Unexpected Weight Gain, Hot Flushes & Early Menopause - Physician Heal Thyself!

Nutritionist heal thyself! When a nutritionist puts on unexpected weight she/he is in trouble! As she is out of a job really. The same if I turned up with a huge cold sore on my face. Or I was a chain smoker and heavy drinker. I suppose the same goes for a policeman who speeds and takes huge amounts of drugs at work. Or a nanny who hates children. The thing is I must walk my talk.

So I don't smoke at all or drink much, rarely take sugar. I don't eat red meat or dairy bar the occasional goats cheese. So what do I do when I suddenly put on a stone and a half but I eat the perfect diet? No point in dieting as my diet is so good! But I am hovering on the BMI - one more pound and I am overweight according to BMI and that's not sudden muscle tone due to muscle pumping iron at the gym.

At first I didn't realise I had put on a stone and half. When I was at the gym I weighed myself one day and thought 'oh dear this machine is broken'. Then my jeans didn't fit me. I thought 'oh dear I must have accidentally gone above 30 degrees and shrunk them'. Even in the photos I looked bigger - but I am so used to being small and petite I thought 'oh dear I'm standing at a funny angle! This went on and on until one day when yet another pair of knickers 'shrunk' the penny dropped. I got out the tape measure and faced the cold light of reality. My ass was getting so much bigger! And why?

So here follows my new journey - physician heal thyself. I have been doing some detective work on myself. Which is hard. Easy to see clearly for one's client and get all blurry when looking at one's own self care. Such a loaded view. But I want to share with you to show you the journey a nutritionist makes with the client. All the little symptoms and the case history adds up to something - clues to the root causes of the health disorder or imbalance or dis ease which is presenting itself.

So why does a woman go through an early menopause at 48? And gain a stone and a half - in fact more like 23 pounds? When her diet is excellent? Lots of vegetables, steamed fish, tofu, tempeh, yoghurt, occasional glass of wine, a coffee here and there. No sugar, no dairy and no bread. Aha say some - proof that a healthy diet doesn't work. Proof that one may as well eat junk food. Or lots of chocolate and chips dripping with cheese. Like the smoker who keeps quoting 'but my granddad smoked himself silly and lived to 102'.

Rather I see this as proof that weight gain is not necessarily about over eating. Many overweight people, in my experience, eat less then the average person on the street. Are also terribly conscious of every bit of food they do eat. So to me this is proof that something else is going on - my root causes are not diet so I need to look further and search for my root causes and solve them . Because if I do nothing I will gain more weight and whatever is happening - be it my thyroid going out of wack or my liver underfunctioning the problem will only get worse - as I go into my 50s and 60s other things will start happening. More weight gain, lower energy, dryer skin, low libido. etc etc

Have any of you had a similar experience? Feel disillusioned because no matter how well you eat you still gain weight? Watch here my unfolding detective work. 


I have by the way lost 5 pounds and 3 inches. Tomorrow follows my case history. As one has to become objective and look at what is going on. And not just physically emotionally too.


Have a happy day :-) Its sunny here this morning where I am 

Parasites - a different perspective on IBS or IBD?

Parasitic invasion is more common then you think. You don't have to travel to foreign climes to fall victim. We can pick them up from food or water here in England also. Not only are parasites a problem but we can also suffer from a bacterial overgrowth or a yeast overgrowth. All different and all needing a different remedy. And there are a minimum of 5 different strains of candida or yeasts! Bacteria and yeasts come to us as an overgrowth when our own healthy bacteria garden has been attacked and so reduced. A bit like the weed killer which was sprayed onto the garden to kill the weeds also attacked our healthy garden and killed the beautiful flowers! Because our colons/guts do house a garden - full of healthy flora and also unhealthy flora. And if our garden isn't balanced, weeded, nurtured and fed it will give us health problems.

Our garden can be harmed by too many antibiotics, high fat and sugary foods, too little fibre, medical and recreational drugs even stress will alter the flora.

All of this can lead to IBS - Irritable Bowel Syndrome or IBD - Inflammatory Bowel Disease. There is a big difference between IBS and IBD and do stay tuned for more on this.

So if you have grumbling IBS for example and the doctor can find nothing wrong or you suffer already from IBD like ulcerative colitis then do consider parasitic infection or a yeast or bacteria overgrowth.

I tested myself for parasites using a lab in the US and discovered I had amoebas and also a particular nasty Blastocystic Hominus (see photo). I do have symptoms so I am clearing the infestation out. Not everyone will have symptoms as if we have a healthy immune system in the gut it will deal with the problem. Often after a period of stress the parasite becomes what they call pathogenic - becomes a health problem. It's then that the symptoms can start.

I also run tests on clients to check for parasites, bacteria and yeast overgrowth. I find infestation common in clients with colitis, allergies, ezcema, asthma, ME, IBS and often with people who suffer from stress. This is because stress dampens down the gut immune army so it becomes weak at killing off parasites.