How I stay healthy – what I eat and how I move

NOTE: This is simply my story and how I live to feel my best. What’s best for you may be entirely different! Also, I talk about weight here but don’t get hung up on it. It’s not about that. It’s about making the commitment to take control of your health.

About 4 years ago, I was at the heaviest I’ve ever been – 30 pounds heavier than I am now. I even weighed more than I did on the day I gave birth to Callan. I didn’t mind how I looked, but I was uncomfortable. I remember wearing that bridesmaid dress and tugging at it the entire night. My confidence was at an all-time low. I think everyone has a weight or size where they feel most confident. If that’s lean and strong, great! If that’s softer and thicker, great! At the time, I was working out 4-5 times a week, eating healthy and even doing meal replacement shakes. But nothing was working. I was also sick ALL THE TIME. Constant massive sinus infections, colds, viruses. I even caught BOTH strains of the flu that came through my area – within a two month span. Something had to give.

The dairy/immunity link
I met with a naturopathic doctor and one of the first things she suggested was that I give up dairy. The thought of that was ludicrous to me. I ate dairy every day, at nearly every meal. I put cheese on everything and lived for ice cream. I actually laughed because I truly believed there was no way I could ever do that. She said my immunity likely depended on it and with how sick I’d been, I decided to give it a shot. It wasn’t easy. I made small changes at first – cooking with dairy-free butter, using almond milk creamer in my coffee. I made more changes over time and it got easier. After the initial dairy detox, I learned that I could sneak some dairy here and there. I don’t do it often, but let’s be real for a minute. I’ve tried every dairy-free pizza there is, but if I want pizza, I go for the real thing. Or when my husband comes home with tiramisu – you can bet your ass I’m devouring that.

So what happened once I nixed dairy? My immunity skyrocketed and the weight started to come off more easily. Everyone is different but it’s obvious my body knows it’s not good for me. One question I always get asked is how I get enough calcium since I don’t eat dairy. My response? You don’t need dairy for calcium. That is a perpetuated myth. It can be found in lots of other foods. And even many non-dairy substitutes are often packed with it. For me personally, I get more than enough through supplements as I outlined here so any additional calcium from my diet is just a bonus.

What I eat
There is no label for how I eat, though if I had to choose I’d say I am mostly pescatarian with vegan tendencies if that makes any sense at all. Related note – I despise the word ‘diet.’ I’m a firm believer that diets don’t work, but lifestyle changes do. That being said – I don’t just avoid dairy. I also follow these ‘guidelines’ that I’ve adapted over time:

No meat. I haven’t had it for over a decade now. For no other reason than I just never liked it. I DO eat some seafood and have fish 1-2x a week.
Limit gluten/bread to a couple of times a week.
Limit soy. Soy of some form is in nearly everything it seems. My doctors had told me early on in my cancer battle that soy can impact hormone function which isn’t a great idea in general, but with my thyroid issues, that’s not an option for me. I’ll have some soy-based meat substitutes at times, but I try to avoid it for the most part.
No processed or frozen foods/meals. If I can’t pronounce or don’t recognize ingredients, I don’t eat it.
Limit pasta. If I do eat it, I opt for versions made with quinoa, chickpeas and/or brown rice.
No fast food. There aren’t many options for me anyway but a lot of ingredients are not clear cut. And things like fries are often cooked in beef flavor/fat/oil.
No soda of any kind. I used to drink one diet soda a day and never thought I’d break the habit but it was SO easy to nix. I don’t even miss it.
No excess sugar and also don’t drink sugar (like fruit juices) often. If I want something sweet, I’ll treat myself every so often.

It sounds strict, but it’s really not. I eat what I want, when I want. Today, for instance, I had both a green smoothie and vegan chai cupcake. Balance, people. I just eat in moderation and try to make healthy choices overall. I also graze. I eat a lot but I do so throughout the day. And most importantly? I give myself grace. If I have a poor day of eating, I simply start fresh the next day. And I allow room for treats. I have a big sweet tooth and know that if I don’t allow them, then I’ll be in the pantry at midnight elbow-deep in a box of cookies.

I’ve talked to so many people who say they could never eat healthy or eat like I do. You don’t have to! But you should eat for wellness. Is the food really worth it if it makes you feel awful physically? If it’s literally making you sick? If it’s keeping you from reaching your goals? To me, feeling healthy overall is worth making some changes and sticking to them. Find what works for you.

How I move
Like I mentioned here, I do what I can, when I can. It’s not easy for me by any means. I’m a mom now and exhausted for obvious reasons. I don’t sleep well in general. My thyroid is still never regulated which also lowers my energy. And on top of that? I have fibromyalgia, which I’ll talk more about at some point. I’m in pain every.single.day. For me, it means I need to move to feel better, even though it hurts to move at times. And yet, the more stationary I am, the more pain I’m in. Working out can help but it can also cause flares, spasms and more pain. It can be a vicious cycle that leaves me unmotivated to move. BUT despite it all, I still try to workout 3-4 days a week.

I was diligent in staying active throughout my pregnancy. I was lucky in that I was able to feel well enough overall to do so. Even on the days that I didn’t want to budge, I always felt better after I moved. That being said, I listened to my body and if I needed to rest then I did. I kayaked (holding onto strangers’ docks thanks to nausea lol), swam, did yoga and walked. Now, I do the same, sticking with low-impact workouts for pain management. I simply feel better when I do. Yoga will always be a favorite and I swim all summer long. I walk and do some strength exercises whenever I think of them – found moment workouts, if you will. Leg lifts while brushing my teeth or cooking. Ab work while the baby is playing next to me on his play mat. Squats while on conference calls. Whenever you THINK of working out, DO it.

Is it easy to workout often with a baby and everything else I have to contend with health-wise? Nope. But it’s important to me that Callan know how vital it is to prioritize health and wellness. That he knows he’s my why, not my excuse. And bottom line? A healthy, happy mama = a healthy, happy baby.

If you’re still reading at this point, I’m impressed. Now it’s your turn. What do you eat and how do you move to feel well?

Let’s talk cancer complications

Photo: Copyright House of Kosi

This is my paternal grandmother and I on our wedding days, 73 years apart. Seeing the incredible resemblance never fails to take me aback. But it also hurts my heart because I never got to know her. She passed from breast cancer when I was just 3 months old. This is just one example of what I mean when I say I’m not blind to the sheer devastation cancer is capable of. Cancer knows no bounds. It’s wreaked havoc on my family, so I’m even more aware of just how lucky I am.

Sharing my cancer story with you all last week was a bit of a vulnerable moment for me. My health in general has always been a battle that those closest to me know full well. But I’ve never shared details at length. It was also a bit liberating. I realize these topics I share can be a bit heavy at times but it’s my reality, though I choose to view everything in as positive a light as possible. There are some light-hearted, non-health related posts to come, promise! But regardless, thank you for the amazing support.

The ultrasound results I had been waiting for finally came back this week: negative for any cancer reoccurrence. I don’t have to be tested again for a year, which is worth celebrating every.single.time. That being said, I still deal with the fallout from cancer daily. I had, and still have, countless complications. Here they are in all their glory.

Keloid scarring
This is when a scar doesn’t heal properly and instead is uneven, bumpy and almost 3D. I was almost guaranteed to have a keloid scar due to the trauma that area went through (allergy to surgical glue, two surgeries only 3 months apart using the same incision, sub-dermal sutures, etc.). It can also be painful. Having a scar wasn’t a big deal to me, but having the pain associated with it was. There are a ton of scar products on the market. I ignored them and went straight to organic maracuja oil. I’ve used it daily on my face for YEARS and swear by it for all skin issues. Knowing it to be a great anti-inflammatory and moisturizer, I thought this would work over anything. And it did. My scar is now flat and no longer painful. It’s a miracle oil. Definitely try it if you have ANY skin issues and report back to me. 🙂

Loss of taste
In January 2013, I went through radioactive iodine treatment as the final stage in my cancer treatment. If you’re not aware, it involves prepping with a special diet for weeks that starves your body of iodine. The day of, they put you in a room and have someone in a hazmat suit arrive with a heavy lead canister. They remove a pill from the canister with tongs and hand it to you to swallow. I can’t tell you how bizarre that feeling was. I knew that losing your taste was a potential side effect but was also told to stimulate the salivary glands with sour foods and that would prevent it. I did everything. And I thought it had worked, until a little over one week post-treatment.

I left my yoga class late one night and stopped for the blandest, most disgusting sandwich I had ever eaten. I blamed possibly stale, end-of-day bread. The next day I had my nuclear scan and grabbed a drink from the hospital cafeteria. It tasted awful. I couldn’t even choke it down. By the next day I realized I was losing my taste. In a moment of panic, I ran to the store on my lunch break and bought the sourest candy I could find. I figured if I couldn’t taste that, then I was in trouble. MY TASTE WAS GONE. My doctor assured me it would be temporary, and it was. But it lasted for months. As weeks went by, I lost interest in food. When you can’t taste it, what’s the fun of eating it? Through it all, the one thing I could taste was vanilla spice lattes. I lived on them, which is probably why I can’t look at them now. My taste came back in Jamaica, and I 100% credit the amazing Jamaican spices for that. I remember being on day 2 or 3 of a girls’ trip when it occurred to me that I was literally elbow-deep in a jerk-flavored dish BECAUSE I COULD TASTE IT. I sprinted to the buffet and grabbed every food I could to test it out. My taste was back, and has remained since.

Regulating thyroid levels
I was four weeks pregnant. The memory is vivid. The level of fatigue I felt was NOT normal, even for early pregnancy. I could barely lift my limbs. I couldn’t form coherent sentences. I thought back to my specialist saying that it can be tricky to be pregnant post-thyroid cancer. For several reasons, but in particular ensuring you have the precise level of thyroid hormone (not too little or too much) at any given time to function and also support the pregnancy. He had told me to call when I found out I was pregnant. I planned to, but we had just found out ourselves and I thought oh I’ll call him next week. But I knew something wasn’t quite right. I had lab work done same-day and he called me that night nearly exasperated. He couldn’t believe my numbers. My levels were practically non-existent. He said, “Get to the pharmacy NOW. You need the new dose ASAP.”

Your thyroid is responsible for ensuring that many vital systems in your body work. Essentially, the baby had taken all I had. He left me with nothing and my body could not keep up. It was a constant battle during pregnancy, though, and post-pregnancy is still proving to be something that is extremely difficult to manage with all of the changes I’ve gone through. Some weeks my levels are too low. Others too high. I’m never where I need to be. It’s frustrating. Mostly, because when your thyroid is out of whack, so is everything else. And every time they change my dose, it takes my body a good 4-7 days to adjust and I feel like total garbage until then. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say the majority of each month I’m in a state of flux and not feeling well. It just is what it is at this point.

Dead parathyroid & calcium absorption
It was probably a couple of weeks after surgery #2 when I knew I was in trouble. The unthinkable happened – a situation I was told to watch for via my hospital discharge papers, in all caps and bold font, no less. A situation that the doctors said if it happened, it’s considered a true medical emergency, go to an ER immediately and call my surgeon. It started with me forgetting something upstairs and I ran up the stairs to get it – something I assumed was fine to do. But my elevated heart rate precipitated the event. The tingling instantly became so severe from my forearms to my fingers that within seconds my fingers on both hands slammed closed. They were literally STUCK. I couldn’t pry them open no matter what I tried and the cramping pain, oh my the cramping pain. I was terrified.

Attached to the thyroid is the parathyroid – made up of four glands. One of the risks of thyroidectomies is your parathyroid can easily be injured or killed due to its location. Like the thyroid, the parathyroid is hugely important for your body to function properly. It controls the level of calcium in your blood and bones. I’ll admit – before ever having to deal with this, I assumed calcium was only needed for bone health. Not the case. It’s involved in proper muscular and nervous system function as well. As it turns out, my parathyroid was killed during my 2^nd surgery.

This is a complication I still deal with daily and will for the rest of my life. The only way to manage it is with proper calcium dosing. Most of the time, we get this right. But if I get numbness in my face, hands or feet then I know to increase my dosage. The average calcium supplement for women is 600mg a day. Right now, I take more than 4,000mg, in addition to another pill (2-3x a day) that helps me absorb the calcium. I need to get that much in my system to ensure my body can absorb just a part of that and what it actually needs. The amounts vary over time since I have it monitored every 6-12 weeks or so. I’ve earned a permanent sidekick my husband lovingly named my BOP – my bag of pills. It’s all calcium – easily hundreds of pills. I carry it with me everywhere and it makes an appearance at every single meal. For my thyroid, my calcium issue, all of my other health ailments and supplements included, I take more than 20 pills a day. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say they don’t want to take medication or they aren’t thrilled with taking one pill a day. Like I want to? Absolutely not, but I have no choice. The alternatives are too scary to think about.

Cancer complications suck, simple as that. There’s really no euphemism for it. But the complications are sacrifices that mean I’m still here, living and overall – healthy. And so I just deal with it, some days better than others. It’s a lot to contend with. There have been times I’ve completely fallen apart out of frustration and exhaustion over the process and the unfairness of it all. I’ve been through hell and battle every single day to keep my health in check. It can be overwhelming. But I give myself grace because I’ve learned that it’s okay to have the ‘why me’ moments, to give in and shed the unbearable weight however you need to. When you’re faced with your mortality and the fallout, you need to let these moments happen. It’s how you push through. I may not feel strong every day, but I know I am. I’ve always been a fighter and always will be.

I’m a cancer survivor

31 weeks pregnant with Callan – Photo by Sara’s Photography

Every story has its scars. And every scar has a story. Here’s one of mine…

It’s been more than five years since my cell phone rang at work. April 4, 2012. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be good news so I snuck into an empty conference room. My doctor had reviewed my latest biopsy results and told me, “It’s VERY likely you have cancer.” It doesn’t matter which type of cancer you’re facing or what your prognosis is, hearing those words is absolutely terrifying. I remember feeling the floor crumble below me, pulling me into a thick fog of shock and fear.

I had multiple nodules near my thyroid that had been monitored for years. And I had countless traumatizing biopsies (I can still feel the needle going through tissue and muscle in my neck) with the knowledge that if any of these nodules grew at any point in time, it may mean cancer. For many years I was in the clear, but this time it was different. I had my first surgery within a month. In May 2012, I had a partial thyroidectomy to remove half of my thyroid. I had a bad feeling and begged for them to remove the entire thyroid but due to guidelines –questionable at best – they couldn’t. Almost immediately I was plagued with complications. The incision itched incessantly and developed a white growth on it that turned out to be a severe allergy to surgical glue. Only a couple of days post-surgery, the doctor ripped the glue off in one fell swoop, leaving my yet-healed incision open. He nonchalantly said just don’t make any sudden movements. I was petrified to move for weeks.

When the results came back, they found papillary thyroid cancer. They gave me the option to keep my remaining thyroid intact and just monitor it with ultrasounds and biopsies, or have the rest removed. I felt like a walking time bomb so I opted to have the rest removed in August 2012. Because of my surgical glue allergy, they had to do sub-dermal sutures and cover the incision with a bandage. As soon as I woke up from anesthesia I was clawing at the bandage to get it off. I knew I was allergic to the adhesive on that too but knew it needed to stay covered. Medical staff didn’t believe me and finally at the surgical follow-up the doctor removed the bandage and yelled, “Oh my god – you’re allergic!!” My response? “No sh**. I’ve been telling you that for days.” I’ll spare you the nasty photo I took of just how traumatic the allergy was. The incision never quite healed right and developed into a keloid scar, thanks to the allergy and also the trauma of two surgeries in the same spot only three months apart. It’s faded a bit over time, even more since the photo above from nearly a year ago. But I never cared much – I wear it proud.

When the results from surgery #2 came back showing more cancer, I wasn’t surprised because I suspected that would be the case. This time, though, it was follicular thyroid cancer, which was slightly more aggressive and had nearly broken through into my bloodstream. Bottom line, I’m lucky I did the surgery and had everything removed when I did. In January 2013, I completed radioactive iodine treatment as the final stage, including a strict low-iodine diet for the weeks before and followed by a five-day quarantine.

I have been ‘clear’ for years, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a daily presence in my life. I still get annual thyroid ultrasounds and am currently waiting for my latest results. They’ll likely be fine, but as a cancer survivor you don’t believe it until you hear it. I still get bloodwork every 6-12 weeks. Soon, I’ll dive into the other complications I had and still live with five years out: loss of taste, the constant issue of regulating my thyroid levels, living with a dead parathyroid which means taking an obscene number of calcium pills a day…the list goes on.

But the truth is, I gladly take these complications on because it means I’m still here living and cancer-free. I could easily get bogged down by it all, but instead I choose to be grateful and recognize how lucky I am. I’m not blind to the sheer devastation cancer is capable of. In my immediate family alone, we’ve lost too many loved ones and watched too many fight valiantly. Cancer knows no bounds.

For now, I’ll leave you with this…

It’s incredible what one person can endure. What one person can survive. How much, and how drastically, things can change. I always say I’ve lived a lot of life for my age and that’s partly because 2012 was one of the hardest years of my life. Facing cancer was like being on a rollercoaster that was at times almost too scary to stay belted in. I’ve reached overwhelming lows but also remarkable highs. If you had asked me back then if I EVER imagined where I’d be right now, I would have called you crazy. My current life was never on my radar. But I’ve survived. I’ve grown. I’ve thrived, despite persistent battles and the toughest days I ever thought I’d face. I’m a better person for it all.

And quite honestly? I wholeheartedly believe that my battles have shaped me to be the exact Mama that Callan needs and will need as he grows – one with a fighting spirit who refuses to give up. One who is grateful for life every single day – even on the harder days. I already see some of these qualities in our boy and I’d like to think I have some small part in that.