This month marks 10 years since the end of my horrendous year-long Ulcerative Colitis flare in 2010. Thanks to the help of drugs and doctors I became stable and finally went into remission that winter, then with major lifestyle changes including a diet overhaul, I was able to completely come off the awful meds over 9 years ago.
All these years later I am beyond grateful to remain flare-free and am healthier and stronger than I’ve ever been. I shared a bunch about the changes I initially made to heal and then come off the medications here, and today I want to share more about what has evolved into my present day lifestyle of wellness, which I believe has been used to keep me well over the last decade and will hopefully continue to do so over the next many decades.
Here’s a synopsis of my daily choices (note that this is where I am now, but needed to be much more restricted/intense when I was still recovering. I am not suggesting that you copy 100% what I do - that is best figured out by your own research and trial and error and by consulting with a good naturopath). My hope in sharing the below is that is that you leave with some solid take-a-ways and greater inspiration:
Food - I eat real food as much as possible. I define real food as whole foods - a large variety of fruits and veggies, gluten free whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, lots of spices and herbs - all organic and/or non-GMO as much as possible, as well as some meat/fish (grass fed/organic/pastured/wild caught). Limit processed foods to “higher quality” ones (ones with small amounts of ingredients and still organic) and avoid ultra-processed junk foods almost entirely. Higher quality = more expensive, but also = greater health. I avoid gluten 100% and limit dairy and sugar. I don’t worry about calories or even own a scale, because when the focus is on solid nutrition, the weight part naturally takes care of itself.
Beverages - Drink filtered water and lots of it, organic herbal teas, light organic coffee, small amounts of kombucha. I limit alcohol to just occasionally (though it’s best to never have it if you are a stronger person than I!) but when I do have it it’s mostly going to be a dry red wine or a vodka/club soda - I stay away from sugary cocktails with all kinds of crazy ingredients and I most definitely avoid gluten/yeast filled beer. Avoid both regular and diet sodas and other sugary drinks 100%.
Supplements - My past pan-colonic flare ups have left the lining of my colon scarred, so it’s hard for my body to absorb many nutrients. Because of this I take numerous high quality supplements. I’ll expand on this in a blog post coming soon, but with a history of chronic illness it’s important to get regular blood tests to look out for any deficiencies that could cause major problems down the road.
Sleep - I give sleep a ton of credit for helping me heal and stay healed. In fact I think it’s the most underrated and underappreciated tool in the healing toolbox. When I was recovering I slept about 10 hours a night for a long time, now I make it a point to sleep around 8 hours a night. I’m reminded of how important this is if I even go one night without enough sleep I’ll usually feel like crap by the afternoon. This means having to go to bed at a decent time, and arranging my schedule so that I don’t have to get up too early.
Lifestyle/work - I’ve mentioned in the past that after being sick I promised myself I wouldn’t go back to working a regular, full-time job. This was because I knew that in order to get and stay well I would need to keep potential areas of stress limited and needed to be able to have the time to prioritize sleep, healthy cooking, exercise, and quality play time with my little girl. This of course meant that I would be greatly limiting my income potential, but my family has embraced a minimalist viewpoint and made the sacrifices necessary to still get by financially (read more about this here).
Stress - speaking of stress, it’s important to keep it limited as much as possible since stress can wreak such ugly havoc on the immune system. For a type-A, perfectionist, self admitted “worry wart” like myself, this has been and continues to be my greatest challenge and is something that I am constantly working on. But through the help of my amazing therapist, as well as much prayer, yoga, mediation, visualization, and gratitude, among other tools that ground me and connect me more to God, I am thankful to have seen much progress in this area. As an extrovert, time with friends also helps me tremendously and is always a priority.
Exercise - some form of physical activity every day is important to remain healed. It just is. There’s no way around it. But the good news is I don’t believe hitting the gym every day is essential. My favorite ways to exercise are walking, yoga, using a pull up bar attached to my bathroom door, and playing an aggressive game of badminton with my daughter (read more about my thoughts on exercise here).
There’s much more to be said on all of these topics, but hopefully you’ve found some good tidbits to take with you for now.
By the way, please don’t misread the above as me saying I’m some kind of superwoman - I do not do all of the above perfectly by any means! For example, there are definitely days where I straight up skip going for a walk that I know I really need to take, and there are definitely nights where I stay up too dang late for no good reason. And at least a couple times a year I have to give myself a good talking to about what “occasionally” means when it comes to alcohol. The above is what I do the majority of the time and what I am constantly striving to do more of. Fortunately for all of us, wellness does not require 100% perfection.
And I don’t have any kind of freak level of willpower either. It’s just that I know first hand how it feels to be hopelessly sick, and I never want to experience that again, ever. It’s easy to find motivation when the alternative can be so awful. As I always say, we can’t guarantee that we won’t get sick, but we can commit to doing whatever is in our power to prevent it.
I firmly believe if you can aim to make changes, starting big or small in any of the above categories, then you’re on the right path.
So it’s 10 years down, hopefully a lifetime to go!
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