It was 1998 and I just got engaged. It was nighttime, I was lying in bed, and there I was again, in sheer agony lamenting over my distended belly with tears rolling down my face. I told my fiancé (who is now my hubby) I couldn’t continue like this because it was affecting my quality of life. It was right there and then that I promised myself I would find a way to fix my situation.
I had seen doctor after doctor, including specialists, to find out why I couldn’t eat anything without experiencing all sorts of problems. I had gone through a series of tests to determine what was wrong with me, but my doctor couldn’t figure out what was causing my symptoms. He told me I likely had irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
I read everything I possibly could on IBS. I quickly learned about its connection to stress, diet and nutrition. For the first time in a long time, I started to have hope that I could solve my digestive issues just by changing the way I ate.
It didn’t take long to start feeling better. Six months, and many courses of probiotics later, I was on the mend. I avoided dairy, and tried every diet plan under the sun to see what felt the best for me. I did Weight Watchers, the Zone diet, Atkins, Fit for Life-I even became a fruitarian for a while. Yup, I was the Diet Plan Queen. Once I learned that our daily diet is the medicine we take three times a day, everyday, I was able to manage my IBS through food.
As I started to learn more about our food system and how processed foods contained ingredients that were possibly unhealthy, I started to do more research about it. That led me to start Naturally Savvy. It’s evolved quite a bit over the years, and now that I’m in menopause, I want to help women understand what’s happening to their bodies.
