and I completed bloodwork that  basically confirmed that I had no progesterone and tanked cortisol levels. Finally, some testing/answers that could explain why my symptoms were occurring. I continued to eat more, completely stopped exercising, and eventually (after ~3.5 years) got my period back! (I actually got it back while staying at Christa Biegler’s @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist house as I was shadowing her for my dietetic practicum experience. It happened after I used her infrared sauna and I like to tell myself this wasn’t a coincidence.) However, I’ll give a little heads up that the fatigue, anxiety, regular BMs didn’t resolve immediately overnight.

2020: Grad School Year #1. Fast forward to 2020. I had just started incorporating animal products back into my diet for a couple of months now. I’ll share that I knew I was ready to introduce animal products when all I was craving was salmon. (I’ll throw it back here with the IG post I shared with my first meal back to eating animal products. Feel free to follow along with the timeline of how me and my posts/content changed over time for how I’ve progressed on my health journey). However, as great as introducing the animal products was, I was really noticing the gas and bloat like crazy. I would wake up bloated. I even have a handful of pictures on my phone from this time where I looked months pregnant. That really inspired me to reach out to get help and more answers for as to why this was my new normal. Enter Kaely’s practice and her amazing insights with completing a GI Map + DUTCH. From my GI Map results, I learned that I had multiple elevated opportunistic species + elevated Candida. (Check out how the GI Map report has changed!)

And from my DUTCH results, I was able to confirm ovulation with robust progesterone. I also had some excess estrogen that needed some addressing. My cortisol levels were also still suboptimal in the morning and afternoon.

For me, utilizing an antimicrobial protocol and incorporating an afternoon snack were two huge game changers for how I felt after ~3 months of working together. I no longer was drastically bloated, and I had better energy levels to sustain my busy, grad school days! I also want to share that at this point in my journey, I was ~6 months into such a healthy and supportive relationship with my now husband Jaques. From my lowest weight of 107 lbs during my Freshman year of college, I now was maintaining around 145 lbs after allowing my body the space and time to focus on fueling up + I was no longer weighing myself regularly. (Was this the most comfortable experience ever being a drastically different weight than what I thought my ideal body would be? No, and I only knew this number from having gone to a doctor’s appointment). I bring both these points up though because a client once asked me how I transitioned out of being so obsessive over food and my body image, and it honestly was the relationship I saw that Jaques had with food and his body. It was glaringly so neutral. It didn’t consume his thoughts like it once did mine. Jaques is from South Africa and he grew up on putting whole milk in his coffee. The concept of him so neutrally using whole milk blew my mind since my whole life whole milk was associated with what you gave to babies because they needed all the nourishing fat and adults shouldn’t dare and since we moved in together, that is all we now use.

EMBRACING ROUTINES AND TRUSTING MY INTUITION:

2021-2022: Becoming a RD. I truly view this as the timeframe of letting go of the death grip I had on trying to control my food and body. I fully dove into listening to my body’s hunger and fullness cues. Emphasizing regular protein + fat + carb intake did wonders for finally feeling satiated all day without ever experiencing periods of hanger like I did so often in the past. Since I was now cooking for Jaques and I, I had fun starting to bake again, and most nights now we have some sort of dessert. I no longer see restriction as a superpower like I used to. Nourishment became my new motto. A fun one is that I stopped wearing bras and really started embracing my feminine “curves”/female posture to expand and be open to receiving. During this timeframe, I completed my first HTMA and also first full bloodwork work-up which showed that my prioritization of nourishment has been paying off.

Brooke

My health story comprises a multitude of issues ranging from body dysmorphia and disordered eating patterns to hormonal imbalances, nutrient deficiencies, and digestive disorders.

My body image was always a struggle for me growing up. The social programming of the 90s and early 2000s made me believe that thin = healthy. I went on my first diet in middle school – anyone remember those Special K diets? I think my mom and I tried every diet under the sun together. I was always chasing something. I had put being thin on such a pedestal that I was willing to give up my own health.

Fast forward to undergrad and that’s where things took a turn. I had horrible periods and PMS and was diagnosed with endometriosis. I had been on almost every form of birth control since high school, but I would have horrible side effects like worsening of my digestive issues, cystic acne, depression, anxiety, and headaches. At the time it didn’t really occur to me that those things could have been from my birth control. I remember not wanting to leave the house because of how bad my skin looked. I tried ALL the skincare out there just to be disappointed over and over again. Looking back, I focused entirely too much on the exterior when that focus should have been pivoted towards to the interior.

Towards the end of undergrad, I started getting really serious about my nutrition and exercise. I got off birth control and antidepressants and my skin started to clear up, but my other symptoms were still present. Grad school and internship posed new challenges where I further pushed myself – full time course load, clinical internship rounds, commuting 2 hours a day, and working weddings on the side. I thought coffee was my best friend. I felt great riding the high cortisol wave and always being on the go. I was addicted to stress. My whole life had been all about the stress – childhood trauma, overachiever in school, working since I was 15, and participating in extra curriculars like theater and school clubs. So being stressed was where my body felt safe. It was familiar.

After grad school I got breast implants to further “fix” my body. I had always been self-conscious about my larger frame and petite breasts, so I thought having larger breasts would make me feel more feminine. Six months later I started having symptoms – extreme fatigue, dry mouth, anxiety, more gut issues, cold hands and feet, weight gain, and poor cognition. I couldn’t recall things my husband told me in the morning that same afternoon. We even went to a neurologist to be screened for early onset Alzheimer’s because my cognition was so bad. Everything seemed to be ok on paper per the doctor.

Then, in April of 2020 I had a gallbladder attack and was diagnosed with cholecystitis (inflammation of the gallbladder). The surgeon wanted to go ahead and remove it, but I refused because there was just sludge and no stones were found. I couldn’t get an answer to the cause. I was prescribed expensive bile salts and told that I would need to be on them until I got my gallbladder removed. This triggered a quest to find out why this was happening. So, I went on to learn everything I could about the gallbladder and the gut. I took a series of functional medicine trainings, got myself tested, and tried several different approaches. Things calmed down for some time in the gallbladder department.

Yoga launched a spiritual awakening in me and also taught me to love myself. The woman who owned the yoga studio I attended had breast implant illness and was about to get explanted. This piqued my interest, so I talked to her more about it and found out we had similar symptoms. After watching the Explanted documentary with my husband and seeing hundreds of women in Facebook groups suffering with similar symptoms, our minds were blown and I knew that I needed to get them removed in order to heal.

While waiting for surgery I got my hormones and minerals tested. My progesterone and cortisol were super low. My minerals were depleted making my thyroid sluggish. My body had reached burnout. I felt so defeated, and it was clear that the real healing journey would only just begin after getting explanted. Having the low progesterone and cortisol meant no more excess cardio and HIIT workouts and no more caffeine. The fear of more weight gain set in.

Meanwhile, my husband had also been having some significant symptoms like breathing & sleep issues, poor mental clarity, lung pain, weight gain, and we both started having nose bleeds. We found mold in the apartment we had been living in for the past year. We did the best we could with what we had at the time – brought in a high performing air filter, started going to salt room therapy, saline nasal rinses. We were able to move 3 months later. One month before the move, we lost our beloved Greyhound, Leena, which sent us both into grief.

Several months later after doing all the things to help heal myself and still not feeling better, it occurred to me that 1) my body needed more time and 2) I was ignoring the inner battle I was still facing with myself. My nervous system needed some TLC. I needed to change the way I talked to myself and my body and how I perceived my symptoms. So, I started guided meditations to tap into my subconscious mind, daily affirmations in the mirror, journaling, and a lot of time in nature by myself to just think. I started eating to fuel my body and making sure I was getting enough. I let the fear of weight gain go and accepted that my body may have to gain weight in order to get better. I prioritized strength goals over aesthetic goals and fell in love with weight training. I learned to listen to what my body was telling me, how to tap into my intuition and divine feminine. Ultimately, I learned to ride the waves of my health journey.

This experience has taught me first hand that you can take all the supplements, do the workouts, eat the right foods, but still not see progress if you’re not doing the inner work. While the inner work may be the hardest to work on, it is so worth it and YOU are so worth it.

“Healing is not about fixing or changing ourselves: healing is fully accepting, retrieving & reintegrating every aspect of ourselves back whole.”

Losing my health for those years was the scariest thing. I can proudly say that I no longer have any physical symptoms. Digestion and periods are better than they ever have been. I am stronger mentally and physically because of this. Do I still have bad body image days? Yes, but they are way fewer than before. Do I still have to tell my inner critic to shut up? Yes, but she only creeps in sometimes now.

It would have saved me so much time and money to have worked with someone who understood all of this. If any of this resonates with you, please know that you can get better. Living in trust of the innate wisdom of your body is a beautiful thing, and I look forward to supporting more women to achieve that.