After coming home from my doctors appointment feeling unheard and hopeless, I made the decision to do whatever necessary to get answers for myself. I made a call to Optimal Health and Wellness and asked about hormones testing.
While talking to the receptionist, I learned that the soonest new patient appointment was in March. I was in shock. New patient protocol is to get a hair sensitivity test, blood draw, and then you finally meet with the practitioner. I can’t remember the exact pricing on these things, but I believe it was $75ish for the hair sensitivity test and $75ish for the blood labs. Meeting with the doctor is a bit more expensive, but all of this combined was less than $300. Makes me question why the clinic can’t do labs for less than thousands of dollars…
Results from the hair sensitivity test take about 12 weeks to come back, so we set the appointment for January. The blood work was scheduled for later because those results only take about a week. All of the appointments were set and I felt a tiny bit of relief, just knowing that I would be one step closer to answers.
A few days went by, I was still trying to track my calories and my macros, but I was feeling like I was beating a dead horse. It hadn’t been working, so why continue on. Something needed to be changed.
Being married, I feel the need to discuss everything with my husband as it will effect him in one way or another. I proposed a loose whole30, explaining to him the foods we could eat and the foods we couldn’t. It really didn’t matter to me if he wanted to follow all of the guidelines (3 meals per day, no SWYPOS
, etc.) I needed to find out if it was in fact the sugar that had crept back into my diet causing inflammation, or if the mini “sharkoochie” (charcuterie) boards I ate pretty regularly were in fact causing me to gain weight. I’ve been shouting that I’ve tried everything, so I was willing to try one last thing.
Husband was on board. Luckily he will do anything to help me find my way back to my healthiest self. I wish every person could be lucky enough to have a partner like him. He did leave all of the prepping and planning up to me…which is fine. I looked at the calendar and picked our start date.
My husband is a seasoning blend kind of guy, but all of those store bought seasoning blends include sugar and sometimes other things that we were going to be eliminating. So I whipped up some seasoning blends for each main protein he likes to cook. I made a spicy chicken blend, steak blend, a dry rub that could be used for pork or really anything, and some taco seasoning. I also went to Primal Kitchen and ordered some sauces; avocado oil mayo, ranch, Buffalo ranch, Ketchup and BBQ sauce. Now I will say these sauces are a little more costly than the average brand you will buy at your local Walmart, but these are compliant (sugar and preservative free) options. In previous rounds, I did make my own sauces. This time I opted for convenience. I even tried some new things and I was so pleasantly surprised at how good all of these sauces taste.
We also went through the fridge and pantry and used up all things that we wouldn’t be eating for the 30 plus days. Honestly, there wasn’t much in there, maybe a few Salted Caramel Yasso bars and some chips and salsa. We got rid of them so as not to be tempted. We are fully prepared for a Monday start. I am hoping to get some results. I would love to be wrong about this being hormones. I would prefer this be a simple (if you can say eating nothing processed is simple) fix, something that I can fully handle at home. Here’s to hoping….
I will try my best to document this journey so if you also decide to try something similiar you will have a play by play guide (sorta).
Comments