MY STORY

Part 4

I started teaching aerobics classes. With all of this working out, I found myself more hungry. I was wanting this svelt, toned body and it wasn’t happening. I had about 15-20 lbs. I wanted to lose. I dove into fitness magazines and books, everything I could get my hands on.

I started my full time job in February, 1990. I worked every day, five days a week. I was tired and felt like there was no time for going to the gym. I started getting up early to go to the early morning aerobics class, work out on the elliptical or work out on the weight floor. I felt a lot better. Not stressed out that I wasn’t getting in my workouts. I knew I was healthy, so I thought, but I still could not get that scales to budge. I was eating quite a bit of sugar. I would still try to go cold turkey. No sugar. Only to give in and pig out on sugary treats. After several years of my sugar binges, a light bulb went off in my head. “What if I ate everything I wanted to eat, sugar included, but in moderation?” I did just that. I was finally set free of my sugar binges. It was still being drilled into my head through magazines and books I read that a low-fat, high-carb diet was the way to go.

In 1999, my husband and I decided to do an EAS Body Building contest. It was a 12 week contest. This diet focused on more protein in our diet. Still I was confined to a 1200 calorie a day diet. My husband on the other hand was to consume 4000 calories per day. So unfair. We would get up 5 days a week at 4:30 am and go to the gym to get in our workouts before work. We would eat 6 small meals a day. At the end of the day I would have to beat down hunger while my husband would come home and see how much more food he had to eat to get his 4000 calories in.

At the end of 12 weeks I looked great but I felt like crap. I had a headache everyday during the last 12 weeks. During the diet we purchased much of our food from EAS. They had protein shake mix and protein bars. Their products contained aspartame. An artificial sweetener that was used in everything sugar free at that time.

I didn’t know it at the time but later found out that aspartame was bad news. I felt so awful that I went to a health food store that belonged to a friend of mine. Health food stores were just starting to emerge. I told her what I had done and how I felt. She put me on her herb program to detox my body. She also taught me a new way of eating and how foods affect our health.

I started back then to eliminate, Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), Hydrolyzed Vegetable or Soy Protein, natural flavors or spices as most of these contain MSG when in processed foods. I also eliminated carbonated beverages of every kind, diet drinks of every kind, artificial sweeteners of every kind, artificial colors of every kind, artificial flavors of every kind, except, Vanillin, preservatives (BHT, TBHQ, ETDA) and foods that contained hydrogenated oils of every kind.

I learned to be a label reader. I wasn’t perfect and my husband and kids thought I had flipped a lid. As I took the herbs and started eliminating these things from my diet, I started feeling better. The headaches went away. Of course I wasn’t perfect. I had been eating these things for years. When I followed the protocol I felt better.

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