Man, it’s been awhile since I’ve touched base with you all. I am so sorry! As much as I would like to give a really good excuse, I don’t really have one. Well, it’s a good excuse to me…LIFE! Life has been happening. But I know it’s the same for you. I know life gets in the way of all the things you want to do too.

So life lately has been my oldest child’s first year of school, focusing on spending quality time with my kids, being active in school functions, added a new dog to the family (a German Shepard), lost my batch of chickens and adding a new batch (10 to be exact), the Holiday’s and change of season, figuring out some health issues and really the list goes on. Life just happens. It gets in the way sometimes. It can steal time away from us if we are intentional. And I guess because of that reason I had to slow down on my business and focus on my family and myself.

Maybe I will create a blog post about focusing more on my family but for now I want to catch you up on what’s been going on with my health.

About a year ago I went to the dr for some stomach issues that I thought were pretty normal for most. I wasn’t even going to go but my close friends and family convinced me to. I had been dealing with these issues for years, at least since high school. I delt with them for so long and they only gradually got worse over the years so I just thought they were normal. I am kinda embarrassed to admit this but not until recently, about a year and half ago, I started to realize most of my issues aren’t normal. You see, after every meal or snack I would get bloated. Not a fast food meal or snack, but grilled chicken breast, steamed veggies kinda meal. And not a little puffy, but bloated! I would have a flat stomach before the meal and after I would look 4-5 months pregnant. Honestly. For real.

I would hid it with my clothes or how I would sit or stand. I would try to suck it in. Hoping no one really noticed. And for the most part no one did notice. Or maybe no one will admit that they noticed. Anyway, one day I started to realize things weren’t normal with me. I was watching this girl at work who is my size, flat stomach, and about my age. She was thin before her meal, she was wearing a fitted shirt and shorts. She ate a processed sausage on a white hot dog bun and mustard for lunch. And you know what… after her processed lunch was eaten, she was the same size!! It blew my mind! I know. I know. I sound crazy but I’m serious. I didn’t know not being so bloated after every meal wasn’t normal.

**TMI coming up**

Another thing that I didn’t realize wasn’t normal was my BMs. Some days I would eat breakfast at my house. It would be a normal breakfast. Two eggs, a slice of gluten/soy free toast and fruit, sometimes coffee. By the time I had breakfast and drove my daughter to school I would have to go to the bathroom so bad that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the gas station, much less home. I won’t go into detail but if it wasn’t for my sister’s office one direction and country roads the other direction then it would have been bad. Really bad.

One time my husband, my friend and I were driving in 4 lanes of traffic in downtown Nashville, TN and I had to go to the bathroom RIGHT THEN! I started sweating and I got really hot, like when you have the flu. My stomach was turning. It was doing nasty somersaults. I had to go NOW! We were stopped in traffic and no way out. So I literally ran through the traffic to the hotel we were by to use the restroom. My husband pulled around and picked me up at the front doors. I felt so much better!

I know this is gross but really I think we should talk about this stuff more. Obviously running through traffic to use the bathroom doesn’t happen to everyone but how was I to know that emergency BMs weren’t a almost daily thing for people? Or at least not a weekly thing. No one talks about this stuff!

How was I to know that people don’t pick their clothes out based on if they are eating or not? Here I had all these cute fitted dresses but there’s no way I would dare wear one to Art & Wine night or on a date with my husband or to a birthday party for a friend! If I wore a fitted outfit there would be no eating for me. Maybe a drink or two but nothing carbonated or with sugar, real or artificial, for sure.

My best friend remembers me telling the girls in high school before a dance that I didn’t care where we ate before prom because I wouldn’t eat anyway. If I ate more than just some nibbles from a salad then I would blow up like a toad. So that tells you how long ago these things have been going on. So long ago that I didn’t know any different.

As you know, I have been working out for over 15 years. And I have been lifting weights over 10 years. My biggest struggle has been that I can’t gain muscle! It’s so frustrating. Here I train people on how to loose weight and tone up. I train them on how to reach their own fitness and health goals and I can’t even reach mine. It has brought me to tears more than you will ever know…my husband will testify! I started getting body scans done a couple years ago. Body scans are like a scale that you stand on and it reads your body. It reads how much fat you have, your muscle mass, water percent, BMI, how many calories you need a day and more. The amazing peeps at Complete Nutrition have been so kind to me. I would follow a plan I created, nutrition and fitness, they would look over it with me just so I could bounce ideas off of them. Then we would work together to tweak it, hoping that I would gain muscle like I want. Month after month we did this. No progress. It was so frustrating to me and I am sure they were sick of it too (maybe just sick of me;) One of the guys at Complete Nutrition said that over these multiple months my scan still reads that my body doesn’t absorb nutrients like it should. Hummm, that must be why my body isn’t building muscle like it should.

All these little things started to make me question what the heck was going on with my body. I mean I am super in tune with my body. Well, I think so anyway. Like, I can usually tell where at in my digestive track my food is. I can usually tell if I haven’t eaten enough protein or if I haven’t eaten enough carbs. I can tell about 3 days after conception if I am pregnant. Weird, I know but I’m serious. When I had cancer and a dr gave me a prescription for my cough, I knew it wasn’t that. I didn’t know it was cancer but I knew it wasn’t what she was treating it for.

Well, I can’t fit my whole story into one post. So please come back to hear more about my story!