Stormy 

So you’ve read a little bit about me as a person! I wasn’t always plant-based and energetic. I literally was a sleepy person, in constant pain and/or discomfort most of the time. I don’t really remember much of being a kid other than my stomach always hurt, I had constant UTI’s, sinus infections, tonsillitis, ear infections, allergies to dust, and I remember taking lots of medicine for being constipated, and for bloating and gas. For some reason I was against pooping. Weird Kid. LIKE on top of being constipated I also held my poops in on the rare chance they would come. Pooping is the best feeling-why couldn’t my little self get that?

I grew up on Corn-Pops and Frosted Flakes, Wonderbread, Miracle Whip and pre-packaged deli meats. We had Pop-tarts and pizza. I remember eating pudding and jello, and fat-free yogurt loaded with who knows what. We ate fish, chicken or pork for dinner. Our saving grace was homemade salad and rice. We had Kraft Dinner and Kraft Singles Cheese Slices. Our parents had the best intentions, like many other baby boomers- they just didn’t know it wasn’t healthy. I mean a lot of us still don’t know that that kind of food is horrible for you.  This diet growing up definitely had a serious impact on our health. 

As a child i’d have to be picked up from parties because my stomach was killing me and I needed to get to a private toilet ASAP. This continued through my teenage years. I just got better at not eating when I had an event to go to. I just didn’t know why this happened to me. I remember attending a b-day party as a teenager at a restaurant. Something I ate must have set me off because we went on a walk afterwards and I found myself laying on the side walk in agony feeling like I was going to shit my pants. I made it to a cousins house I barely spoke to and banged on the door begging to use her downstairs bathroom (where no one could hear me). 

Stuff like this happened often. I would spend hours on the floor just waiting for the pain to pass. 

This continued through university, as well. In my teenage years I became extremely lethargic. I hated all exercise. I literally took gym by correspondence because I was too shitty at gym and it was dropping my grade point average.

I know people say you need to exercise to feel good but I just felt like I would fall asleep mid exercise- that energy you get from exercising well it never came. Exercising just made me more exhausted. I wanted to go back to bed at the end of every workout (that is if I actually made it to the end). By the time I was in uni my chronic fatigue was so strong I would fall asleep in every class. I would fall asleep sitting up. I one time fell asleep sitting up watching someone pressure-wash at a big factory. I was suppose to be awake and watching in case they slipped. I failed, I fell asleep in my rain gear and hard hat. I never understood how people kept themselves awake when they were tired.

On top of my chronic fatigue, I was still dealing with extreme IBS stympoms, I was always always hungry, my brain fog was so intense, my hair was thin (I wore extensions for 7 years to cover it up), I was always doing dumb things, forgetting everything, one time I even got out of the car without turning it off and was hopping one foot in one foot out while it was in reverse. Luckily my sister was inside and pulled the e-break. People thought I was a massive stoner cause I lived in lala land. I didn’t want to live in lala land- I just couldn’t get out of the fog. 

At 22, I stopped taking the birth control pill and I developed acne for the first time ever and chronic yeast infections. This is what brought me to a naturopath. I think I would have had acne my whole teenage life, if I hadn’t started on the birth control pill at 13. The pill is often prescribed to make acne go away so it must have been doing this for me.

When I got to the naturopath she asked me a huge series of questions and realized my guts were so messed up and we needed to focus on that more than my hormones. I was so use to having gut pain and IBS at this point I didn’t even think to see her for that, I thought this was just an inevitable part of my life forever. 

I actually stuck to the naturopathic diet and had little pain for that whole month until I ate a piece of carrot cake before going on a flight- biggest regret.

This was the first time I fully realized that what I ate really impacted how I felt.

So from here on I spent time with naturopaths trying to figure my diet out. I tried Paleo diets,Whole 30, Anti-candida diets, Low Fodmap diet, and nothing was sustainable. I would feel good for a little bit and then the symptoms would come back. Or I wouldn’t have the will power to stick to these extremely strict diets that allowed for very little carbs, starchy food or sugars (not even healthy sugar like fruit).How was I suppose to live like this? They were just so unsustainable. 

I was so sick and tired of feeling like shit but I made a promise to myself when I finished university that I would figure out how to feel better. I thought there was no way that people wake up and feel like this and accomplish anything great. I had big dreams for myself, I wanted to do GREAT things! 

I was sick of feeling lazy.  If I ever wanted to do anything worthwhile in my life I was going to need energy, a clear mind, and a well functioning body to do it. I couldn’t spend my whole life in a foggy daze watching TV or glued to the toilet or lying on the bathroom floor in pain.

(I’ve narrowed down the 10 major steps it took me to heal myself  to finally live a life where I am IBS, Candida Overgrowth, Brain Fog Free. Where I’m full of energy and can get through a day without feeling constipated or like I’m gonna shit my pants. I popped it into a short actionable ebook, complete with a checklist so you can mark off when you really meet each milestone. Grab my FREE guide below to help kick start your own health journey)

Fast forward a few years and I meet a girl named Tamsin, she seemed so healthy and she was vegan. This is the first time I associated vegan with health. The only vegan I had met (sorry Rach) always seemed to be eating weird imitation meats and lots of noodles and had her own health issues- but to be fair, we were young university students living on budget foods. I thought the only singular reason not to eat animal products was for the animals. At this point I didn’t really make a connection that there is no humane way to kill an animal and I had no idea about how horrible animal agriculture is. I should have listened to Rach- could have learned so much back then. Anyways, I just cut out red meat because it hurt my stomach, then I realized chicken did it too so I cut it out. 

I moved in with Tamsin and slowly started to eat what she ate. I re-introduced grains into my diet. Which had caused me so much pain before. I started to lose my fear for fruit and I started to cut out the animal products.   It took me a year of being mostly vegan at home before I totally decided to go all in. One day when I randomly decided to go all in, my life changed dramatically….. 

I stopped eating gluten (I knew I was intolerant but didn’t realize it affected me so much) at first because most gluten products (like cookie and cakes) had eggs or dairy in it but decided to stay away from it even when the gluten product was vegan friendly.  I stopped eating dairy completely because I was doing it for my than myself. I felt like I was part of something bigger. A community dedicated to eating to save the planet and the animals. I couldn’t completely cut out dairy before despite knowing I was lactose intolerant. 

Honestly, when I randomly decided to go 100% vegan I didn’t think it would stick. I failed at all diets/life changes before. But this one I thrived on and I all of a sudden started to FEEL SO MUCH BETTER.

I finally realized what it was like to not be constipated, or have diarrhea. Not to have severe bloating and gas, to not have brain fog, to not be chronically tired. After a few months of being vegan we stopped cooking with oil and ate less fat. That’s when the real magic happened. My chronic yeast infections that had been happening monthly for the last two years disappeared. It’s been 3.5 years now since I’ve had one. My acne got better. I haven’t had a sinus infection in 3.5 years. I rarely get stomach pains or constipation. I am not afraid to use public toilets because I actually have normal relatively silent bowel movements. I actually get energy from exercising and enjoy living an active lifestyle. I ran my first marathon this year wahoo! Old me could never have done that. 

Life is just better. So much better. I feel better, the food tastes better. No one is harmed in the making of the foods we eat and we are helping save the planet. That feels good too!

I am nourishing my body with plants and it pays off! Come join us over on the plant side 🙂

It’s easy to start. Just download my free smoothie bowl guide and make a plant-based smoothie bowl today. I swear they are the gateway to a happier, healthier life.