I was sure that if I didn’t, I was going to have some sort of breakdown.

So, back to Monday 5th January 2015. The first day of the rest of my life. I went to bed the night before feeling excited and motivated. I woke up sick. It was just one of those regular old chest infections, the type of thing I would get once or twice a year for as long as I could remember. This one was different though. The antibiotics absolutely floored me and I never quite recovered. For several months later I suffered with constant chronic nausea, diarrhoea and light-headedness. I lost over 2 stone in weight, and with it over half my hair.

• Years of stress had taken its toll on my body, especially my digestive system. In the same way that people often catch a cold or flu when they are on holidays from work, when I finally stopped working my body reacted by saying “ok, all that stress you’ve been inflicting on me, well now you’re gonna feel the consequences!”

• Another contributing factor was the amount of antibiotics I had been taking over the previous few years, the most recent ones being the final straw for my body. I have since learned about the devastating effects that antibiotics can have on our microbiome, the trillions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria that live in our large intestine and play a huge role in our overall physical and mental health.

• One such role has to do with metabolising hormones and my dysfunctional gut could no longer properly deal with the dose of estrogen it was getting via the contraceptive pill that I was popping every day. It took me 8 months to figure this out since I had been taking the pill continuously for over 15 years without any (obvious) side effects.

• The effects of the above factors were further compounded by my terrible diet. My approach to food had always been centered around simply satisfying the rumbling in my tummy. I have some food intolerances so I eliminated dairy and wheat a few years ago. I thought I was brilliant for doing this, but really these eliminations just made way for more sugar, a substance I was totally and utterly addicted to.

My body was screaming out for help and I spent so long ignoring it. Over the course of a year, I gradually changed my diet and my lifestyle and very slowly, but surely, I started to get better. My appetite returned, I regained some weight, my hair started to grow back, my mental health improved and with it my confidence rose.

My approach to my body, my mind, what I eat and how I live is now completely different to what it once was. I’ve realised that everything I do has an effect on my body. Instead of abusing my body, physically, mentally and emotionally, I now recognise how absolutely amazing she is. She knows how to be healthy, if I would just give her the very simple things that she needs to do that. I have so much influence over my body and my health, and I’m finally using that power for good!