It's true, you do turn into your mother.

I didn't want to. I desperately didn't want to. I saw her as a super overboard health nut. I wanted a normal life. I wanted to be like my friends who ate out constantly, looked great, and were enjoying everything that your average 20 year old body is supposed to do. 

But, normal isn't an option for everybody.

For what feels like my whole life, I have been anywhere from 15-45 pounds overweight. I've done weight watchers, atkins, south beach, HCG, juicing, fasting, every end of the diet spectrum, each having less and less results, mostly just doing damage control.

I got some answers in summer 2009: likely moderate hypothryoidism, likely mild PCOS, + a nice dose of gluten intolerance, all of which are not 'curable', just controlled with dietary changes and thryoid supplements (which, I don't take because it's very expensive to get the correct dosage figured out, not to mention most normal doctors aren't willing to concede that I have a thryoid problem because technically I am in the normal range. But, that's another discussion). At any rate, both disorders/syndromes/whatever the correct word is contribute to low metabolism and weight gain, among other things. Thanks a lot body.

I was angry at God. I was angry that I couldn't have a cookie every day at lunch, angry that despite several concentrated efforts where I was really disciplined for a long time that there were no results, angry that I wasn't like everybody else.
But God has been working on me. He's been pointing out the older generation to me. "Look at them. Heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, all these preventable diseases are now their normal, because they were normal when they were young. I am trying so hard to keep you from being normal."

That blew me away. God gave me this mother who loves me so much that she dragged me to all sorts of doctors, pleaded with me to be healthy, and I am finally listening to her, though several years too late. I thought losing weight was about embarrassing her, this ugly, fat, daughter, but God has shown me the truth.  I've been 80% grain free/sugar free since January 20th. The weight isn't coming off, but that's not my focus anymore. It's not about being thin and pretty. It's about feeling like I have life in my body, today and in the future.

I wrote this so that you, my dear friends, would a) understand me a little better and b) would think a little bit about your normal.

I am more than happy to talk more about this with you, but I'm not interested in listening you telling me that "Grains are fine! Healthy even!" Yes, for you. The point is that I'm not normal and they are not fine for me. If you're interested in what I'm doing because you think it's awesome, then let's chat. I don't really plan on writing about it much more, there's plenty of blogs that already do. Just please don't ask to chat over cookies, unless it's one of my almond flour ones ;)

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