Author Archive for Jane Birch – Page 12

“Not being ruled by sugar is greatly freeing!”

By Jane Birch · Comments (15)
Saturday, April 23rd, 2016

Jane GolsonBy: Jane Golson

Because I was having babies and nursing for the bulk of 10 years, my body was in constant change. I was always feeling tired. I had minor abdominal pain, low-grade back pain (kidney), headaches, insatiable sugar/carb cravings, sore joints, nighttime urge to urinate frequently, occasional mucous-looking discharge, and a myriad of other low-grade symptoms. Because those were the years of bearing children, I put aside my symptoms as part of my “baby body.”

To keep up, I fed myself lots of quick bowls of sugar cereal and milk, or grabbed a cookie, granola bar, or king-size candy bar at the gas station. I didn’t give a lot of thought to what I was eating. I didn’t give a lot of thought to the signals my body was sending me either. I just knew I NEEDED that cookie or candy bar!

Occasionally, the soreness in my lower abdomen would flare up, and I was CONVINCED I had a UTI (urinary tract infection) so I would go to the InstaCare and insisted on an antibiotic. My urine sample was always clear, but my symptoms matched the UTI symptoms so exactly they always prescribed me the antibiotic. I also had seasonal allergies that usually turn into a sinus infection about once a year, so my doctor would prescribe strong antibiotics (augmentin) for that. This cycle went on for 10+ years!

I had a vague idea that antibiotics can disrupt the body’s flora, creating yeast infections, and that eating yogurt helped that, so I also was eating lots of sugary yogurt and taking probiotics thinking that was taking care of the effects of antibiotic use. (What I didn’t realize is that our body’s microbiome is so much more complex and plays a role in so many other health factors.)

After having five kids, moving multiple times, and never really thinking much about my health, my health MADE me start paying attention. I finally went to see my OB/GYN. After reading the lab results, he said something that made a dim light bulb go on in my mind, “Jane, you have NO good bacteria in your system.” It dawned on me that all the antibiotics I had been treated with earlier had killed off all my bacteria. Basically, I had a very sick microbiome!

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“My strength comes from the Lord”

By Jane Birch · Comments (11)
Saturday, April 16th, 2016

Sarah LovegroveBy: Sarah Lovegrove

I am 17 years old and live on a small island in Australia called Kangaroo Island. It is renowned for its unique natural country and produce. Food has always been part of my family and large extended family. We often gather together and have fatty meals based on meat, cheese, eggs, you name it. As a result, I learned to love and appreciate food.

In 2015, my uncle was suffering from thyroid problems and stumbled across the film Forks over Knives and decided to try the diet. The changes helped him and so he shared it with us.

Even before my uncle shared this diet with it, I had always felt that we were not living the Word of Wisdom to its fullness, but I continued to consume animal products. After I watched Forks Over Knives I turned to the Word of Wisdom and read it again. Reading the Word of Wisdom convinced me to change.

When I announced to my family the changes I was making, they were fine with it, but they were not willing to change, so I faced changing my diet alone, except I had the help of Heavenly Father and our Savior. So that’s how it began. I did (and still and do) a lot of research, finding books and helpful websites to teach myself. Read More→

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“A distinct thought came into my mind, ‘You can do better.’”

By Jane Birch · Comments (17)
Saturday, April 9th, 2016

Arianna ReesBy: Arianna Rees

May of last year, as I was sitting at the kitchen table one morning, a distinct thought came into my mind, “You can do better.” It wasn’t in a tone of chastisement, but rather it came as one stating a simple fact. I sat startled for a moment, but quickly recognized the source of those words as being from the Spirit. I had recently felt prompted to study the effects of nutrition on mental health, a topic close to my heart. The research that I found was fascinating and led to further and further study and discovery of the very powerful effects that food choice can have, not only on our physical health, but also on our emotional and mental well-being as well.

That morning in the kitchen, I had just read several articles on the effects of antibiotics given to farm animals and their documented negative effects on long-term health on those of us consuming those animal products. The truth of those statements and facts, for whatever reason, spoke to me more clearly and more directly that day than ever before. And so I sat and pondered. It was then that the Spirit helped me to see that I could do better, especially since I was the gatekeeper of my family’s general diet and eating habits.

It is often said that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. The teacher showed up in a big way from familiar sources that morning. I was immediately reminded of the Biblical account of Daniel gaining favor and strength due to his firm decision to eat grains and abstain from the king’s meats. I turned to the Bible to re-read the account and found myself reading a well-known story with fresh eyes. Daniel’s countenance shown and was filled with great knowledge and wisdom. What an amazing blessing! I felt so strongly that he was not only blessed for his courage in being obedient to a spiritual law, but he also was experiencing direct effects physically for having obeyed a physical law that had physical consequences. He was living the Word of Wisdom fully and experienced blessings of spirit, mind, and body.

I quickly turned to D&C 89, a section that I was so very familiar with. What was different this time in my reading was that I read each verse more literally than ever before. I no longer focused on the “thou shalt not’s,” but rather read from the perspective of the “thou shalt’s.” I had been keeping the portion of the Word of Wisdom well when it came to abstaining from drugs, alcohol, etc. I had been eating a healthy and well-rounded diet by most standards. But there it was stated so clearly—I could do better in eating meat sparingly, eating more whole foods, and foods in season.

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“The most horrible, wonderful experiences of our lives”

By Jane Birch · Comments (22)
Saturday, April 2nd, 2016

Randy and Olga CamporaBy: Randy Campora

Dat, dat…, da dat dat dat – dat daa dat dat dat daaaa dat.

That is the opening phrase of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet. As the bass trombonist in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for the past thirty years I have heard those violin notes hundreds of times, and in December 2014, the notes were the same as always. We were playing in the orchestra pit of the Lyric Theater in Baltimore for an entire week of Nutcrackers with the ballet corps of the Baltimore School for the Arts.

But this year, those notes did not sound the same. Or I should say, my mind as it heard those notes was not the same.

This year, I had cancer. My mind struggled to focus, though the familiar music and setting were a nice distraction for me. But as soon as the music stopped the thought came immediately back: I had esophageal cancer, stage yet to be determined.

I was fifty-three years old, at least a hundred pounds overweight, a recent inductee of the Type II Diabetes Club. I was also the possessor of more blessings from God than I knew what to do with: Olga, my wonderful yoga teaching wife; Dominik, our trumpet playing oldest son on a mission in Poland; and Raffi, our math wiz youngest son with the dry sense of humor. I was a member of the best ward in the church. I had a job I liked, with great health insurance. The complete list would assault you with its length.

That September I had choked on a piece of food at dinner. My wife had just completed a CPR course, so she successfully executed the Heimlich two-step and I could breathe. But a few minutes later I realized that something was stuck down near the stomach because I could not drink or eat anything. A trip to the ER took care of the problem: Dr. Solaiman removed the piece of chicken stuck in the valve at the top of the stomach.

He was surprised to find Barrett’s Esophagus—a pre-cancerous condition usually caused by chronic acid reflux that changes the tissue to something more resembling an intestine. He performed biopsies, which came back clear. He wanted to be sure nothing was hiding there, so another round of biopsies was done three months later. This time the cancer cells were found, along with some aggressive markers.

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“I had the sweet feeling that this new baby was a special gift”

By Jane Birch · Comments (12)
Saturday, March 26th, 2016

Joy and Jane BarryBy: Joy Barry

I was blessed to be raised on a diet healthier than the standard American variety. In the 1970s when most kids were living on toaster pastries, Twinkies, and Wonder Bread, we were grinding our own wheat to make whole wheat bread and cracked wheat porridge. When we made cookies or Kool-Aid, my father insisted on using half the sugar that the recipe called for. As I grew older and moved away from home, I continued to cook most things from scratch, the way I was brought up. I wasn’t too concerned about health or a balanced diet, it was more about saving money and making homemade food that tasted better. Besides, I never had to worry about losing weight as I was always trim and thin as a child and young adult. I never even exercised.

When I hit my mid-20s, I started to put on a little bit of weight. It concerned me enough that I started exercising to try to get in shape. But all my bike-riding just left me worn out and discouraged. It never occurred to me that my diet was to blame. I thought I was doing just fine.

I married at age 29 and had my first child when I was 30. My new role as a wife and mother made me more concerned about healthy eating. It was not just about me anymore, I had a family to feed. The responsibility to not just feed my family, but to feed them well, rested heavy on my conscience. I read everything online that I could find about healthy diets and worried much about how to best feed my family a balanced diet.

Although I read many conflicting opinions from various “experts,” I felt blessed to have the Word of Wisdom as my foundation. If I read anything that said to eat lots of meat and avoid grains, I dismissed it immediately. However, I always wished that the Word of Wisdom had more specifics. I thought it was too vague and didn’t cover all the food groups. I knew it said to eat meat sparingly, and I tried to follow that advice, but what about eggs and dairy products? I also worried much about what kind of oils were the healthy ones, and other hotly debated topics.

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“The doctor was giddy about my results.”

By Jane Birch · Comments (11)
Saturday, March 19th, 2016

Dave and Petra HansenBy: Dave Hansen

Having been raised in Idaho in a family that has always been very active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was taught about the Word of Wisdom. I was taught that the use of tobacco, drinking of alcoholic beverages as well as coffee and black tea was prohibited. I was aware that other substances were ordained for the use of man by God including fruits in their season, vegetables, and grains. I had been raised to believe that since meat was ordained for the use of man, it was also good to consume. In addition our family took pride in the dairy business that they were involved in, even though my father chose another path of employment shortly after my birth. We believed the commercials that milk “does a body good.”

After getting married and being on my own, I never allowed margarine on my dinner table, only the finest butter. Ice cream was purchased by the gallons and always readily available, as well as cheese. I reveled in some of my specialty dishes; my three egg ham and cheese omelets were a favorite of my family, as well as my pecan pie, grilled New York Steak, and my award winning chili (which was always more carne than beans). In the United States, the LDS culture is immersed in the Western diet that I was so accustomed to. Potlucks, barbeques, funerals, ice cream socials, and all other social gatherings within the Church are centered on a diet of meat and dairy.

On a Sunday morning in the spring of 2013 I woke to a nagging pressure in my chest with radiating pain in my neck and left arm, deep inside. This is a symptom that had been slowly getting worse over the previous two years. At first it was only noticeable when I was involved in extreme exercise, but it gradually showed up when I simply walked up a flight of stairs. This morning I was not doing anything, but it was there. I thought about skipping Church that day and resting, thinking that I may have just overdid it the day before on our motorcycle ride. I was reminded of a talk that I had heard at some conference in the past that if we didn’t want to do something the Lord wanted us to do, then we should really do it because there was something that we were supposed to learn from it, so I got ready for Church with my wife and we went.

During Sacrament meeting one of the speakers relayed a recent experience he had endured when he had a heart attack, so afterward I felt inspired to ask him about the symptoms. He asked me why, and I relayed to him what I was feeling. He told me to go immediately to the emergency room, and to not attend the following Sunday School or Priesthood meetings. Well I, being the stubborn soul that I am, attended Sunday School anyways; however, the pressure in my chest was not getting better, so afterward I told my wife that maybe we should go to the emergency room so they could rule out my heart as the culprit.

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“Multiple sclerosis is not a death sentence!”

By Jane Birch · Comments (33)
Saturday, March 12th, 2016
Around age 10 when the light sensitivity started

Around age 10 when the light sensitivity started

By: Emily

I’ve always had a love for food (who doesn’t?), but my love affair with food really started in junior high when I was old enough that my mom would let me plan and prepare family dinner. My mom is a fabulous cook, and she always fed our family traditional, “healthy” meals: chicken and rice casseroles, lasagna, turkey sandwiches, spaghetti and meatballs, eggs and toast, etc. We ate basically the standard American diet and what every health professional would say is a normal diet. She fed us the healthiest she knew how. We also had a green salad every night, and in the summer we would eat tons of veggies from our garden.

I remember my health issues starting when I was around 6 (that’s about as far as I can remember—I might have had other issues when I was younger, I just don’t remember). I would get strep throat and really bad earaches about 3-4 times a year, and I would get the flu every couple of months. When I was around 10 or 11 I started developing intense sensitivity to light and the back of my eyes would ache, which would turn into massive headaches. I felt like a vampire, always shutting the curtains, never turning on the lights. These episodes weren’t constant. They would come and go, so it wasn’t predictable. They eventually started going away, and I forgot about them.

Around age 15, very thin

Around age 15, very thin

Throughout junior high and high school, I started having fatigue issues and near the end of my senior year in high school, I developed the chronic headaches and sensitivity to light again, but this time they also came with numbness and tingling in my limbs, adrenal fatigue and a few other nasty symptoms. I was in all the school plays and was always dancing and exerting a lot of physical effort so I just blamed these symptoms on being tired.

Looking back on my high school days, I realized that I didn’t eat very much at all. I was very thin. I never really thought about food and just ate when my mom made meals, and I grabbed an apple for lunch. 

After high school, I tried out for our city’s Miss America Organization pageant and won. I started eating “healthy.” I added more greens and fruits, planned my meals, exercised regularly, and made sure I ate enough to give me the energy I needed. I actually started feeling better. Read More→

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“Man is not made to eat flesh”

By Jane Birch · Comments (25)
Saturday, March 5th, 2016

Albert SchindlerBy: Albert Schindler

Roughly three years ago—I was 81 years old at the time—I was diagnosed with kidney cancer. My right kidney was so cancerous that the doctors gave me zero percent chance of saving it, so it was surgically removed. The cancer spread to my bladder. Consequently, over about a period of a year and a half, I had 12 chemotherapy sessions and several non-surgical probes to get the cancer in remission. Several of these chemo sessions left me with a bladder infection that took antibiotics to cure. Needless to say, my health was in a very precarious situation.

It was the twelfth, and last chemo session, plus an infection that really got the best of me. My entire body, from the neck down, ached terribly. The experience lasted for roughly two days. I say “roughly” because for the most part I was in a daze and had no recollection of time. Because of the pain, I couldn’t sleep, and I could barely stay awake. I ached if I sat up, and I ached if I tried to lie down. Near the end of this time, I suppose because I was so lacking sleep plus so weak from the pain, I started to experience hallucinations.

I had several different hallucinations, but of interest to this story is near the end when I saw before me a large grid that resembled a giant-sized, brown “Weetabix,” like is found in a Weetabix cereal box. I had a bucket in my hand and I was trying to dip out the pain I felt in various parts of my body from one square of the grid and pour it into another square. I was becoming more and more frustrated. This didn’t work! My pain was still one hundred percent there, only I kept shifting it around!

After what seemed like an eternity of fruitless dipping to end my pain, something within me said, “You have to get rid of the pain, not just mask it by trying to hide it somewhere else.” In other words, dipping it out of one Weetabix square and pouring it into another square wasn’t the answer. What was of special interest after that “Aha! moment” was a very clear, audible voice that said to me, “Man is not made to eat flesh.”

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“As a radiologist, I had seen fatty plaque clogging critical arteries”

By Jane Birch · Comments (10)
Saturday, February 27th, 2016

Chad Harston familyBy: Chad Harston, MD

Our C-130 transport plane touched down in the middle of the night at Joint Base Balad in Iraq. It was 2010, and I had been deployed to Iraq to take part in Operation New Dawn ordered by President Obama. I was part of the crew responsible to keep the base hospital operational during the orderly withdrawal of US Forces. After a few hours of sleep I rolled out of my bunk, put on my battle dress uniform and made my way to the hospital in the 120 degree July heat for my first day of work. An NCO issued me a firearm and another checked my gas mask and chemical protection gear. I sat down to start reading radiographs, CT scans, and ultrasounds generated from combat traumas as well as routine cases like twisted ankles, kidney stones, and pneumonias. At first I only had to work 12 hour shifts 7 days per week. The base was large with over 30,000 military troops and contractors when I arrived, but most of the soldiers were healthy and combat injuries were diminishing every month as more and more troops were sent home.

When the trauma work was light in the middle of the night I finally had time to myself. The frantic demands on my time that I had been dealing with for nearly 20 years came to a sudden halt. After all those years of working and studying 80 – 100+ hours per week, suddenly I found that I had time to ponder life and study whatever interested me. I also wanted to use some of my free time to get in better shape. Fortunately, the Iraqi army had left a swimming pool when they turned over the base to the US Air Force, and the base commander had made it a priority to acquire gym equipment for the troops. After a night shift I enjoyed going to pool or the gym for a morning workout. The only inconvenience was the frequent C-RAM siren indicating incoming rockets and mortars. This required us to jump out of the pool and run for cover. I planned out an ambitious exercise regimen, but as the weeks went on I didn’t lose weight or feel stronger. In fact, I felt progressively worse. I was following the usual fitness precepts: alternating weight lifting and cardio while eating large amounts of protein — mostly meat, eggs, and dairy. Yet somehow my weight was going up while my stamina was going down.

Finally, my frustration reached a peak one night when I couldn’t even jog a slow mile on the lonely treadmill in the hospital basement without feeling exhausted. I walked back through the dark empty halls to my office and opened my scriptures to a well-known passage: Doctrine and Covenants Section 89. Read More→

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“I am finally happy with my weight!”

By Jane Birch · Comments (16)
Saturday, February 20th, 2016

Margie Burton Before and After
By: Margie Burton

I’ve had weight and health issues most of my life. As a child I was known as “thunderthighs” among the taunting peers. I had an emergency appendectomy the last day of elementary school, and that was the first of many surgeries yet to come. At the age of 13, a fall off my beloved horse broke my tailbone and began a series of issues with my lower back that has continued through adulthood.

I was bedridden due to my back the latter part of my senior year, and during that time I gained about 40 pounds. I never realized it since I never got up to dress or go to the bathroom. I tried dieting on and off with some success here and there. I lost 30 pounds in college during a month-long survival course traveling 250 miles on foot and living off the land. That life-changing experience shocked my internal system to change moving my bowels from once-a-week to a daily event. I went on to my first back surgery during college.

I married and had continued health problems during pregnancies. I was bedridden again during my second pregnancy when a disc in my lower back became herniated. I gained 45 pounds with each pregnancy but deliveries were successful. I was plagued with cluster migraine headaches, some of which lasted weeks. I tried every diet that came along: the grapefruit diet, Atkins, Weight-Watchers, Nutrisystem, SlimFast, and many I can’t even remember. I was successful in losing weight with most of them, but the pounds would creep back. I spent hours running at the school track, pushing the stroller and carefully watching my other children on the football field as I ran laps.

My health issues continued as I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, trigeminal neuralgia, rheumatoid arthritis, myofascial pain syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome and degenerative disc disease. I took medication every day to help prevent the migraine clusters that still came if I forgot to take the meds. Many of the side effects of the medications included weight gain, so I had my excuse.

My two daughters developed eating disorders in their teenage years. I tried to convince myself that I had not caused them, but with mom dieting her way through life, the emphasis was definitely there. We shared Weight Watcher meetings together and celebrated successes at losing a few pounds. The girls threw themselves into exercising. I would convince myself that my poor health would not let me run anymore so my life became sedentary. I was tall, so I could carry many extra pounds without looking fat. It was my grandson who asked me one day why I was so fat.

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