For those who followed my last blog, you know of the struggle I have had with losing weight. My heart was 100% in it, and I truly did try my best, but wound up frustrated more often than not.
I have tried so many different diets over the years. Atkins, Weight Watchers, Cabbage Soup, Slim Fast....all with some kind of results, but none of them lasting. It was a lesson in frustration. I am the typical yo-yo dieter "they" always talk about.
Lest I sound vain, it wasn't just about losing weight. I wanted to feel better from the inside out. And although I admire women who can say they embrace their curves (and I vow to stay curvy, y'all) I just couldn't handle the extra 50 pounds I put on over the years. My body hurt, it was harder to run, I was a huffin' and a puffin' and just tired all the time.
Who would have thought that even when I was eating "healthy" according to the textbooks that I was actually hurting myself? It's a bizarre concept to grasp, but that is the science behind the LEAP program.
Basically, the principle is that certain foods can cause a person's immune system to react and produce inflammation in the body...and every person has different reactions to different foods- so this is not a one-size-fits-all program. They determine your reactive foods with a blood test. Your blood is tested against 150 different foods & chemicals and if your blood volume increases when they introduce the food antigen to it, it's an indicator that your body produces inflammation from that food.
Those are layman's terms...get the full scoop here
http://emilyfonnesbeck.com/leap/
My testimonial is on her site, as well as a link to the detailed program and how it all works!
So...when Emily first told me about LEAP, it was in response to my symptoms of fibromyalgia, migraines, GERD, IBS and eczema to name a few. I was always convinced that my fibro was related to inflammation but no one could seem to help me with that. My best advice was to drink tart cherry juice. Which is good advice BTW - it just wasn't ENOUGH advice.
So the night before I started LEAP I had a moment (also known as a panic attack) - was this goodbye to all the food I loved? That day I had a Sweet Frog frozen yogurt, and I was practically writing a country song in my head about it as I ate it: "Goodbye, sweet frozen yogurt, you were the sweetest thing I ever done tasted..."
Yeah. It was that bad.
So me and my pity, party of one decided to bombard Emily. Will I ever get to eat frozen yogurt again? What about my trip to Disney in November? The following week would be a trip to Nashville, should I just wait to start until I got home?
Bless her heart, she answered all my questions and challenged me; that if I truly, truly did not want to give up those foods that were bad for me, then maybe LEAP was not the right program for me. Because the people who had the best success were those who went "all in." And did not stray from the program. Ever. And no, I could not use my sweetened cranberries in my oatmeal because they had sugar and I was reactive to sugar. She is great at tough love that isn't so tough. (-:
At this point, I was frustrated enough to not worry about whether I was going to have frozen yogurt ever again. I took my LEAP of faith and went all-in. I figured I tried crazier things (like a pound of bacon for breakfast on Atkins!) and it certainly couldn't HURT me.
My test results shocked me a little. My "red" foods (high reactive) were just 4 things - cow's milk, wheat, black pepper & benzoic acid (which I found out is in pretty much every pre-packaged thing)
Wheat and milk? Um, I ate those every day. Which actually makes perfect sense as to why I was feeling bad all the time. Perfect sense.
On my yellow list? A couple of favorites: Garlic, bananas, lettuce (!!), spinach, salmon and...sugar. Alrighty then. I always suspected there was something about sugar. There were 28 foods total on my "moderately reactive" list. A lot of stuff I really loved. However, there were also plenty of yummy things on my "green" (non-reactive) list. Oatmeal. Almonds. Chicken. Blueberries. Honey. Pinto Beans. All good stuff. I could deal with that.
I quickly learned how important it was to read labels. My reactive ingredients were hiding everywhere. I literally have never eaten so clean in my life. It was a challenge but I was up to it - because I was just sick and tired of being...sick and tired. At first it was hard to get enough calories in. I wasn't eating enough and had headaches. I also learned that I needed to plan. Every meal. And take stuff with me everywhere I went. For moments I call snackmergencies. A piece of fresh fruit, some natural snacks I found online (thank you Stretch Island Fruit! thank you Matt's Munchies!)
Three days later I was so miserable I wanted to die, or at least eat a cupcake. But I wasn't giving up because I read that happens to a lot of people. Day 5 I realized my headaches were gone and so were my cravings. Then by Day 9 something semi-miraculous happened. The eczema on my thumb healed - after a year of going to the dermatologist, and 3 different steroid creams, the digit just up and healed. And not by coincidence, either. I was convinced that by eliminating my reactive foods my body was actually healing itself from the inside-out and I had gosh-darn proof of it. My dermatologist agreed that the diet was what cured my thumb. Awesomeness.
The program works in stages, and you get to phase in foods over time. Since I hit my 3-month mark, I was able to "challenge" some yellow foods. Yesterday, I had an egg. Talk about not knowing what you have until it's gone. Best damn egg I ever done had (yes, I sang a little country diddy to the egg in my head as I ate it). There may be foods I challenge that will give me a reaction; mushrooms & pistachios have done that (I felt bloated and just "off" after I ate them). It's a giant learning process. But I am all in.
The weight loss, at this point, is a bonus. I did lose 11 pounds before I started. I am down 30 pounds altogether (19 of it from LEAP in a little over 3 months) and feel the best I have felt in...ever.
OK. So is this program for everyone? Nope. If you feel awesome all the time and just have some weight to lose, probably not for you, unless you are curious to what foods would make you feel even awesomer. But if you have any of the ailments Emily lists on her website, then absolutely, LEAP can help. I want to shout it from the rooftops that there IS something you can do about how you are feeling. I am living, breathing proof. And you already read how Disney worked out for me. I am not giving up this feeling for any "thing" in the world. It's also not the cheapest program - but to me, an investment in myself was worth it. And there's no price tag in feeling great.
People ask me what "diet" I am on when they notice I have lost weight. Hmmm...that's hard to explain. No one really knows what LEAP is - I didn't until I did, and that's why I am blogging about it. Because even though I absolutely, positively love my doctors, I feel they are there to treat symptoms more than underlying causes. I was put on Miralax for almost 3 years. Nexium for almost 7. When I first started noticing my fibromyalgia (which is pretty much impossible to diagnose with a test) I was put on anti-anxiety meds, because there was no explanation for why I was in pain so it had to be all in my head. My fibromyalgia is gone now. Like, gone-gone. I am overjoyed.
Looking back over the last 3 months, I am just so glad that I didn't give up on me. I was never satisfied with feeling less than great. I kept trying to find another way, and being led to Emily was a Godsend. I couldn't just "accept" how I felt as "oh well, this my lot in life." Nope. I kept going. And so should you:
Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8)
Be diligent in finding what's right for YOU. My door was opened, and I am thanking God every day that the abundant life I have talked about and sought after is now mine.
For me, I lost the first 11 pounds pretty easily (because starting at 189, my body was able to shed that extra weight with counting calories) But then I got "stuck" - while friends passed me on the weight loss highway, and the scale didn't budge no matter how often I ran or how I watched my calories. The math just didn't add up. So when I started LEAP and lost 6 pounds in the first 10 days (which is a lot) Emily said it was my body "letting go" of the inflammation and that many people find that it's hard to lose weight until they do LEAP. And slowly but surely, I saw - and more importantly, I felt - results.
Today, I hit the 30-pound mark. 159. I haven't seen a 5 in over 4 years. My wedding bands fit me again. People are noticing that I have shrunk. But most important, I am HAPPY. Please note, this is because of the way I FEEL. And I am not as irritable - my family can testify that I do not lose my temper as often or get bothered by "little things" anymore. I can get out of bed when the alarm goes off and I cannot sleep until noon on my days off. I am pain-free on a regular basis and I recovered from my first half marathon in record time. LEAP changed, and quite possible saved, my life.
I will be a LEAPer for life. I encourage you to seek help if you feel the way I felt or if you are just "stuck" in a rut and there's no medical explanation for why you are not losing weight (you will have to be honest about whether or not you are really counting those donuts. I'm talking medical reason). Emily works with people long distance and her support has truly been the secret to my success. She is awesomer than awesome and the reason I feel the way I do - I'll forever be grateful for the path she put me on. Email her to get started - she'll even send you a form for your insurance, which may cover some of the costs! emily@emilyfonnesbeck.com
I get nothing for talking about this or recommending Emily, by the way. There's nothing for me to "get", anyway, except for knowing that I can help someone feel the way I am feeling now - and at this season of giving, there's no greater gift you can give YOURSELF than feeling great!
Take your LEAP of faith -whatever that might be for you! - it's so worth it!
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