Midlife Makeover!!

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Remember being a pre-teen and feeling like “if I could just get one of those makeovers like in the magazines, I’d get…” or “I’d be….” Usually the answers involved popularity, boyfriends, etc.  No, you don’t remember? I do.  (Above, that’s really Heidi Klum in costume, not me after my middle-age makeover.)

Well, if you’ve read more than five posts here, I’m sure you know I have Fibromyalgia and I ended my 20 year teaching career about a year and something ago because of it, and I’m needing to reinvent myself. It’s not that I want boyfriends or popularity. I’m married and have a blog that gets at least three hits a day. What I want is health, confidence, happyishness (which is a term I’ve copyrighted, so I hope if it takes off and gets popular, it will make me popular too–oh, contradiction!). When I say “happyishness,” I mean tending toward happiness without being weirdly fake or Polyanna. Happy and with a range of emotions that show I’m really alive.

So I was thinking a few weeks ago that my confidence is just not where it’s supposed to be. At my age, I don’t really believe in my self doubts. How weird is that. I know that when a person identifies with a certain role for many years, and then stops, but doesn’t have anything to take it’s place (except maybe the role of “sick person,” ugh), they may get a little blah.  It’s not really real though (in the big scheme of things). So I decided that I needed to cheer myself up and buying new clothes wasn’t going to work, I needed to lose some weight so those new clothes would look good. I didn’t want to be a Cathy cartoon. bathing suit dressing room cartoon

I had recently stopped smoking, YAY! and felt confident that I could make another healthy achievement.  My sister-in-law recently lost 30 pounds through exercise and portion control, which was inspiring, but I knew I couldn’t exercise that much with my fibro.

Enter Whole30. I had been looking at it for a while. I am really hesitant to follow things that have lots of ads and lots of people on the internet going “wow! wow!” But I researched it. It’s free, well, I bought the Kindle book for around ten bucks.

I knew that Paleo had helped some people with Chronic Fatigue and Fibro, and I had wondered if it could help me. Maybe I could lose weight and heal.  I had been off wheat for about three years, but the other “healthy whole grains” like oatmeal and rice were still in my diet. I read recently that Robert Downy Jr. said of quitting drugs, something like, “It wasn’t hard after I really committed.” I knew this was true for me with smoking. So I committed. It’s only 30 days. Today is day 12. I have more energy. I still hurt. Osteoarthritis, IBS, but I’m figuring it all out. I’m happyish. (BTW, if you haven’t read my post about Methylfolate and Methyl B12 and how much it helped me, read it here.)

I’m totally committed and have been cooking really great food. Its a great cooking challenge. More to come about my food and my Whole30.  Be well.

P.S. In your comments, please refrain from advice-giving or judgments. Stick to your own experience. “For me…” is a lot more helpful than “You should….”

P.P.S. I know some people think Paleo and Low Carb are bad.  If you’re one of them, I know you’re out there, you don’t need to tell me and throw cold water on my enthusiastic experiment :-).

18 thoughts on “Midlife Makeover!!”

  1. Experimenting with nutrition is wonderful even better when you find something that works for you! Good luck with Whole30 never heard of it, will have a look at it now! I still haven’t found an eating plan that has worked for me with my (numerous) health issues, exercise is doing it until I do, so always open to suggestions! Thanks for this 🙂

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  2. I believe you are doing the right thing! I have changed my lifestyle to Paleo too, but lately gone over to Banting, it seems to be better for me! I am not having any starches or sugar .Now I must just try to do a bit of excercise too!

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  7. Heard this wonderful story on NPR. Really, it was an incidental during the narration of how the soundtrack of “House of Cards” came about. It turns out the composer was diagnosed with MS many years ago and, undeterred and unwilling to change the pace of his life, with the help of some practitioners along the way, stopped and even slightly reversed his MS by switching to a vegan diet, exercising and meditating. All this to say that it’s trial and error, that conventional medicine is wonderful but sometimes can only help us so far and that finding what helps you is a process and you will get there. Good luck! (and yes, I am a bit believer in the correlation between what we eat and what ails us – hope you will blog about your personal results).

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  8. We follow each other on Instagram, but I just came across the comment you left on my blog a little while back and decided to pop over and see what’s happening. I enjoy experimenting with nutrition and think people should go for whatever positive things feel right at the time. I don’t like to do any kind of all-or-nothing plan but have been curious about paleo, though it would be hard with two picky and demanding boys in the house. I hope your “midlife makeover” helps you feel better! 🙂

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    • Yes I have a super picky husband. He’s been sharing my dinners but doing his own thing for breakfast and lunch. Kids are another story altogether though! Thanks for reading. I enjoy your IG and blog😄

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