“Balancing my personal life, social life, family, anxieties around food, and whatever life decides to throw my way – the good or the bad – Is still a process” ~Blair Flynn
Meet Blair Flynn, a Mother, Wife and Yoga Instructor. She has changed into a new person as she was restricted in terms of food consumption and diet. Her life was like suffering from Gastroparesis, irritable bowel syndrome(IBS), leaky gut, chronic migraines, food allergies (allergic to dairy products), low FODMAP diet, gluten-free diet, dairy-free diet, elimination diet, no spices, no legumes, no fat, limit to 5 nuts a day, unlimited sugar, fruits, only cooked vegetables, no raw foods, nothing spicy, no salads, no caffeine, gastric emptying exam, MRI, CAT SCANS, exams upper gastrointestinal and chronic migraines.
As a child, Blair was always a picky eater. Chicken fingers and fries were the only things she would eat and order in a restaurant even if it wasn’t on the menu. She makes and bakes the chef’s bread chicken. For a long time it joked that if she got married, chicken fingers and fries would be served for dinner. She treated food as the enemy because she didn’t know any alternatives to the foods she had problems with. She was also embarrassed to tell others what was happening to her digestive system. It was something no one openly discussed, and her nutrition education was sorely lacking.
You can imagine how this began to strain her relationships with friends, family, and social commitments. She became obsessed with how everything she ate affected her stomach. It was really unhealthy mentally and she was always frustrated and mad at herself for not understanding how and what to eat to feel normal. After finishing college, her digestive issues seemed to develop further and other issues were now prevalent.
After all, the tests were completed and the results provided Blair was diagnosed with gastroparesis, IBS, and abdominal distension. She also showed symptoms of leaky gut and a small bacterial overgrowth which caused me to develop a high sensitivity to fructans. Gastroparesis is a chronic, incurable condition in which the stomach muscles do not function normally and the stomach cannot empty. It is caused by damage to the vagus nerve, which regulates the digestive system and prevents food from moving through the system properly.
How to understand your struggles and work on them?
Each doctor and nutritionist had a different path for Blair on the road to recovery. Different recipes to try and new diets to explore. It only made her paranoia and food anxiety worse. She vividly remembers going to the grocery store with her mom to buy all the foods that would have triggered her symptoms. It was such a small moment yet so important to her health change. That day, she ate some foods that she was told not to eat such as vegetables, garlic, spices and salads. And nothing affected her adversely. She felt. So, she decided it was time for something new and started exploring holistic and natural healing approaches.
Blair started consuming more organic plant-based meat, wild fish, organic eggs, whole foods with no refined sugar, ingredients she couldn’t pronounce, and processed everything. Now, she is very open about it. Within months, she started following a mostly vegan, whole-food, plant-based diet. She gave up all meat, dairy, refined sugar, and anything processed and filled with chemicals and additives. It was quite a drastic change considering the way she used to eat. This diet has allowed her to manage her illness, stop the constant pain, restore her energy and bring her back to life.
This didn’t happen overnight, it took many years of frustrations, medications, elimination diets, doctor tests, doctor visits, tears and everything in between. After a few months of this lifestyle, Blair was able to stop taking all medications. At the same time, she learnt to manage her stress through a regular and dedicated yoga practice. Not only did it help her control migraines and stress levels, but surprisingly all the twists and turns and movements worked wonders on her digestive system as well.
The motto of Blair’s Blog~ “When We Feel Good about Ourselves and Believe We’re Worth our Effort, Leading a Healthy Lifestyle becomes much easier”
