I grew up having what I would now call “dessert for breakfast”, the standard American fare (pancakes, bagels, waffles, donuts, muffins). It was usually a cereal like “Cinnamon Toast Crunch” or “Apple Jacks” in 2% milk, a major sugar spike every AM and that’s how I began my day for decades. We didn’t know any other way in the 80s!
Come my early 20s and my thyroid died. I had been developing Autoimmune Thyroid Hashimotos for the former 10+ years. Compounded with swimming competitively for 9 years, late nights, processed foods, and alcohol in college, getting married, a new job, and moving across country to CA, my thyroid finally blitzed at age 26. Now it’s totally dead and I’m on full medicinal replacement for life.
I say all that because disease does not have a switch. It has a dial. A switch flips off or on. A dial slowly turns, choice by choice, day after day, silently without any notice.
My lifestyle brought out my “epigenetics”, meaning when I lived a certain way with my choices over time, this is the gene response my body gave it. It wasn’t genetic, it was a lifestyle trigger developed over time.
Now I use epigenetics in a different way. My choices are 90%+ real foods from one-ingredient items. “So what’s the recipe?” “Are you Paleo, Whole 30, Vegan, or Keto?”
No. None of the above. I eat real foods and pay attention to MY body.
Once you have one Autoimmune disease, your risk of developing a 2nd AND 3rd are HIGH. So I have no other choice than to live opposite of American norm.
I do minimal dairy, I do 3 oat days a week as a starch refeed, and wheat about 1x a week. That keeps my blood sugar and body fat in check. Naturally that takes down my sugar intake as well, but this girl LOVES her baked goods, too <just not every day!>
I feel best beginning the day with proteins like beef, ahi tuna (both shown here), chicken, eggs, or a fatty fish like salmon or sardines. I eat a diversity of vegetables all thru the day, berries or other fruits usually in the AM, and nuts like walnut, pistachio, almond, or macadamia for my beneficial fats.
The foods I choose bring out a gene expression in me and what you see is what I’m getting from the choices I make. If I make a different choice repeatedly over time, I get a new gene response <Revisit my pics from late 2009 for the product of my former lifestyle choices!>
Bottom line: it’s up to ME. Every day, every choice. AND I can get a second chance at ANY age. I restarted ten years ago at age 35!
How cool is that that it all really does add up and we can take the reins on our health?!
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To Your Wellness,
-Mindy
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