When your body talks back to you!

“Ya know Amy, maybe you should cut dairy from your diet?”

I remember the day my trainer (Hi, Corinne) said those words to me.

I wanted to cry.

Here’s the back story – I had worked for a couple of years with Corinne on my weight loss journey. I had come a long way in losing weight, exercising, and working on my fat girl thinking – I was a trainer at this point too and helping other women win their battle with being overweight.

But I still wasn’t physically feeling my best. I would struggle with constipation and bloating constantly (and had for my whole life), plus sinus issues and migraines. It was kind of a roller coaster of feeling “ok” for a few days to then being miserable and hurting.

That day she mentioned cutting out dairy – all I could think of was “BUT cheesecake is my FAVORITE dessert”. My mind immediately went through the list of dairy that I ate on an average day – yogurt for breakfast, cheese on my salads, cottage cheese for a snack. And I STRUGGLED initially with thinking that all of this stuff was “healthy”, I had already “given up” SO MUCH to lose weight, and now I had to give up CHEESE TOO?!!

I was not a happy camper at first. BUT I was willing to consider the role dairy was playing on my symptoms.

Without realizing it at the time – this was my FIRST experience with listening to my body (from a food perspective) and making decisions based off of what worked best for me (and not from a diet or weight loss perspective).

So I cut out dairy. I agreed to give it a shot for 2 weeks and see.

Within 1 week – my stomach felt 100% better. I was BLOWN away that the digestive issues that I had dealt with my WHOLE life were gone. I couldn’t believe that I had never considered what role food could be playing in these symptoms – heck, I had been experiencing migraines since I was 12 yrs old!

Now, I’m not gonna lie – it took some “work” to figure out my new eating plan WITHOUT dairy. But thanks to the internets – that’s not too hard to do.

And a point came in this decision making where I had to decide 1) to be upset and resist the fact that my body didn’t gel well with dairy or 2) to be grateful that I could control these symptoms by simply honoring my body.

And this may be the point that you are at today.

Maybe you are tired of not having lasting energy throughout the day.

Have had enough with experiencing heartburn and indigestion.

Maybe you’ve never considered that your digestive problems COULD be from something you are eating, drinking, or both.

And maybe you are ready to take a look at what you are eating and how it may be tied to symptoms you are experiencing.

This could be the day that you are at that fork in the road.

There’s one path that leads you to anger and frustration that your body is not cooperating with you and it’s not fair that you have to give up the foods/drinks that you love.

And then the other path allows for curiosity, trial and error, trust that you can figure things out, and ownership of your body as you learn to try new things and begin to listen for your body’s feedback.

Feel free to take a couple of minutes at this fork, stomp your feet and have a hissie fit that you even have to think about this stuff – but then make a decision.

Neither of these paths are necessarily “right” or “wrong” – they are just different. The decision of which one to choose requires you to be clear with yourself about what your WHY is!

But ultimately, if you are tired of working against your body and your goal is to make friends with yourself – that path of curiosity, love, and trust is the one that I would recommend.

There is so much to learn about yourself – stop being afraid that you won’t like what you discover – your body has been waiting a long time for this very moment.

Quick disclaimer – I’m not suggesting that everyone has an issue with dairy – it just happens to be an issue for me – others have sensitivities to gluten, soy, egg, coffee, wine, etc – you are unique and certain foods will work just fine for you, while other foods may not – this post is about exploring what works for you!