My Apology to Self: Part 1

 This is an apology to my Self; to my body, to my mind and to my soul.  For all the things I did to myself over the years. Starting from my childhood, into the years of anxiety and depression and the years of treatments I did to regrow my hair.  I want to also want to say this: that I don’t regret what I have done for without that I would not be where I am today.

 I find myself entering into another phase of self-exploration and self-love.  When I first shaved my head and decided I was done with all those painful treatments.  Treatments that not only physically hurt but also caused a large amount of emotional pain.  I remember looking at myself in the mirror that night, thinking and saying to myself that I was Fabulous.  I learned how to start loving myself regardless of the lack of hair.

Now for the last year and a half, I have been following an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle.  Something I started after hearing about my brother doing it and having success with weight loss.  My weight has been something I have battled since childhood. I was always on some sort of diet.  Lets face it, I will own it right here, right now, I am obese and have been for a good portion of my life. Owning this is also an apology to myself that I always told myself I wasn’t.  But numbers don’t lie.  

My diet life always consisted of counting calories and if I workout harder I will lose weight.  I was also a closet eater; hiding food or quickly eating on the way home before anyone noticed.  I had a food obsession.  As a child I was bullied for my weight and then when I started to lose my hair, well the bullying only got worse. As you can imagine I did not have much self-esteem, I always felt lacking.  I went about my life, and participated in activities with my family and friends; I showed my horses, went out and had fun but there was always a part of me that felt I stood out in the wrong way, and that only made me want to hide my Self more.  “Hide yourself Terri, don’t stick out, don’t be seen, don’t let them know you are overweight or that there is those bald spots”  

Well today “Im sorry Terri that I did that to you” 

So here it is the next phase, I have learned to love myself bald.  I Am Bald and Fabulous.  I don’t give my baldness much thought anymore, it is who I am.  I own it fiercely. Now I am learning to love my body.  And fasting is teaching me that.  When I first started I have to admit I didn’t know much about it other than the obvious, don’t eat for a period of time then eat.  Well I fell down the rabbit hole learning about this “new” lifestyle.  Firstly it's not a “new diet”; it's been around for hundreds of years.  Also it's a lot more than just not eating.  Basically it's about giving your body a time away from constant digestion.  To allow your body to work on other things in your body, like healing.  If your body is busy digesting it can't work on other things as I have learned. The short story:  When we eat insulin goes up, insulin stores fat, as long as insulin is raised you can't burn fat.  Now if you want more on the science there is so much literature out there.  My biggest sources have been Fast, Feast, Repeat by Gin Stephens and The Obesity Code by Dr Jason Fung, as well as many many more, including podcasts.  

Knowing the starting stages of how insulin works in my body, no wonders why my old standby of calories in, calories out.  I could not out workout the calories I put in my body for the long term.  Short term; Yes, but as always the weight would come back with a vengeance.

I started fasting and I quickly lost the weight I put on after getting married.  Ah married life, you get comfortable and let some things go.  Absolutely no regrets, but time to take care of that body that I have to get me through the years.  What I unexpectedly found after the first three months was regrowth!  I was growing hair, something that had not happened in over a decade.  It was coming in fast and was baby fine.  I watched it curiously, unbothered if it stayed or it went.  Thanks to the acceptance I found in myself by this time.  Eventually I shaved it as it was becoming more noticeable and was very patchy.  But this got me down another rabbit hole of researching intermittent fasting.  

I was told many years ago that going gluten free would fix my alopecia.  With the diet mentality that I had already and just coming to accept myself bald; I was unwilling to try this.  The notion is that gluten causes inflammation in the body.  And most autoimmune diseases are a result of an inflammatory response.  And  alopecia Universalis is an autoimmune disease that affects the hair follicles of my body.  I guess I would consider myself lucky that my autoimmune disease has only affected my ability to grow hair and the eczema that I was born with.  Although looking back at the struggles I had with my alopecia, I don’t know that luck is a fair word.  But my rabbit hole digging also revealed that fasting is anti-inflammatory.  By allowing my insulin to lower, and giving my digestion system a much needed break, my body system can go around repairing and healing other areas of my body including reducing inflammation.  So was the hair regrowth a result of this?  Well only time will tell and I am an experiment of one. 

What has happened with the regrowth?  Well it has stopped.  As I reached closer to the set weight point that I was before marriage and moving, my weight stalled and plateaued.  One victory in that plateaued period is that all during the Christmas and New Year celebrations I didn't gain anything! I am currently at the same scale number I was when I was undergoing all those treatments a decade ago.  Those treatments that were adding toxins to my bruised and shame ridden body; to grow hair.

  “I'm sorry Body for doing that to you, I just didn't know better.”

That scale number might be the same but my body is definitely smaller.  Thank you autography.  After all the reading I have done and the more learning I do; I honestly believe that my body is currently undergoing a lot of healing.  And I will give myself the time to heal.  Because I love My Self, and I deserve to heal.  To heal not only my body, but my mind and soul.  I do believe I am heading down the right path and as I always say I am a Fabulous work in progress.


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