7 months without cheese: A PCOS update

If you are new to this conversation, me having PCOS and all, check out these older posts to catch up.

In summary, I have PCOS and I don’t love talking about it, but I’m really grateful for all that God is doing in my body and so I am talking about it.

Today, seven months in of really taking this thing seriously, I barely miss dairy anymore. I mean, I miss cheese burritos to be sure, but on a daily basis, it’s no biggie. I know that sounds crazy, especially since I was literally eating dairy in some form – milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, sour cream – at least three times a day. But at this point, hamburgers are fine without cheese, unsweetened vanilla almond milk is a more than adequate substitute for cow’s milk, and I pick Asian over Mexican as much as possible. Because Mexican food without cheese and sour cream makes me a sad gal.

BUT. My body is happier than I think it’s ever been.

I went to my doctor last month and she is THU-RILLED with how much my body is responding to simply cutting out one food group, taking PCOS seriously, and allowing my body to focus on healing itself instead of fighting off the foods that I was feeding it.

Now listen, this is NOT a weight loss story. But for the first time it feels like my body and my mind are on the same team and everybody is happier for it. So I’m just doing a picture comparison below because I want you to see what starts to happen when you give your body what it wants, not just junk. [For me, junk means processed junk foods, but also dairy.]

The left picture is from January [I started eating right for PCOS in February] and the one on the right is from last week. I tried to pick photos where I look totally normal and not all hot and not perfectly dressed and not perfectly angled. Just two normal faces- one that didn’t care about her health and one that does.

maface

It’s not a massive difference. It’s a slow change, nothing dramatic, but I’m getting healthier and I can only imagine how much happier my innards are.

It has not been all fun and easy. In fact, in the last two weeks-ish, my afternoon fatigue and headaches have returned, even though the dairy hasn’t. I tried a gluten-free lifestyle in June and thinking it didn’t matter at all to how I felt, I started eating gluten again in July. And now I can only wonder if my body dislikes that too. I’d be a real joy to have at a dinner party if I’m not eating gluten OR dairy. Woof. Yeah right. 🙁 So I don’t want to live without gluten, but I hear my body and something is making her not happy.

I’m going to drop the gluten intake low again for a few weeks and try to get my body moving more to see if that will help with how I feel. But now that my insides and my outsides are working together, I’m much quicker to notice when my body isn’t happy and for some reason, even while I’ve been on vacation for a few weeks, my body hasn’t been as happy.

Like I said, I don’t love talking about this and feel super weird about blogging all of this, but I want to say to you what people have always said to me but I just started to listen: BE KIND TO YOUR BODY. Give it what it needs. Protect it from what it doesn’t.

I’m on the very very front end of this journey, but I’m loving learning what it feels like and looks like to have my body and mind on the same team, working together instead of against each other.

. . . . .

Teach me! What do you do to help your body be as healthy as possible?

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