MY WILDFIT STORY
My WildFit story really started about a year prior to me discovering WildFit and learning the principles. During a routine checkup with my doctor in April 2017, I discovered that my weight was well above what I ever expected to see on a scale. Of course, being 6’1’’ I was able to ‘hide’ it, but when I look back at those pictures, I realized that the only thing I was hiding was my own shame. I knew that I needed to do something, but I was clearly incapable of making the needed changes on my own. I stared at myself in the mirror one morning observing my bloated features, puffy, bloodshot eyes and started to cry. I sat down on my bed and meditated. I asked the universe for help and guidance and just put all my fear, shame, sadness and anxiety out into their hands. Then I pulled myself back together, put my ‘game face’ on and finished getting ready for work.
About two week later I fell ill after having a nice meal and a few drinks with a friend. I woke in the night feeling like I had drank three bottles of wine to myself when I had only had two glasses. I was sick for the rest of the weekend and still quite weak when I went to work on Monday. I phoned my doctor and scheduled a visit for the coming Friday. She checked me out and couldn’t find anything obvious. My blood pressure was a bit elevated, which was unusual for me since I normally have quite low blood pressure, but apart from that I seemed fine. She ordered some blood work and sent me on my way. Early the next week I got a call with the results. She asked me if I had had anything to drink the night before my blood work. ‘No’ was my answer. She then proceeded to tell me that my liver was showing signs of what she described as ‘allergy to alcohol’. Now, I’ve never been a really heavy drinker, not that I couldn’t go out and have a good time, but I didn’t drink excessively and rarely drank hard liquor. So this allergy thing was a bit perplexing. I had noticed that over the past several months I had been more sensitive to alcohol in that I could have one beer or one glass of wine and then have a migraine or intestinal cramps the next day. But I just put that off to the stress that I was under at work.
She asked me to abstain from drinking any alcohol for 4 weeks and come in for another test. ‘No problem’, I said. Four weeks later, I returned for more tests. The results were actually worse than previously. So now she was concerned. Especially since I had also started experiencing abdominal pains around my pancreas and gallbladder. She ordered an ultrasound to see if there were any abnormalities. The results were all normal. So she again requested that I abstain from alcohol for another 4 weeks and return for more tests. The end result of all of this was that my liver had stopped processing alcohol. We believe, but can’t confirm, that it was the result of taking a prescription NSAID that had been originally prescribed in 2013 when I had plantar fasciitis on both of my feet (very painful). I had continued to use the medication because it was a low dose and really helped the pain in my knees, feet, back, joints in general. I had tried several times to stop taking it, but the pain and discomfort was just too debilitating.
Throughout this 4 month period, one of the things that I had thought would be a silver lining out of the ‘no alcohol’ situation, was that I would lose a few pounds. However, after 4 months of continued testing, I had only reduced by about 5 pounds. This left me feeling even more depressed and stressed out and I again appealed to the universe because this whole liver thing clearly wasn’t the answer that I was going to resolve my weight issue.
Then in June of 2017, I came down with an upper respiratory infection and was so ill that I needed to see a doctor for medication. Now for those of you who know me, you’ll know that I have to be very ill to see a doctor for any kind of cold like symptoms. The doctor (not my family doctor), spent about 30 seconds with me in the exam room and then wrote out his prescriptions and walked out the door. I went to the pharmacy and filled the antibiotic and chose not to fill the steroid prescription. It turns out that the antibiotic was one of the ‘end spectrum’ drugs (meaning it was really powerful and usually only used when all others don’t work). My doctor instructed me to make sure that I take all of them and not to do any exercises, because one of the side effects was torn tendons. I assured her that exercise was not on my agenda at the time since I was in the middle of a major system go-live. I completed my medication and recovered from the infection.
Then about two weeks later I realized that I still couldn’t smell or taste anything. I knew that during the infection I had been congested and couldn’t really taste or smell, but this was two week later and I was fully recovered. Then about two weeks after that I had this tremendously horrible taste / smell that I just couldn’t get rid of no matter what I ate or drank. I lost my appetite and found that the only things I could ‘safely’ eat without gagging was plain lettuce, salmon and tomatoes. I had to stop drinking coffee because not only did it taste horrible, but I couldn’t stand to step near a Starbucks due to the stench. I again scheduled in to see my doctor. She had a look at me, did more blood work and referred me to an Ear, Nose & Throat specialist. That specialist examined me and couldn’t find anything obvious, so he requested an MRI to see if there was anything neurological in the brain that might be causing this – you know, like a tumor. I’m sure you can imagine that my stress levels by this time were pretty much off the charts. All the results were negative. Everything looked normal – except I still had distorted taste and smell.
By this point I was getting pretty frustrated, depressed and downright discouraged. Then I went back to my doctor for a follow-up and found that my weight had dropped by almost 20 pounds. Ok, I thought to myself, this isn’t all bad. The results of all the tests were inconclusive, however, my doctor and I believe that the medication (again medication) that I had taken for the infection had damaged my nasal nerve pads and, therefore, I wasn’t able to smell properly, which was in turn distorting my sense of taste. The ‘experts’ had no idea how long this would last or if I would ever really get my full smell / taste back.
I went home and sat down and meditated on the situation and reflected back on the previous six month odyssey that I had been on and realized that it had all started when I asked the universe for help. What I hadn’t done was be specific! I decided to embrace the situation, learn from what I was going through and start taking better care of myself. I had already reduced by 20 pounds. I had no idea how long this was going to last or if it would ever repair fully. So I figured that I had better learn to live with it and gain some wisdom out of it. I sat myself down and had a long talk that went something like this:
“I asked for help. I got help, I just didn’t see it right away. Now that I am forced to relearn how to nourish my body, I need to capitalize on this opportunity and reshape my life. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself, put your big girl pants on, and get on with getting healthy.”
I started exploring healthy options. I doubled down on my meditation practice and signed up to be a certified instructor. I reconnected with my fitness regime and found CorePump. Then I discovered Eric Edmeades and the WildFit program through Mindvalley. I can honestly say that this one program truly transformed my life. While the prior year I was forced to rethink my relationship to food out of desperation, when I started the WildFit program in February 2018, I actively chose to rethink my relationship with food. I was completely open to everything that is taught in the program and fully embraced the principles. The outcome has given me a new perspective on everything I experienced and a desire to share it with others. So when I learned that I could also become a WildFit Coach, there was no question in my mind that this was the right path for me.
WildFit helped me re-calibrate my taste buds so that while my nerve pads were healing I was continuing to feed my body healthy, nourishing, fresh options instead of the typical highly processed plastic food that I was accustomed to. I was able to break my addiction to sugar, caffeine and dairy. And although my sense of smell / taste have pretty much recovered, I now find that the things that were the most disgusting during my loss of smell, are the things that are the least healthy – dairy, bread, coffee, sweet treats, etc. My body was obviously trying to tell me something. I just needed to learn to listen to it.
I’ve now released over 70 pounds (50 attributed to WildFit). I feel and look younger. I have more energy and I work out regularly. I meditate daily and really listen to what the universe has to tell me. I also learned to be a bit more specific when asking for help. I still can’t drink any alcohol, but then I really don’t miss it either. And needless to say, I no longer take ANY pain medication (except natural / holistic options) and will really investigate all potential side effects of any medications prescribed. I’d rather let my body fight the infection naturally then to take the chance of losing my sense of smell / taste again. Especially now that things taste so delicious when living WildFit.
